The Telegraph seems to be getting it

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Read more! Rural broadband, that is. And the need for direct action rather than more "yadder- yadder". Great article today....

What is clearly required is for informed journalists, such as Jasper Gerard, to get out of London and then continue to educate the masses, including politicians, RDAs etc who are definitely not exempt from the need to be educated about this issue.

People like Helen Anderson (read the book about South Witham Broadband Community Network for more detail of SWBB) are those who have made and will continue to make Digital Britain happen.

Interestingly, as more communities get in touch about resolving the digital divide, next generation issue, it is no longer just technogicially aware people who are getting involved. We are seeing a rise in the number of people who don't know the technical answers but are more than willing to find out and JFDI.

The frustration levels with politicans, telcos, RDAs and so on are now so high that it is not a matter of IF this becomes an election issue but WHEN.

The sooner there is a realisation that this affects the vast majority of citizens and businesses in the UK, rural and urban, the better for all concerned. If the telcos continue to lag behind, they will find themselves usurped in a repeat of the situation that occurred when rural communities (such as my own) began to generate electricity (and also provide clean healthy water) long before the urban areas, such as Manchester, could enjoy a supply.

Potentially, the only way that such community networks will then be wrested away from the communities they serve will be through an Act of Parliament or similar, as had to be done to get the small, local electricity and water companies away from community ownership in the 50s. And, I and no doubt many others, will fight tooth and nail to keep ownership for any fibre that belongs to a community because of the cock ups, wastage of money and resources, and misery caused by giving private companies ownership of utilities.

The full Telegraph article - Better broadband for rural Britain.

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Bang for our broadband bucks

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Read more! Whilst it is quite clear that a serious amount of money has been invested within the UK on broadband, it is difficult for anyone to admit in all honesty that we have a broadband situation worth boasting about. Especially not internationally. But luckily other countries face the same broadband investment emergency that we do. So, we're not right at the bottom of the league. Yet......

America has similar problems and Geoff Daily of AppRising has taken the bull by the horns and looked at what we all should be considering when planning how we achieve next generation access for all, in our case, Digital Britain.

You can't help but applaud statements such as

Now is not the time to allow tired dogma to trump the serious consideration of new ideas. In going through the process of formulating a national broadband policy, all options should be on the table. There should be no sacred cows. Not even that facilities-based competition is the undisputed best way to spur investment in broadband networks.

or agree with this

Of course, many of you reading this are likely guffawing at the idea that we could ever unite private investment, but I should mention now that I have a different way of looking at private vs. public investment. In the end, I see all of those dollars as coming from our pockets. Whether it's money we pay a company for services or products that they can then invest, or that we pay in taxes that the government then spends, the money is ultimately all coming from us, the users.

Worthwhile read for consideration of how digital Britain is going to manage future investment for the good of all, rather than just the telcos.
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Local for Local

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Read more! Interesting article here showing how, in the US, legal and regulatory issues about municipalities retailing services from their self-funded FTTH networks are being overcome. And why those open networks which retail directly to their consumers more often succeed than those who are strapped trying to attract service providers.

We have seen this as a major issue in the EU where State Aid and anti-competitive regulations often cause the failure of projects rather than guaranteeing their success, or even achievement (and not just in telecoms).

An interesting point to note is the benefits of a public and local utility type company where the benefits can spread across from one sector to another viz from fibre comms through to electricity supply. All of these save the public purse, ie our money, from being spent unwisely, and it is this level of joined-up thinking which often seems to be missing in the public sector at present in the UK. Civil servants can be far too precious about their department, or budgets, or careers, to think out of the box and look at the big picture which inevitably FTTH must be. It is not just about health care, or education, or home users - it is about connecting all of these sectors together and operating co-operatively.

The main point for me though of the article is the fact that many communities, large and small, urban and rural, are seeking to solve the problem themselves locally (JFDI), where incumbents and telcos do not wish to tread, for multiple reasons, but usually involving profit margins. This really is what we need to do in the UK but perhaps with a level of standardisation that is not implied in this US article - where each municipality is making its own call on tech, business model etc adopted. There is no reason not to adopt different models to suit the demographics, topology or other differences in our municipalities, but each community needs to interconnect seamlessly with others, or it will become an island within an island.

I have some thoughts about how to ensure that the right advice gets to the right decision makers and purse string holders to ensure a cohesive FTTH deployment in the UK, but I'll save that for another day!

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FTTH article holds good

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Read more! Despite being 2 years old, and written from a US perspective, this article To Overbuild or Underbuild? by Dr Merrion Edwards of Corning, covers some interesting points for anyone interested in FTTH deployment.
The article includes open access vs closed networks, opex and capex costs, business models, and penetration rates for profitability, particularly in municipalities.

Opex and capex are complex to model as each network will invariably be different, but until we start seeing real FTTH in the UK (not some watered down FTTX ADSL2 type service), it will be difficult to know how costs will pan out. Just dealing with UK agencies (Highways, planning departments etc) is going to hinder progress until the message about the importance of FTTH reaches all areas of the public sector. Many of these agencies have not yet got the climate change models adopted into their policies, so FTTH may take some doing; although the fact that it clearly impacts health, education, e-gov, environment and energy usage, and many other areas of daily life may help!

Perhaps the most interesting comment in the article is that 2 years ago it was felt that 35Mbps of bandwidth would be required per consumer. This was before Youtube, iPlayer etc so it would be not unfair to assume that this may have doubled in the intervening time. This leaves services of 50Mbps-100Mbps planned for 2010 - 2012 already appearing impoverished and potentially insufficient.

Municipalities and others looking at FTTH network build need to consider the effect on not just the economy, but also on consumers if the all new Mother of all broadband services are potentially going to be insufficient, even at launch, particularly in the run up to general and local elections, the Olympics etc.


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