Pensions meet broadband - mutual benefits

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Just been reading Francis Maude's statements on procurement, IT, government etc which led to the discovery of the launch of the Mutuals Information Service by the Cabinet Office yesterday. In the middle of the CW article is a reference to MyCSP - My Civil Service Pension (lucky buggers even getting a pension). MyCSP is a mutual handling, obviously, pensions so let's join the dots to broadband....

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



Now, as with all things in #ThatLondon Borough of Westminster, it appears one hand doesn't know what the other is doing. But, we're used to that....

The Cabinet Office is pushing hard for the involvement of SMEs in IT procurement. Sadly, this message didn't appear to make it down the road to BDUK, who specifically excluded SMEs of any size (in fact, most companies) in the procurement. But, to give them their due, are now rapidly trying to make up for lost ground by chucking £20M at the problem and taking it to the extreme by expecting communities to become social ventureprises and expecting parishes etc to move into a world dealing with the sharks that are telcos and the throwing knives that are gap-funding grants.

We have already begun to investigate #RCBF through this blog, and it seems from today's postbag and retweets that we are not alone in our concerns.

Anyhow, onto the positive. In that article, we find reference to MyCSP which is a mutual set up and owned by three parties - the staff (read: community), the government, and a private sector company. It manages 15 million pensions, which is not far different from the 20 million households in UK of which approx 70% at present want a decent broadband connection. The government plans to roll out more of such mutual and innovative structures so here is a little suggestion.

Read this quote from Francis Maude and let's replace the word 'employees'.....

Too often there’s been a binary choice between the Government providing a service itself, or outsourcing it to the private sector. These choices have historically been driven by a belief that services have to be controlled centrally – with a one size fits all approach that has left little room for innovation.

“We are looking for more innovative ways to structure services. We know that COMMUNITIES [employees] who have a stake in their business, or take ownership of it completely, have more power and motivation to improve the service they run. They can also benefit from partnerships with private or voluntary sector organisations which can bring in capital and expertise.

“For the private sector, which can no longer expect the generous margins of the past, tapping the talent of COMMUNITIES [frontline staff] to improve efficiency will be a priority. The state too can keep a stake so that taxpayers benefit from the rising value of an improved service...."

Each of the five #RCBF models could be run in this mutually beneficial way. And should be. So should all broadband projects. It is time for every Council, civil servant, company, community and consumer to endeavour to grasp new ways of working. The old ones clearly did not and do not benefit all, whereas a mutual can. Especially when it is a mutual with stakeholders from all parties represented on the Board, as Directors etc, not a Smoke & Mirrors Mutual.

This approach would put paid to all the greed currently rife in broadband, and which is about to explode yet further as consultants, telecom laywers, private companies etc seek to slaughter the cash cow that this tranche of broadband monies will end up supporting (rather than actual delivery) if we are not careful.

It's not just about money though. (Although you'd think it was all about money the way some people unceasingly mouth off about it). What it would be nice to see is some goodwill, collaboration and co-operation for the common good and mutual benefit. Especially at this time of year.

For more info on Mutuals, the website was launched yesterday http://mutuals.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/
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What short and selective memories we have (2)

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Read more! If you are late to the party, the intro to this particular post is here

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



Some of you won't remember LS29 and similar community networks who sought to connect communities to broadband when the incumbent was dragging its heels, urban and rural. Or even the trigger level campaigns for ADSL that employed well-meaning volunteers within communities around the country, (Think Infinity - it was exactly the same programme but more aggressive - most exchanges, not a just a "lucky" handful). Those people believed the adverts - everyone would be connected if they just trod enough miles around their Parish/exchange area to 'stimulate demand' with pre-prepared posters on behalf of a private company.

You probably don't recall the fight for the arrival of the LLU unbundlers. They came later in the tale. And their appearance was for a very good reason, but they are, sadly, still in the Betamax category for many consumers. And no-one seeks to help consumers make an informed choice, even today....

I know that the vast majority of the readers of this blog were not at the first BSG conference in Birmingham, (I did not sing my tagline; that rumour is not true!) or present when the Analysys Mason report was launched to huge dispute about that £28Bn figure for FTTH, or at the Amsterdam FTTH conference when the miniscule British contingent were so, so depressed at the oh so apparent lacklustre UK approach to telecoms infrastructure as we heard what other countries were doing.

Many of you may not remember the huge arguments during the trigger level campaign that ADSL was an "interim technology", "unfit for purpose in the 21st century" etc. The utter tosh (sorry, I mean corporate spiel) about how great ADSL would be for this country and how it would reach "nearly everyone" met with substantial resistance, but we didn't/couldn't spend £30+million marketing it to the British public. (£35M ISTR was the ad spend in year 1 alone by BT - Source: Marketing Weekly, on a train, many moons ago).

Back then, some were, and still are, trying to get party lines removed so people could have a phone line each. You think broadband notspots are bad? There are (AFAIK), or definitely were until very recently, still people in this country sharing phone lines on what used to be called 'party lines', so they must wait for the neighbour to get off the phone to make a call. House on fire? Tough. You won't find these people wingeing in online forums - they can't even consider getting online. And when that disconnectivity coincides with no mobile coverage? Well, go figure how this country is ever going to lead anyone in telecoms infrastructure when we allow that to happen.....

I'm quite sure most people don't remember the miraculous trigger level hits that occurred almost overnight when a community network offering an alternative to ADSL went public locally. Nor the fact that there were trigger levels reached that sometimes stretched the imagination for the total number of residents within that exchange area, or when local knowledge denied that that many residents could even access or use a computer to register. The announcements of ADSL exchange enablement which coincided (oh, how coincidental?) with community networks announcing to their residents that they were going live within days or weeks because the local demand was high, especially when there had been zero indication (in some cases, flat denials), that it would be 'economically viable' or that anyone else was willing to chuck a DSLAM in the exchange.

Someone, somewhere, was scanning local papers, which at the time were nowhere near as online as now, to counter any such community or technological 'attacks' on what can only be seen as a land grab. After all, if all you can offer a rural area is something worse than ISDN, do you *really* want a bunch of geeks to appear out of the rural or urban woodwork and set up a network that offers a far better solution, locally run, than you care to offer during THAT DECADE?

Can you spot the similarities yet? Are you mapping community activity to put in FTTH or alternative solutions vs Infinity and amended FTTC announcements? Well, you should be.

The good bit and the lesson that should never be forgotten was when Ed Brown of ADIT helped BT enable the 23 (was it 23? I think so) rural Yorkshire and Humber exchanges that BT claimed weren't viable. Yep, with public money, but, oh, if they prove to be viable after all, guys, you are paying that money back to the public purse. My sources tell me that repayment came to over a £1million.

So, if all these rural areas that we are planning to chuck £830M at turn out to be viable after all............? We should have anywhere up to £830M to play with all over again. N'est-ce pas?????


Some of the networks that consumed the Net from the mid 90s onwards and made it accessible to anyone in their region, on free spectrum that could be set to work on even the most battered PC that had been binned for running Windows 3.1, must have been a bit of a worry, I guess. But not to their users who (mostly) LOVED 'em and supported 'em. And many of whom, seemingly, are on worse connections now, 10 years later, because someone, somewhere has gone to great efforts to make it damned difficult for those altnets to bypass the...sorry, got to say it, incumbent.

I don't say this lightly, but I strongly believe, and am willing to hear otherwise, that there was an ethos of "Take 'em out at the knees" and we are seeing that again. Not for the greater good and well-being of UK Plc, but for a long-term gain that is endeavouring to capture as large a market share for THIS CENTURY as possible for shareholder interest.

And our memories are too bloody short.

Well, most of them are. You, whoever you are, are probably reading this because you are frustrated that the UK is lagging behind Latvia, Estonia, Korea, Sweden, and a whole host of other countries. Damn, where did our Empire go? Are we really Third World, or heading that way, because we can't play in the knowledge economy - we've not got much else to play with industrially. Have we?

Are we really going to forget that we were all promised the light fantastic with ADSL, and thousands and thousands and thousands of this people in this country have nothing, or near as dammit nothing, that you could call 'broadband' by the 1984 definition, let alone 2003 or 2011? Capable of simultaneous transmission and reception of voice, video and data - what the hell happened to that? I look at sending a less than 20MB PDF to the printer today and it's walk away from the computer time - pick a task to fill the time - I drove 10 miles to submit my self-assessment form (do it online? PAH!!!). In 2011. In Great Britain.

If you really believe that giving anyone the money for a future-proofed solution, when they are proposing a solution for the 21st century that reworks a 100+ year old copper telephone network, is right, then I suggest you take a look around the world at the places where for at least 5 YEARS, tiny little rural companies have been able to chuck more than is promkised with FTTC over far longer lengths of copper. Because if a certain massive multinational hasn't worked that one out when they should have been taking the lead, globally, then all I can say is that Peter Cochrane retired too damned early and we need him back in Ipswich to get fibre to the home back on the menu. Fast.

Or else we realise that ADSL is still, all these years later, a short term interim solution, as is anything over copper, and it is time to assess how much not having decent broadband is costing this country. That tax return I submitted today, well, dead sorry HMRC, but once again, you are getting nowt off me as I can't compete with the guys who started up in my sector 5 years and more after me. The competitive advantage that I, and many other companies in the IT industry had from being British, innovative, ingenious etc has now been so substantially eroded, you are now writing us cheques, year on year. Bloody genius. That should force the national economic recovery...not!!

If the Treasury, HMRC, our economists etc are willing to permit private companies to drag hundreds of thousands of small businesses into the gutter, when we should have been leading the world and cashing in, perhaps it is time to reassess exactly who is benefiting from this approach?

And you, oh Councillors etc who are going to make decisions for public purse money this year through the 5 BDUK projects, don't look to Cornwall. Look beyond these shores at what is being done elsewhere. Why are we NOWHERE CLOSE to being on the FTTH Council League tables even with the proposed spend on 'fibre optics' for the next few years being lauded in the press?

Ask yourself if the ASA was wrong to ignore all the complaints that, if you call it a fibre optic connection, it must be precisely that - not coax or any other form of copper. And are you falling for very expensive ad companies working their magic on your minds with convincing messages?

Or do you understand, fully, the implications of the huge savings this country will make - economically, environmentally and socially - if we have a comms infrastructure which is appropriate for this century? Are you going to deny this country that, by choosing, as David Durnford of Small World rightly pointed out yesterday, a non-innovative and oh so last century approach?

“Also the whole point of this Government money for Cumbria is to be innovative and BT’s approach is not innovative – arguably they shouldn’t even be bidding.”

Don't be governed by the pace of today. Make time to learn from history. Much of this very, very recent history is on the Net (accessible within seconds) and all of us owe it to this once great nation to look back, learn, and apply the lessons, so we don't find ourselves in 5, 10 or 20 years time from now in the same sorry state we are in today.

And yes, I accept this is a massive rant, but if in 1 or 2 (or another 15) year's time, when I am sitting on my fibred island, and I see the UK in a similar comms mess to the one it is in today, I would kick myself out of my hammock if I hadn't spoken out when I had the chance. Read more!

UK broadband, ID cards and why I can't sleep

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Read more! “However, we are concerned that the Government’s intention to create state-owned ‘business service companies’ could actually backfire by preventing commercial companies from competing for contracts. It would be better to create a level playing field to encourage competition and efficiency.” CBI, Samknows



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

I knew someone, somewhere must have put it succinctly. The more I have heard this week, the less I have slept. That quote sums it up for me on a specific issue:

Why is the Government trying to create services that the private sector SHOULD be best placed to assess, research, develop and deliver?

Is it suddenly their job? Just because the UK now has more employees in the public sector than the private sector, should we actively encourage that huge disparity and illogicality? My economics skills are pretty basic because it wasn't taught in schools (is it now? - Sadly, I know the answer, it is a resounding State Education "No") but even I can see the lunacy of pursuing this path.

Dear Govt., Your job is to protect and promote the community well-being of your electorate. Please do not force me to write yet another letter about the Destruction of Trade and Industry based in Victoria St, London. You can change your name as often as you wish, but we will see through it. DTI, Berr, BIS - you are all trying to muscle in on the few remaining industries that can attract external investment and encourage internal investment and growth.

You should not be nicking all of our ideas and implementing them, but be fostering them, enabling communication within industry, introducing industry people in a 'social network' capacity, funding trips abroad for industry people who 'Do', not politicians etc on a career path to nowhere. Some of the most recent quangos exhibit all of this hidden entrepreneurial/career-driven desire; it can only go very badly wrong for the country if it continues.

Yours etc

Let me put one issue into two sentences:

1. It is not the government's job to decide what we want and force it upon us, viz personal websites - hide it behind this week's fluff, but it is online ID cards by the back door.

2. It is certainly not your job to spec and procure it, whatever the ELECTORATE choose, and definitely, absolutely, not something you should even consider in-house with your appalling record for IT projects.

If I could draw, the following would be a cartoon. (I am counting on the skills of the 5tth blog audience to render it).

For those who don't know the UK, we don't need to carry ID cards. Yet.

2010: Policeman pulls me up in the street.
Name? Josephiah Judas Smith.
Address? 94 Azure Acacia Avenue. (You get the idea.....)
Seems the privilege of anonymity may be about to removed.....
2012: Policeman pulls you up in the street: URL?


I think it's referendum time..................stuff the election. Can you be trusted any more with the well-being of this country?

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UK leads the digital world - believe nothing today

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Read more! Today, Gordon Brown is going to flog the dead horse which is Britain's leadership of the digital race. Much as I would like to support any party, quango, organisation, telco or anything else about Britain's pole position in the digital economy, we are so far behind that travelling abroad is now embarrassing.

En route to the FTTH Council conference, Lisbon, in transit, I nearly left the airport for a fag. Luckily, the nice Customs officer pointed me to the smoking room which had free wifi. He seemed a tad (x pi add a zero) perplexed that I thought I would have to even leave the airport for such normalities. We had a chat about the UK. I slunk away at the reality of this once great country as other people's honest perceptions in 2010 sunk in.

The smoking thing was one part; the "You don't have wifi everywhere?" was entirely separate.

Once again, today, a news item has landed that leaves me wondering what I am doing fighting this battle here in the UK.

FTTH 1Gbps hits Jaipur . C'mon, let's think this through. I've been all over India. I know how colonial we are about it. I know we think and treat India and its people as a 'developing nation'. So, when Gordon Brown's fab announcements about a webpage for every citizen etc hit the news today, ask yourself two things:

A) How the bloody hell are half the country going to access them with corroded copper and no working internet?
B) Why are most of the countries in the world announcing 1Gbps connections (or at the very least 100Mbps) and we can just about scrape "up to 2Mbps by 2012" as a Universal Service Commitment (not even a legal obligation?)

So, Mr Brown, (and your Tory counterparts) are we really leading the digital economy??? Or are we now so far behind that only the most ignorant who can't actually work out that a mouse should not be used with your toes are left believing you? Your aspirations today will only be real if you have actually taken on board and can counter what is today happening in Jaipur, Latvia, at the top of Everest etc etc etc.

Digital industries that have been in existence in this country for near as dammit 15 years (yes, amazingly,that long and more) are now ready to leave these shores unless you up your game. FAST.

Just because the Labour Digital Strategy was created by a man, who for today will remain nameless, who admitted to me inside No 10 that what he knew about technology you could write on a postage stamp, does not mean that you have to adhere yourself to it.

It is time to work out what this country needs. By my calculations, if you are going for a jolly to the Palace on the 25th to go to the country on the 6th/7th, you'd better get a bloody shift on and start talking to the businesses and citizens of this country like adults and stop assuming we are all morons.


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UK Govt can't see the wood for the trees

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Read more! Just to illustrate this point, take two minutes and watch this video. How many times do the white team pass the ball between each other? When you have the answer, come back here.....


Right, how many times did the white team pass the ball between each other??

Post your answers below.


P.S. Please don't spoil the post. It's an illustration. Enjoy and play the game!



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Getting it and saying it with flowers

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Read more! Lots of people get it. The vision of NGA, the benefits, purpose, reasons, ways to achieve it, JFDI and so on. And some really don't...

Sadly, those that don't appear to get it seem to include those who really, really need to get it. These include people in government, MPs, ministers, govt departments, consultants and agencies employed by govt departments, RDAs, quangos set up to deliver on IT and Digital Britain targets, journalists, the health service, councils, housing developers, education chiefs, teachers, communities, consumers, planning agencies, public figures...I know you don't want me to go on. However, I will say that all of the above, luckily, also include people who do get it.

But, this last week, when we saw possibly as much, if not more, lunacy coming from government about P2P, filesharing, disconnecting people from the internet (is this ***really*** 21st century Britain pushing this type of logic?) as any nation needs to in a DECADE, I saw the most crass and stupid statement of the lot.

Just for once, and only under severe pressure, I will withhold the name and organisation involved, but let me tell you I am sitting here with a 1s and 0s gun to my head (not good for a pacifist) in order to keep anger and utter frustration at bay. This is an organisation who are (or would love to be) at the very forefront of delivering NGA to the UK and who claim to get it. Do they? Well, read on.

When a teleconferencing solution was suggested for a meeting, to avoid unnecessary travel from all ends of the country and to ensure everyone who needed to could attend and had the choice to either be there in person or by video conferencing - and hell, that's not easy in this country over the network (transport or data) most of us have access to - the person responding to the final meeting date, times, venue etc said,

"I would prefer to have a real meeting with people present."

This reminds me of James May's entry to the Royal Horticultural Show at Chelsea Flower Show (pick any link you like) this year. The RHS judges took exception to the fact that there were no flowers used. NO FLOWERS???!!! Take a good look around, my lovelies. There are hundreds of flowers.

Just as being made of plasticine didn't suddenly stop those beautiful fritallaries (thanks, Joanna Lumley!!) being flowers, neither does being at the other end of a telephone line or webcam suddenly convert you into a non-person or make it an 'unreal meeting'.

To say I am furious at the incapacity of people to realise where this world has already moved on to - we will all talk on Xmas Day undoubtedly over Skype and/or new ThxSanta webcams to family and friends worldwide, gleefully sharing the fact it is free - so zillions of people already endeavour (me included) to conduct our business and lives on a daily basis over this 'ere new-fangled technology. And have been doing in some cases for well over 10 years. (Ok, you got about 4 frames an hour, but it was novel back then!)

Unless those claiming to be at the forefront of delivering NGA and educating the masses (and I include MPs, journos, and you, you and you in that grouping) get it FAST, this country is going to be left...yes, Dad, I promise I won't swear....... BLOOMING (get the reference?!) light years behind.

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Digital Britain Implementation

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Read more! The plan for implementation of the Digital Britain report has been released.... links to relevant docs.....

DB Implementation Plan

Draft Legislation for Digital Economy Bill

Comments? Only one so far. If I remember rightly, Rachel Clark, DBIS, was the person who stood up at the BSG Conference last year and said something along the lines of, "If we can't reach the last 20% of the population with NGA, does it really matter?" (And as we all know, it is now more like a third than a fifth, and if you define NGA in the way other nations do, the percentage creeps up ever higher.)

I hope with all my heart that someone has disabused her of that notion since, particularly as she is now in charge of current and next gen broadband. I know @cyberdoyle was talking to her recently so with any luck that may have changed her mind......

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