What really makes an eTown? (an alternative view to Google)

With a murmur of general unhappiness about the state of rural broadband, as well as the announcement that the European Commission is cutting budgets for rollouts, Google crowning ‘tech-savvy eTowns’ in the UK seems to be a bit out of sync.

The results were controversial too. Coming in at number 11 of the Internet giant’s top 12 UK eTowns was Newtown in Powys, Mid Wales, which was recently listed as a broadband ‘notspot’. We were even beginning to wonder if Stratford-upon-Avon, which took the number one spot, could have been confused with Stratford (minus the ‘upon-Avon’) in East London as the hub for the first Olympic Games of the digital age.

These awards have not only ‘astounded business leaders in Newtown’ but have sparked our thoughts about what makes a real eTown. To us, an eTown shouldn’t simply be a place where Internet connectivity is increasing and more businesses are getting online. It’s where living and working digitally is easier anywhere and anytime. An eTown is one where simultaneously using, sharing and accessing content and apps on lots of devices at home, on the street or in a local cafe is normal.

Interestingly, Google did crown a real eTown last year: Berlin.

So why is Berlin a real eTown? Quite simply because woven into its townscape is a digital infrastructure second to none.

This is exemplified with how the city hosts the Berlin International Film Festival, aka ‘Berlinale’ for those of German mother tongue. This event is touted as the largest public film festival in the world with over 300,000 ticket sales and a showcase of over 400 films across the city. Alongside public viewing, around 1,500 international buyers can expect to view more than 700 films at the European Film Market (EFM) which runs alongside the festival, taking total screenings to a whopping 2,400.

With the recent move to digital content – a significant milestone for cinema – Berlin has been further tested to evolve its technology infrastructure to cater for this event. To address this evolution, high speed and robust networks (from Colt!) were leveraged to broadcast digital content throughout the city. These networks were connected to servers installed in each of the cinema halls to enable content to be transferred from servers located at the film office to each individual cinema, ready for projection... to audiences’ delight.

The scale of this event and the changing face of broadcast technologies alone tests digital infrastructure in the city, on a yearly basis.

Having strong eTowns with dedicated metro networks has a ripple effect. Frankfurt was one of our first connected cities in Germany - in February we joined the Digital Hub association, confirming we support their vision to shape “FrankfurtRheinMain” into one of the most important digital hubs in Europe - but we are developing eTown connectivity well beyond the big German cities. We announced yesterday that we have added seven more German cities to our existing high-capacity network: Kiel, Schwerin, Magdeburg, Erfurt, Jena, Saarbrücken and Bamberg.

And it gets even better when eTown is linked to eTown within a country. Take the new network route that connects Frankfurt via a new point of presence (POP) in Saarbrücken. A further 1,200 kilometres of connected fibre optic cable permits organisations in the region to take advantage of better connectivity to local and European markets. All of these innovative changes to the German networking landscape demonstrate its leadership over other ‘eTowns’ and tech cities in Europe.

Let’s be honest they often don’t even have broadband connections to speak of.

So that’s my reality check on what an eTown should really mean. It’s about the network economy, stupid – to paraphrase a famous Clinton phrase. Often people see broadband as a commodity but according to a recent report by Gartner entitled Critical Capabilities for Pan-European Network Services, “the Pan-European network service market has a growing emphasis on sophisticated managed services and on extending geographic coverage via hybrid network technologies. Enterprise IT and network leaders can improve service outcomes and pricing by competitively procuring these services.”