There’s a good reason why governments continue to commit serious capital to broadband. Getting people and businesses properly connected does far more than just letting you work from where you’d like. It plays an active role in lifting productivity and breathing new life into local economies that have struggled to keep pace.
For this reason, fast Internet is no longer treated as a nice-to-have upgrade but something that’s actually showing up in growth strategies and spending budgets. In fact, it’s sitting alongside roads, railways and everything else that a modern economy runs on.
And the reasoning is fairly simple, once you give it a think. When a town gets a decent connection, small firms in those areas can reach customers they would have otherwise never found. People can take on jobs without having to move away and entire areas start to look more appealing to investors deciding where to put their money.
Using broadband investment as a deliberate tool for economic growth has picked up momentum, so we reached out to industry experts to explain how it’s working and where the real payoff comes from.
Our Experts
- Oliver Moheda: CEO of Total Artist Management
- Billy Rhyne: Land Developer & Merchant Builder at Horseshoe Ridge RV Resort
- Rhys Hanson: Business Development Manager at Rogers Communications
- Jordon Roach-Dunleavy: Founder of GotTheBill
- Sam Jackman: Co-CEO of Shared Access
Oliver Moheda, CEO of Total Artist Management
“Broadband is no longer simply a utility; it’s a core piece of economic infrastructure. Governments that invest in fast, reliable digital connectivity aren’t just improving internet speeds – they’re creating the conditions for businesses to innovate, compete internationally and create jobs.
In the creative industries, broadband has transformed how we discover talent, collaborate across borders, market artists and reach global audiences. A small business with reliable high-speed internet can now operate on a level that was once only possible for much larger organisations.
Investment in digital infrastructure also helps attract entrepreneurs, supports remote working, enables AI-powered technologies and gives rural communities access to opportunities that were previously limited by geography. As more industries embrace cloud computing, automation and digital services, broadband becomes as essential to economic growth as transport networks or energy infrastructure.
The countries that continue investing in next-generation broadband will be better positioned to attract investment, increase productivity and support innovation. Digital connectivity should be viewed as a long-term economic strategy rather than simply a technology policy, because almost every modern business now depends on it.”
Billy Rhyne, Land Developer & Merchant Builder at Horseshoe Ridge RV Resort
“I run an RV and cabin resort in Wimberley, out in the Texas Hill Country. For years a guest stayed a weekend and left. Then we ran hardwired internet to every site. Now? Remote workers and snowbirds book a month, because they can take a Tuesday sales call from the pool deck and it holds. Weekend traffic turned into month-long stays. And a month-long guest spends in town all week. The diner on the square. The wineries out on 12. The market the first Saturday.
Here’s what governments keep missing. A small county doesn’t grow by landing one big factory. It grows when a few hundred people can earn a city paycheck from a small town and spend it right here. Broadband is what makes that math work. Skip it, and you’re fighting over tourists on price. Build it, and you’re pulling in residents who bring their own income with them. The counties treating fibre like a road instead of a luxury? Those are the ones keeping their kids from moving away.”
Rhys Hanson, Business Development Manager at Rogers Communications
“In 2024, I had the opportunity to be a part of the team that worked on our network expansion project in rural Greenbelt areas of Ontario. Through my time on this project I learned that the investment into board band connectivity directly impacts rural communities as it stimulates the economy in various factors.
For example, small business owners in these communities benefit on the ability to grow an online presence, remote workers from major urban city centres can now relocate to much more affordable communities and students now have internet they can rely on providing them a better access to education.
The challenge is that although on paper it seems like the right move to improve connectivity in rural areas without adequate government funding private companies are less likely to invest in doing so as there isn’t an immediate return on investment. Hence the importance of government subsidy for these types of programs.
Another challenge in the space is timing, Government bodies usually have a slower timeline to execute a program in comparison to for-profit organisations.”
Jordon Roach-Dunleavy, Founder of GotTheBill
“Governments are right to treat broadband as growth infrastructure, but the growth doesn’t happen when the fibre passes a property. It happens when a household or a small business actually signs up, and that’s a question of price, trust and simplicity, not civil engineering.
The UK and Australia make a fascinating comparison because they bet on opposite models. Australia built the NBN as government-owned infrastructure and got near-universal access, but adoption and affordability became the battleground. The UK went market-led, which produced fierce infrastructure competition in cities while rural areas needed public subsidy to stack up commercially. Each model solved a different half of the same problem.
The lesson for policymakers is that the economic return lives in the last commercial mile: retail competition, switching ease and transparent pricing. A connection nobody can afford, or nobody trusts enough to switch to, generates no growth at all. The countries that win the next five years won’t be the ones with the most fibre in the ground, but the ones where take-up is the cheapest, simplest decision a household or small firm makes all year.”
Sam Jackman, Co-CEO of Shared Access
“Governments should view broadband investment as economic policy, not simply telecoms policy. Digital infrastructure raises productivity, broadens access to jobs and services and makes places more attractive to businesses and investors. But this raises a question about public funding.
Is it best spent supporting multiple fibre providers to dig up the same street, or could a mix of technologies serve communities better? Combining fibre rollout with investment in mobile infrastructure could extend coverage, improve resilience and give consumers greater choice. Much activity takes place inside offices, transport hubs, retail centres and public buildings. Yet construction materials can obstruct mobile signals. A building can sit in a well-connected area while the people inside struggle to make a call or access data.
If governments want connectivity investment to deliver its economic return, policy must connect the whole journey: fibre, outdoor mobile networks and the infrastructure that carries those services indoors. Connectivity should be planned into developments, regeneration and public procurement from the outset.
The funding model matters too. Shared infrastructure and operational expenditure models can lower barriers, reduce duplication and speed deployment. The real measure of connectivity investment is not infrastructure installed. It’s whether businesses and communities can use it productively.”
