Fibre in our daily diet

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(Don't nick the graphic - ask, as it's mine - LA*).

Not for nothing have I shown up at suit-only events wearing a tshirt (and freezing for the cause) saying "Rural broadband contains nuts and fibre" - after all, it's a key message. And you can buy a shirt too, or a mug. But I'm not a mug and c'mon Innocent, BITC, Nabisco, Kellogg etc, where are you?

This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com



Over the years (10+ now for fibre), I have spoken to every single company that has a green flash on its cereal boxes, makes fibre rich products, or tries to sell any food item on the basis of its fibre content. A few have even been ready to sponsor my conferences (like The Endgame in 2004 for new home developers looking to do FTTH - a little ahead of its time, I will now admit 7 years later, but I was right about new build and true broadband becoming Govt policy, even back then**).

But, where are you now? Why are you not leaping on to community fibre projects as the 'soap powder sponsors'? (Those sponsors who are not directly related to the product or cause, but who can see how massive the target audience is they can reach).

BT are a huge soap powder sponsor. The vast majority of BT's sponsorships (is there a list?) have nowt to do with telecoms or phones or broadband etc.

It is time for the companies who make food and fibre (wool, textiles etc) products to realise that getting in front of those who SHOP ONLINE over a decent broadband connection (not one of these poxy copper thingies I am on) will seriously appreciate fibre.

I'm willing to act as the agent to put you in touch with projects and communities needing to support fibre projects.....oh look, another idea I just gave away for free. oops. Run with it someone. Go and sit in Innocent Towers until they understand that no-one can actually watch the great links in the newsletter without a decent connection (Row, Shilpee etc should get it but they may need to look back to 2008 for the mails!).

Whoever picks this idea up, which has been floating around in my head since before we did the SABC Aviemore event (part of the Access to Broadband Campaign which laid the majority of the foundation stones for what has happened post-CUT), it won't hurt you to make a donation to Cyberbarn and buy some shares in B4RN. Instead of just constantly ripping off the good people doing all the hard work to make the way easy for you. (5-10 years later than the action was required, but we appreciate you turning up finally!)

Like I said, I'll stop ranting soon......;)

* It's hard not to take a dim view of people stealing my ideas (I put more than enough out there for free as it is) and then not even buying me a curry (Simon) or making a contribution to the twins' Paypal account. One good 'friend' has screwed me for over £50k hard cash, another 'friend' has taken me for a mug and is now being aggressive (most unQuakerly) with myself and rural communities in an attempt to line his (women don't work like this) pockets. Surely this world can't be full of thieves or money grabbing nasties? In this instance, it's just a food group, cereal packet and concept. ASK. Or donate.

** Long story, blame the Destruction of Trade and Industry for getting jittery about my actions.

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The True Cost of Britain's Copper Infrastructure III

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It's all very well pointing out the problems. Doing so makes us all just question marks. But what is the solution?

This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com



In a simplistic world, (the one I live in where anything is possible) but taking into account that there are companies with internal economies now larger than most EU countries who have more than just a vested interest, I propose the following:

1) Strip out the copper.

Use prisoners, unemployed, the digitally furious willing to give endless time and money to solve the problems of impoverished broadband, the NEETs, the retired, and all those in this country who need and want to be part of a Big Society that does anything it can to get this country back on track.

2) Map the duct locations

Using GIS, ensure that every single one of the now empty ducts available for re-use for fibre is mapped. This lack of accurate mapping and current knowledge about what is in the ducts and where has caused untold problems for many. Let's get it right this time.

3) Sell the copper

Sell, locally to limit copper miles, not just to scrap merchants, but to artisans and businesses in this country who already use copper in their manufacturing processes, or can come up with new products that do. Thereby preventing and reducing the need to import, particularly whilst the pound is weak, whilst also helping to rejuvenate the manufacturing industry we so badly need for an economic turn-around. There is a huge range of products that can be made from copper. It will also give us the chance to innovate, be ingenious, and spot gaps in the market (for which the British were once renowned), using this natural resource that belongs to Britain.

4) Create a Trust Fund or similar

This copper, whether in the railways, telecommunications or utility industries, was on the whole probably mostly paid for by the public purse. Considering the reasons for removing it - public safety, reduction of risk to life, benefits to the nation as a whole - there should be little to no argument from any corner about putting it into a Trust Fund (or similar) to create a resource that is open to all to benefit from in the future - a fibre network.

5) Put in the right people.

Those in charge of the Trust Fund should be experienced in managing assets for the public good and for long-term profitable aims. Not experienced in box ticking, or telecoms, or manufacturing, or lining their own pockets, but in ensuring that money of the hard cash variety is spent where it can achieve maximum value for the people of this country. The money should in no way be permitted near any body which has not got a scrupulous record, so that's banks/financial institutions, public sector/government departments, etc OUT of the running.

The size of the potential pot will undoubtedly attract unscrupulous individuals and companies who spy a fat wage in return for administration. These type of people should be weeded out from any involvement with the Trust Fund administration, aggressively and ruthlessly. (They seem pretty easy to spot IMHO).

The 'Secretariat' (for want of a better word) will be publicly accountable, have simplistic and achievable aims, and spend as much money as possible a) locally b) regionally and c) nationally. It is time we stopped giving away our resources (financial and otherwise) to other nations when we are in such a dire state ourselves. If we need to invest some money to create fibre manufacturing plant again, and associated jobs and wealth, then that will be done. We've got enough sand......

6) Buy fibre.

Sufficient to replace that damned copper once and for all. If only half of the copper in the ground is replaceable, its resale value is still at least twice what is required by the latest estimates to do FTTH across the whole country. Yes, flooding the market with second hand copper may reduce the price, but that is the point of encouraging new markets to add value to the raw material by processing it into something new and exciting. The demand for the 'glut' of copper by doing so should counter any drop in price, and will actually make any new products far more competitive if the wholesale price of the raw material does drop.

7) Look at the whole thing holistically.

As these three posts have endeavoured to show, the FTTH issue is not related to any single sector. It is not just about telecoms, nor transport, nor the energy industry. Nor the emergency services and disruption thereof, nor the cost to the NHS and associated services when someone fries themself thieving power cables (which I understand may be irreplaceable with fibre). It is not purely about expense to the public, private or family purse, or the savings we can all enjoy if we get this right. And it is certainly not about the ROI for a single sector in doing FTTH as it affects all of us.

Whilst a research company, aided by its largest clients from the telecoms sector, can pluck a figure out of the air and claim it is going to cost £x to do ubiquitous FTTH, it is not beyond the wit of man (or this woman) to see the solution. Especially if we look at the problem from multiple angles and the eyes of the beneficiaries, and not just through the lens of a single sector, fighting to protect its olde worlde profits in a brave new and very different 2.0 world.

As I said, I live in a simple world. One where everyone stands to win. That's where FiWi Pie came from - a slice of the fibre-wireless pie for everyone.






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AFL Telecommunications have given me the best birthday present ever!

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Read more! Who wants flowers?! I'd like to send a huge public thank you to all the team at AFL Telecommunications......

This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com



AFL have sent me 1 mile of fibre as a fab gift, in time for my birthday. This means that the Cyberbarn project (which received funding as a UK Online Outreach Centre yesterday) will be sitting on top of a very fat, future-proofed fibre connection back to the village.

I cannot thank AFL enough for their support for this project, and others in the past. AFL's involvement in rural FTTH shows exactly how community and industry partnerships can work to move Digital Britain forwards. So, to Barry, Graham, Jo, Jane and Steve, a massive thank you.

More on the Cyberbarn project at the Colloquium and there will be regular progress reports here as we turn a farm building into a unique Fibre Training Centre, cybercafe, ONline Centre and, more than likely, my second home!

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Especially for Somerset - Google tests uber super dooper fibre

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Read more! Google have now installed part of their fibre network at Stanford, and the rollout continues apace.

This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com



Dear Somerset,

Perhaps you would care to ask some of those on Stanford Campus what on earth they might need such connectivity for and why on earth a company (who should know better according to your arguments) such as Google would pay for it?!

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BT: 100meg symmetrical..It's just not (their) cricket....

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If it wasn't so sad, it'd be funny. Community network put in a 100Meg symmetrical backhaul, announce its usage for a livestream of a village cricket match....BT spam the village with A3 posters....
This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com



Bear in mind, this is a 7 year story so we'll keep it to the last month alone.

@johnpopham, talking to @danslee, realised that there is a need to bring people into community events needing tech. The event in question became Wray's Easter weekend cricket match, livestreamed over the Wray network. Wray has a symmetrical broadband connection, provided by Lancaster Uni. Most communities, unless they have a Digital Village Pump, can only dream of this type of community activity because the major supplier of backhaul hate the idea you could be a content provider....

It hit Twitter. As an idea. But Twitter ideas become real in moments. Even @stephenfry tweeted it. (Just like @yokoono did with Quakebook - Buy it now, please).

BT have just hit Wray with an A3 poster dissing wireless connections.

Coincidence?




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Why we needed far smarter meters and thinkers

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Smartgrids and smart meters are gonna be buzzwords this year, (finally - thanks Chattanooga for JFDI) as the competition hots up to reach consumers and achieve EU Policy requirements for energy - which as I recall were supposed to be satisfied by 2008. But, we are miles out with our thinking. Or some are.

This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com


Chattanooga has shown the way by combining smart grids plus gigabit FTTH. We ignore such examples at our peril, I believe.

Imagine that you had a chance to install "a device" in every single premises in the country. And, just like the meters before them for electricity, this device will be in situ for years. (Mine is, I think, made of Bakelite or similar, and has Norweb on it so it could have been there since 1948! I know it hasn't - I can read too, folks. But it could have been.....)

The FT is reporting today about the partnerships for smartmeters that are springing up. The only mention of anything even vaguely 'smart' is the addition of GPRS. Where are the joined up thinkers in the electricity and utility industries these days???

Put in a smart meter, as in those I heard about in Denmark in 2004/5, that included a wireless antenna. Not so the meter reader can access the meter, but so it creates a wireless mesh network.

The Danish examples had wifi and Bluetooth (well, they had to have Bluetooth in Denmark - he was a Danish king), but why not add options for GSM, 4G, LTE, wimax and a femto cell for seriously joined up thinking?

[Who cares which wireless techs it actually includes, but stick a card slot in the side so it can be updated for all the new techs if you need forward compatability. Or upgrade, shock horror, over the network you have created. Remote upgrades are hardly new, especially in the mobile/wireless industry.]

The point is, we are missing a very serious trick. My house is, unsurprisingly, right next to my neighbours. On both sides. (Odd that!) It is within less than a mile of nearly every other house in the village. It is within 2 miles or so of pretty much every property in the Parish.

A tiny, tiny, tiny, minority of homes and businesses cannot see a single other property around them. Ditto those on grid electricity and water (Oooh look, I've just reduced the Final Third to a Final 0.001% who cannot be served directly from the SmartGrid - sorry, BT).

To put it in plain English: here is THE chance to build a wireless cloud (of multiple flavours, if we chose) which can then be fed by fibre. As they planned, and presumably built, in Denmark (I cannot find a link to the town where this happened, and would appreciate my lovely readers help in doing so....My Danish extends to bluetooth and forkbeard!) - a big fibre ring round town, smart meters in every house creating the RF wireless mesh for INTERNET connectivity.

Now, *that* is a smartgrid. Not just serving the utilities, but also the telcos, mobile operators (who are also telcos, lest we forget), the consumers, the environment, convergence, mobility, data usage etc etc etc.

So, where are the links to the consultation on the official specs of what smart meters should look like in the UK?

Because I think we should all be preventing a serious fup (no, not fair usage policy!) which will affect consumers to the tune of a fair few hundred quid each, slow down smart grid development in the UK, and hinder us yet further by permitting telcos to play in this space at their own speed.

Can we afford, once again, to not exercise the 'smartness' and innovation that used to exemplify British thinking? If I can come up with this in the middle of nowhere in Cumbria, surely some overpaid exec in the midst of things in the utility industry and government can see the potential of joining up a few dots?

Actually, whilst we are on the subject, why not hold on the BDUK money until we can have an innovative pilot that really does join the dots by including smart grids?

(Send in the trolls......)



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The energy and thinking behind the paradigm shift

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Read more! Graham Small of AFL Fujikura has contributed after he 'let slip' that AFL Fujikura were involved in the Chattanooga smart grid.

This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com



Unless you have been off-planet, you will know by now that Chattanooga in Tennessee launched a 1Gbps network on 13th Sept to residents and businesses. It has been a collaboration between the electricity company, the community and a global fibre company. It shines the light for every other country, region and community to follow.

Graham writes:

When the utility companies get together with high tech fibre companies then real paradigm shifts can occur….

We have a huge communications and utilities infrastructure in the UK that reaches just about everyone in our nation. Every utility we have provides some means of delivering an optical fibre into someone’s home. Some are tried and tested – a physical drop into a customers premises via duct or aerial means, via the water system (mains or waste) or via the mains gas (optical fibres are inert, non-radiating or likely to produce sparks). The associated trunk infrastructure provides the ideal highway for core and backhaul if we have the wit but to utilize it. BT isn’t the network – there are alternatives!

Once every home has an optical fibre then the possibilities are endless. From the utilities perspective this is an ideal medium for “smart metering” and a huge cost saving in sending a ‘man in a van’ to every household to check the gas, electricity or water meter. We already have bundling of gas, electricity and telephony through utility providers so why not the fourth utility? Indeed, do we even need computers to enable the internet? Cloud computing suggests that we don’t necessarily need our clunky old PC to do everything we want to do “on line”; how about “Smart TV” that provides a fully integrated communications platform offering Telepresence and truly Unified Communications?

This is the dawn of the age of the Stupid Network. Fibre is the conduit that can provide the catalyst for a new age. Think Caxton’s printing press through to the age of manned space flight. We are at the start of another exponential growth spurt breaking down barriers between people, communities and countries; between the voters and their Governments; between health professionals and their patients; between entertainers and the entertained.

OK people, let’s get smart - the view that connecting people to the internet is all about Facebook and Foxy Bingo is dead wrong. It is the catalyst for social evolution and a template for building an Arthur C Clarkian utopia. The industrial revolution was a catalyst for major social change, fuelling the brawn drain from rural communities to the “dark satanic mills”. The communications revolution will fuel a mass migration back, mitigating the need for mass conurbations and providing opportunity for our talented youth to develop 21st century businesses based on 21st century technology.

It takes a BIG Government to enable a truly BIG Society if it can appreciate the BIG picture!



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#fibrefriday

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(Image copyright Lindsey Annison)
To try and bring together all those in the fibre sphere globally, today we started #fibrefriday on Twitter.

So, if you are involved in FTTH, anywhere in the world, add yourself to the list on Twitter by adding #fibrefriday to your Tweet. Then we can all share experiences, news, solve problems, and those of you with FTTH can brag about what you can do now that the rest of us haven't even heard of yet!

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Fibre bandwidth coming to a mast near you?

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Read more! Some years ago at an event at DTI about community networks, there was an out-of-session discussion between O2, OpenReach and myself about sharing excess bandwidth from mobile masts for backhaul to rural and remote community networks.

The fact that there might even be spare capacity, or that many masts are fed by fibre seemed to come as a surprise to the O2 rep. Now, it seems that in the light of a huge ramp up in consumption of mobile bandwidth (smartphones, dongles, mobile advertising etc), over the Pond there are moves afoot to increasingly feed mobile masts with fibre.

It is likely that similar is happening or will happen soon here. The need to broker that bandwidth between the different occupiers of a mast should surely be a job for COTS? It makes sense to run one fat pipe to each mast to provide for the aggregated bandwidth requirements of each operator. However, it also adds an ideal opportunity to consider the bandwidth needs of others in the locale of that mast and to cater for that as well, thereby reducing the costs for all involved.

Whilst it would clearly trespass on the plans of mobile operators to provide broadband via dongle etc to those in the vicinity, and would require (finally) deals to be struck about the currently ludicrous costs of siting equipment on and access to masts, it could bring next generation broadband much closer to many, many people in the UK. Whether delivered by wireless (eg Wimax etc) or as a closer break out point for fibre backhaul to a community, the opportunities would seem too good to ignore from this approach.

Mobile broadband, as we have said before, has its place. But NOT as the primary mechanism for delivering next generation access. This can be delivered far more efficiently and effectively by bringing fibre as close as possible to the punters and communities, and then using wireless to cover the first mile or inch.

This is FiWi, a term we have been banging on about for ages and are still waiting to see adopted by the masses!

There is also a "FiWi Pie" side of it too i.e. there are potentially win-wins all round with this approach: Those flogging fibre backhaul stand to see more capacity required at each mast thereby generating more revenue, the mobile operators get cheaper backhaul for all their offerings, the mast owners get a cut from additional equipment sited on masts, and communities get affordable backhaul that is not being priced per inch.

Or, we can keep trying to rip each other off and go nowhere fast. I prefer the FiWi Pie approach!

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It is time for the truth (and spades) to out

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Read more! BT have announced that re-use of existing ducts, poles and masts means that the cost to FTTH is substantially less than they previously thought. Has this really just dawned on them? What have the guys at Martlesham been doing since Peter left if it didn't even occur to them that existing ducts could have fibre fed through them?!

There needs to be a major press release given to idle journalists announcing that the figure commonly used (from the Analysys Mason report) as the cost to FTTH this whole country has just been officially slashed. It needs to be rammed home to MPs too, as well as RDAs, telcos, citizens and so on.

For far too long, many of us have been saying the figure is wrong, and that it is being used by the telcos as an excuse (the BIG LIE) to prevent work going ahead to get this country on track with fibre. It has been used to mislead government, as well as writers of reports such as the Digital Britain report, who have made false assumptions based purely on commercial "interests".

The economics of deploying fibre (with that £28Bn figure at the core of the argument) have been commonly cited as the reason why this country is lagging behind. "Too big a risk" "Wrong financial climate" "No return on investment" etc are all excuses we hear punted out, time after time.

However, there is now substantial evidence that not only are the costs of deployment far lower than has been published, the maintenance, running and environmental costs of FTTH are far lower than for other technologies such as ADSL. Even more than that though is the hard and irrefutable evidence of the social and economic impact that FTTH offers any nation.

Even if FTTH were to cost £28Bn, which we all now know it won't because BT have openly admitted their 'closer to actuality' costs, then the benefits to the citizens and businesses, to government services, to health, education and so on are undeniable. As are the cost savings for these public services.

In a country struggling to get back to a position of world class business and improve citizens' social and economic well being, we need to work together AS A NATION, to get FTTH rolled out as fast as possible. There is no other single issue or spend which would galvanise this nation, economically and socially, as FTTH will.

BT should be forced to work in partnership with local communities, ISPs, RDAs, businesses and citizens so the UK can roll out a world class FTTH infrastructure nationwide. BT should not be permitted to build 'open networks' where there is limited regulation over how much is charged for access to those networks. We need open networks which are open to ALL, be that a community ISP/CIC or the likes of Virgin et al.

Where BT and other telcos fear to tread eg in rural areas, the first mile needs to be opened up now to those who are prepared to connect the digitally disconnected with FTTH. The digitally reluctant cannot be persuaded to come online until they see that the infrastructure DELIVERS. (Right now, as we saw this weekend with the Ukraine footie match, it isn't designed to)

NextGenUs pushes "Together we are the network" and the truth is that we all need to work together, co-operatively, to get the infrastructure in place and FAST. That has to start in rural areas to revitalise and regenerate the rural economy before that goes entirely and irrecoverably down the tubes.

Stuff getting the 50p levy through parliament before the election. Put through a First Mile Act and open up the ducts to all of us, who undoubtedly can do it cheaper and far sooner than BT. That would see some very serious activity from the JFDI camp at minimum cost to the country. BT would benefit as much of the core network over which data will be transported belongs to BT. New, community-led ISPs would come into being who would be feeding profits back into their local communities. Existing ISPs could offer competitive products. There is a slice of the FiWi Pie for everyone.

This country needs to dig into its coffers, and then start digging in fibre. Not in 2017 and beyond, nor to aim for 2Mbps by 2012, but to get seriously fat pipes to every home in the UK as fast as we possibly can.


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Rateable Value

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Read more! Always one that has bothered me this for a truly competitive market in the UK - property rating on fibre.

Looks like The Grauniad has picked up an interesting case study from Sohonet. We all know that in Korea the property rating on fibre was binned at the outset of their programme to get FTTH and FTTC across the country, but I have been endeavouring to find out what has been done in other countries about property rating on fibre, not only now with FTTH more needed, but also in the past eg the 80s.

Anyone got any details of property rating on fibre anywhere else in the world please to share?
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Japan again

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Read more! It really is more than time to read it and weep. It is time for many of the informed consultants, ex-telco workers, whistle blowers, and informed grassroots folk to really bust some of the telco myths about costs of FTTH. If the Japanese telcos can provide 100Mbps symmetrical FTTH for £30/month, then why can't we?

We know opex costs for FTTH are way lower than for ADSL, for starters. We know that the ROI on FTTH infrastructure investment is down to less than a decade (where telco returns used to be 15-20 years), we know that the cost of data is now approaching zero, we know that once FTTH is enabled, customers flock to it out of choice over ADSL, we know that energy bills etc are substantially reduced.

So, what is going on?? Why are the telcos being allowed to hold a nation such as the UK over a barrel with their dithering and, one could almost consider saying, "Lies, damned lies and statistics".

And it isn't just the telcos. There was a consensual holding of breath when DBERR spoke at the BSG conference about there being no evidence of need yet for British business and consumers. Did we really hear right? Are the DTI really saying that to such an informed audience? The breath-holding continued with Antony Walker's sop to the telcos about not doing it yet, but doing it right.

It is time for many flowers to bloom. There won't be one correct solution. There won't be one national network. There may well be new technologies in a few years which surpass what the early adopters put in. But as with all techie developments, when they first come out, there will inevitably be some issues, standards to develop, and higher costs to deploy. So, the early adopters have a chance to start educating the market, creating that 'desire' for something better, encouraging competition in the market place, innovating.

And those early adopters will undoubtedly show many of the large companies how it is to be done. With the current global financial dilemma, it will be those fleet of foot, able to blag and JV, think out of the box, and operate on a tight budget who will begin to install networks where the telcos are unable to tread because they are slow moving behemoths.

And because, one suspects, the telcos have spent so long spinning everyone a line about FTTH, in order to sweat the copper asset and protect their shareholders' interests, that they are starting to believe their own myths.


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Jealous? We should be

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Read more! Oh heck, this could ruin your weekend! NTT offers a daily cap of 30GB upload. Yes, you read that right, upload.

OK, so the news is several months old - which actually makes it worse for us UK users, but hell, that's a terabyte a month of data upload.

But then I guess if you have dished 100Mbps fibre pipes to your users, and bandwidth costs are approaching zero globally, it isn't very much at all.

It really is so tempting to relocate. I mean, let's be real: I could fly to Japan, upload 100 gig of files from a cybercafe, and be back before they uploaded here. How far behind are we falling??


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