The Unbalanced Balance Sheet

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FTTH is TOO expensive....so say the telcos. Communities can debate this as much as we wish, but until here in the UK we prove the telcos wrong...we are wasting our time postulating about the FTTH lies/unrealistic thinking coming from industry. However....
This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com



The hard evidence concerning what happens across the entire fiscal picture once FTTH/P is deployed is no longer a finger in the air exercise.

Anyone who thinks FTTH is about what the telcos get back as ROI, (return from the investment) has missed the reality of what true broadband connectivity means.

Does your Council think that spending the BDUK money is about cutting costs for IT infrastructure? Is your Council looking at cutting a known cost for IT/backhaul through the BDUK process? Has your Council drawn up a balance sheet showing the cost/benefit of installing next generation broadband for EVERY SINGLE DEPARTMENT and CONSTITUENT?

Has any single body been put in charge of looking at the cost savings across the entire County (Council, SME, citizens, education and health, for starters) to judge the value of investment?

Is there a balance sheet that shows where savings over 5-10 years ACROSS THE BOARD are likely to occur by installing a forward and joined up thinking solution for next generation access?

Has that been compared to FTTC or BET or satellite?

NO? Oh, you surprise me.

Name me one company involved in NGA - incumbent, new entrant, public/private partnership, community org - who has actually thought this through to show why FTTH/P is the way forward and why it suits every single player....

THAT is FiWiPie. Joined up thinking, win/win for everyone, nothing at all to do with technology. As the person who in 2004 came up with FiWiPie with Adam Burns, long before 99% of the current people who claim to have anything to do with FiWi, FTTH, Community solutions etc had any involvement, I ask you all to do the maths, accounts, economics, community engagement etc.

New entrants can use the terms such as FiWi as much as they wish, but the reality is if you don't even grasp the basics of where this thinking came from, you are always going to be pretending to be au fait with the core thinking. And making up the solutions.

Does YOUR solution actually solve any problems by addressing the issues? Do you comprehend the issues? Do you have a full handle on the balance sheets for the council whose problems you are trying to solve? Do you have hard core evidence about the business problems faced in the area you are intending to cover? Do you have figures for the telecom costs paid for by every single business in that community? Have you spoken to over 50% of the citizens in the community you are attempting to cover to understand the issues faced?

Or are you just making it up as you go along and pretending YOU KNOW BEST?

Present evidence to my council, or any other. Stop inventing facts and figures. Stop pretending you have a solution, especially where unproven. Challenge the Councils with hard facts from dedicated research. Build demos by investing your own money not taxing rural people to fund unproven and dubious technologies.

STOP treating rural people as idiots. Not one of you has yet put in place a decent rural demo. Until you do, do not expect any of us to believe your claims. We don't believe the Councils etc, either, but at least we know they have no idea what they are trying to do.