Build it and they might come

An obscure French economist from the eighteenth century would seem unlikely to pop up at a present-day conference about cutting-edge telecoms. But the rather grizzled image of Jean-Baptiste Say, born in Lyon in 1767, made a hard-to-miss appearance at the FTTH Council Europe Conference being held in Paris today.

 

Say hit the big presentation screen at the Palais de Congrès courtesy of Brett Swanson, the senior director of a thinktank called the Centre for Global Innovation. During his keynote speech this morning, and in front of a giant projection of Say’s portrait, Swanson reckoned the Frenchman would have been a major advocate of the investments in high-speed fibre networks that are the topic of this trade show. Known in some circles for his belief that ‘supply creates demand’, Say thought producers and entrepreneurs were the key drivers of any economy and far better at anticipating the needs of a society than the consumers within it.

 

The ‘build it and they will come’ philosophy has a encouraging ring to it, but delegates at this conference probably didn’t need reminding. Many of them are already deploying fibre networks without any firm evidence that a mass market either wants or needs more bandwidth.

 

In some cases, though, early indications are not promising. France Telecom says just 5–10% of customers in areas now served by fibre have immediately taken up the new offer. One wonders what Say would make of that.