COMMENT | Digital railroad - connecting producers and consumers

COMMENT | My favourite character in the Western film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is neither Butch nor Sundance but Woodcock, whose undying loyalty is to EH Harriman of the Union Pacific Railroad - an enterprise that was repeatedly the target of outlaws of the Wild West.

It turned out that Woodcock knew a good thing when he saw one in Harriman; for at the dawn of the Industrial Age whoever controlled the railroad tracks controlled the highway of commerce - and much of the economic benefit accruing therefrom.

Today, as we enter the Digital Age, the railroad is a web of digital tracks which connect all producers and consumers of goods and services; and the same adage is still true: whoever controls the tracks controls the toll-roads of global trade.

It’s not a mere passing squabble that has the US and China baring fangs at each other over the race to 5G dominance, itself a super expressway which will make the railroad look like a walk in the park by comparison.

What we are witnessing is the beginning of a fierce dogfight over the ownerships of digital networks, upon which people and products will be increasingly interconnected. Just as with the railroad, it is imperative that users are able to reach destinations on the network easily and cost-effectively...