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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INCA - request for clarity

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Read more! It is difficult to comprehend what on earth is going on with INCA and CBN. BIS seem to have no answers, although they have apparently offered £150,000 to set up INCA as an organisation.

Due to substantial concerns first raised publicly last autumn from a large group of people from industry, community and consumer groups, a Scrutiny and Liaison Committee was set up with BIS approval to monitor and ensure transparency, enforce the need to communicate openly and honestly, and to guarantee a clear separation between CBN (a private consortium of consultants) and INCA - a co-operative membership organisation funded with public money to support community networks.

This will be the third such organisation. The first was the Association of Broadband Communities - a loose support network of community networks. It was unfunded and run by volunteers but we had a stand at the first BSG conference in Birmingham in 2002, which many of you won't remember.

A year later, after Malcolm Corbett attended the Access to Broadband Campaign conference in London in July (another event of mine as a co-founder of both this and the other ABC), 48 of us met at Rural|Net Conference Wyboston Lakes in the autumn, to vote on whether to shift our allegiances and energy to Timms' funded CBN to give it a kick start. We decided it had to be worth trying to continue what we were doing but with funds, and so CBN was born. Otherwise, CBN would have struggled to find any "members" who were not already catered for. CBN was launched at the 2nd Access to Broadband Campaign conference in Jan 2004 at Cisco HQ, Heathrow by Rt Hon Alun Michael MP.

CBN officially/legally ceased to be a co-operative organisation supporting community networks in Jan 2009, after at least 3 years of not actually getting together memberships or signing up a single community network member. It was, therefore, unfortunately unsustainable because it never implemented a business plan to carry out its initial purpose; so it became a private consortium of consultants. And now, it seems to have morphed into INCA.

Judging by the newsletter sent out this Friday 12th March by Malcolm Corbett, the interim CEO of INCA, something is definitely amiss. There is currently only an (unelected) Interim Board in place (until June), and there are certainly no members. You'd never guess that from the newsletter sent out.

.....We have set up a working group to consider an INCA response. We will provide a briefing in mid-March for INCA members and supporters setting out our view of how Government can maximise innovation, investment and engagement, thus getting the biggest bang possible for our taxpayer's buck.

Right, so next week ish, INCA members are going to be informed about INCA's views. Isn't this 'cart before the horse'? Aside from the many other questions this quote raises, there is nothing on the website at inca.coop; in fact, the newsletter goes on to say,

A membership recruitment campaign and new website will be launched this month.

No-one can point anyone yet to a list of members then? Memorandum and Articles? IPS registration number, perhaps? Membership fees, benefits? Members' application form? Um...anything to prove that this organisation exists in reality and is not just a re-invention of CBN - the names just seem remarkably familiar in that newsletter. Malcolm Corbett, Andrew Macdonald, Marit Hendriks have all been heftily involved in CBN for years. The INCA website is hosted on Adrian Wooster's personal account at MyZen - too many innocent people seem to be being dragged into this whirlpool, determined to get a community support organisation back on track.

CBN has also agreed to licence the NextGen 10 events programme to run under the INCA umbrella. Marit Hendriks and Andrew Macdonald will continue to be the Next Gen events organisers.

Andrew was originally the event organiser for my events (because he is an excellent EO), for both Digital Dales and the Access to Broadband Campaign, both of which were in existence years before CBN was even conceived or funded. CBN have agreed (did the Interim Board ask?) to 'licence' the NextGen 10 programme - AT WHAT COST? Because surely, by running these events through INCA, the consultants/directors of CBN stand to lose valuable revenue so it can't be a free gift or that would be going against their legal responsibilities as Directors of CBN.

I hate to say this, but from here, it looks like either a stitch up in some way or horrendous corporate naivety. CBN appear to have moved at least two of their directors, possibly three, into presumably paid (or intending to be remunerated) positions in INCA, without apparently any procurement or even interview process for the jobs (and prior to an elected Board being in place); licensed the events package run by an independent, but heavily involved with CBN, team; commissioned a website build (dare we ask from which website designer?); and seconded MC from CBN to be interim CEO.

Excuse my cynicism but those costs alone should eat nicely into the £150,000 of taxpayers' money BIS have given over to INCA. Particularly in light of the fact CBN have also requested that they are paid for the "expenses" incurred in setting up INCA - a figure of £30,000 was quoted in a previous email to BIS.

This statement should provide some reassurance, but sadly fails to.

INCA operates as a separate organisation with its own Board.

Really?

Have any members been invited to join yet? If not, there are no membership subs being banked although we are now in March and INCA was launched with some fanfare at NextGen09 last autumn, (prematurely, it would seem) and all outlays seem to be being directed to current CBN directors or associates. What exactly is going on???

Should we ask: how is there going to be any money left to do what is required and laid out in both the Caio Review and the Digital Britain report as a role for such an organisation over the next 5-10 years?

If the entire business plan is predicated on member subs, wouldn't it be wise to get those in place and contributing (not just financially) BEFORE expending the existing funds? And checking that there are actually people willing to pay a membership fee first? Has market research been conducted into the appetite for such a membership organisation? To establish what the target audience are willing or able to pay or contribute?

Or is INCA planning to make money purely from 'consultancy' to projects who have sufficient money to pay for such things? Which would seem to exclude many of the Final Third First projects currently envisaged......and replay the CBN scenario rather too closely.

This may all sound like sour grapes but it isn't. I clearly remember conversations with people like Adrian Wooster about how, if you were headhunting the ideal team to deal with Final Third First and community networks, you wouldn't need to look far. You didn't need to then, and I remain convinced you wouldn't need to now. It just needs some jiggling to get the right people in the right places. And to be run in a business-like manner, whether it is not-for-profit or otherwise. There is little difference between requirement for a support organisation and the network viability in such areas, to be perfectly honest.

I sat and watched the approx £1/4M that CBN acquired from public sector vanish in a remarkably short time and achieve very little for the community networks it was supposed to support. It was especially saddening after all that **had** been achieved with no money in either the Association of Broadband Communities and the Access to Broadband Campaign, as well as the many community networks who shared information, advice, support, help, expertise.

I know. I was Membership Services Director for most of CBN's initial existence (paid and unpaid) until I was unceremoniously "laid off" whilst still under contract. Perhaps because I was asking far too many questions about where the money had gone and why we had no members?

Well guys, this time I still have nothing to lose. Where EXACTLY is the INCA money going? Will it now achieve what is required of the organisation so many people would like to see come back into existence? (and I am not talking CBN). It is not about ticking these KPI boxes (which are apparently confidential performance indicators), nor for BIS. Nor is it about creating jobs for the boys, but about creating a wealth of opportunities by finally bringing next generation networks into existence.

Many people have been supporting, FOR FREE, those who require this practical support, clearly identified in the Caio and DBR report, in lieu of CBN activity in the space.

There are so many who want to see the organisation(s) started and which many were involved in over the last 10 years, finally make an appearance as a sustainable body. INCA could be it, if it is permitted to be allowed to form without private agendas taking priority.

This is PUBLIC money. I think we deserve a public explanation, please.

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Lessons from Louisiana

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Read more! After three weeks of subzero temperatures, Louisiana makes a very welcome change. I'd forgotten what sun felt like! Am sitting here attached to a 25Mbps symmetrical pipe, boostable to anywhere up to a gig - direct into the vein! I am currently in a data exchange which has a carbon toeprint rather than a footprint, is providing cloud computing services over the community fibre network to local businesses, and is housed within a business centre which survived, only just, Katrina ....

The best bit? It was conceived and is run by an amazing, dynamic lady, the building is owned by another female visionary, it includes a Women's Business Centre, the whole focus is on economic development, and the replicability of this set-up would be simple. Even in the UK. The only reason we can't do it is that the places where this set up is most needed are those places where there is currently insufficient infrastructure to do so.

What should we be doing? Well, firstly, the sooner we resolve the cost issues of backhaul in all areas of UK, rural and urban, the better. The UK Government should spend the first tranche of money from the rural Broadband pot putting in new open fibre, owned by the community networks it has constantly supported in words (DBR, Caio etc) if not in action. It should be a co-operative, not for profit venture, so that from now far into the future, every single person, business and community in the UK has a CHOICE about who to buy backhaul from, and the telcos and incumbents are finally faced with true competition. Yes, the government will say they cannot go directly in competition with the telcos, but there are ways round all of these arguments about anti-competition, as other nations have discovered (EU included). Think Amsterdam, Vasteras, Korea etc etc. Think about who wins and why that in itself makes it essential....

The telcos need to face up to the fact that competition is going to happen. I have in front of me the figures for building a middle mile network in the UK as a co-operative venture, and these figures have been created by a group of fibre legends, and are based on sound and known principles and costs. It isn't actually as expensive as I had thought it would be, and there are undoubtedly investors out there who want to take BT et al on at their own game and take Britain into the 21st century and beyond.

This would level the playing field and bring the data transit costs down to their real value, (cost plus) level, rather than over-inflated corporate greed-need levels. It would boost usage and access to the core network in a way that no other action can. It would immediately encourage innovation and therefore help to stimulate the economy, create new jobs, and support diversification, especially in rural areas. That co-operative needs to be started and run by members of the communities who are already up and running, and then as more communities create their own networks, they too can join the co-op. There should be no telco interest, or equipment supplier interest within that co-op, just consumers and communities, who by the very own end-user self-interest will ensure that the co-op is run for the benefit of all.

I suggest it may well, and should definitely, happen in the UK soon too. If anyone has some spare cash in the bank and wants to be involved, or you are a community network in desperate need of affordable backhaul, please do get in touch.

More from the USA soon - I now have 40+ pages of notes and my head is reeling with facts, figures, ideas and information from the amazing people who I have met and who have been generous and forthcoming in the extreme with their contributions to the discussions and answers to my seemingly never-ending stream of fibre questions. Many of these people are very well-known within our sphere and I am honoured to be invited and welcomed into their world. Thank you all. You know who you are!!



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Sup-loop unbundling begins in Rutland

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Rutland Telecom have just tweeted that their civils start today. This is basically a community project designed to connect one community in a mobile and broadband crapspot using their own street cab, positioned to next to a BT cab......

Although this is FTTC, there is no reason why in future it cannot be upgraded to FTTH. More communities need to look at this type of option, even though obviously a full fibre path would be preferable to metallic, but it is at least taking control of the problem and delivering today what BT and others can't and won't.

Good on 'em. Read more about Rutland Telecom broadband solution

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"Worst is first" FTTH call from Ofcom

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Read more! Anna Bradley (Ofcom Consumer Panel) reiterates what she said, with Ashley Highfield (BBC) and others, at the BSG conference.

The broadband have-nots should leapfrog everyone else in getting FTTH / NGA.

Hearty applause from me, and undoubtedly many, many others who have struggled to be heard for so long. We have been saying this for over a decade now, since long before broadband became a household word, ADSL trigger levels and so on. Our Notspot report in 2005 also generated more than enough evidence to show this was required, economically for rural business and public sector service provision, and socially.

As a consumer of this pathetic service our dear regulator and incumbent(s) are apparently legitimately allowed to call "broadband" (to many consumers' disgust), I hope we will now see advances towards resolving a problem of national import, and which is having dire social and economic impact.

If anyone has any doubts about this 'worst is first' theory (with compliments to Sagentia for coining the term), I strongly urge you to pick up the JFDI Community Broadband books. I didn't write them alone. They are the words and experiences of communities who put their own first gen broadband in place, where the telcos refused to tread for precisely the same reasons they are citing now for not doing FTTH / NGA, and clearly illustrate why FTTH / NGA is required in rural areas FIRST.

NOT FTTC, let's make that clear. FTTC is NOT, and never will be, NGA.

The copper in rural areas is, in many cases, aged, appalling or aluminium. For FTTH / NGA purposes, it is entirely obsolete, useless, and better value sold on the open market, as Peter Cochrane first suggested way back when. The first hint of rain and our supposed broadband connections can and do dither at less than dial up speeds. There are many who don't even have this privilege though - I can introduce you to hundreds, if not thousands of them, who haunt my inbox.

There should be no concessions made to keep the copper in the first mile, whatsoever.

Whatever the cost to whomsoever does the copper replacement for rural FTTH, it is as nothing to the benefits to be reaped bringing "health, wealth and learning" opportunities across the digital divide. And hence the economic benefit to UK PLC.

Those of us behind Community FTTH, 5TTH and FiWi Pie are within an ace of making announcements about sustainable "Worst is First" broadband development and opportunities. Thank you, Anna. Your timing is impeccable!

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Come in, Hull.....

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Read more! When a town as historically important as Hull falls off the internet for a weekend, you realise how badly wrong we have it in the UK.

Let's do a little bit of history.

Once upon a time, communities across the UK set up their own utilities. In fact, galvanised individuals and innovators set up utilities. Not large corporates. They came much later.

My village, which is tiny, is the subject of a book by Ted Short I Knew My Place (wireless experimenter, Marconi, Postmaster General, then Secretary of State for Education and Science, Leader of the House of Commons and now Lord Glenamara) and he tells of the village digging a route for water to provide electricity to the village in 1918-20, before Manchester had such a service as I understand it, amongst many other fascinating tales.

Each house had one light bulb (hell, that was a major luxury), and this is a tale from a man who did wireless comms experiments in the house 2 doors down from me in 1920ish. We had a full mill race dug and mill wheel built and set up by the village craftsmen. Then these amazing folk sourced and dug in the piping for a sweet water supply after a smallpox epidemic killed too many local people, especially children. This amazing local service was sadly absorbed into the national water board in the 60s (I think), and the water in our village has been nowhere near as good since because it isn't local.

Every village I have lived in has similar tales. Once upon a time, rural (and urban) Britain was fairly self-sufficient in basic utilities. And one feels that given half a chance, these villages would be now too, in 21st century utilities.

Hull was a ground breaking city. If you only know a couple of facts about Hull, it is probably that they had unlimited local calls for a long time (which put them way ahead of FRIACO on cheapy internet access) and on a par with the US who had free local calls. Or that they have grey/white phone boxes. Either way, Hull was the envy of many for a very long time for its telecoms services.

No longer. I was there a fortnight ago. Ask for a costing on a 10Mbps leased line type service (£8-10k a year in London) and you are looking at something like £84k. No wonder businesses don't locate there. In fact, businesses are leaving, in droves, as the comms costs drive them away.

Worse though are the consumer problems of getting on the Net. If Karoo goes down, as it did this weekend, there is no alternative ISP. Anyone who runs a small business elsewhere in the country will (should!) have 2 broadband ISPs. None of us understand why one ISP can keep going through a BT exchange when another can't, but occasionally one network can fall over when another doesn't. Or you can use 3G, or mobile data access (ouch!!), but even having an ancient dial up modem can keep you online these days.

But, let's face it, that is pretty extreme and crap. In Hull though, you can't even take those precautions. Kcom. Or nowt.

This weekend even the hospitals comms in Hull fell over. And to me, this signals the problems loud and clear that we have in Britain. If BT's network fell over (and it really shouldn't, but has in the past - burning wheelie bins down manholes in Manchester etc), then we have all our eggs in one (copper) basket, we have no resilience.

We have allowed monopolies to dictate how we communicate. Where is freedom of speech when you have no phone line or internet, as happened this weekend in Hull? This time, so they say, it was down to some major issues whilst they upgrade the network to adsl 2 (sweating the copper asset rather than upgrading). This will probably not be a one off, but I can't see the Hull Daily Mail reporting it every time a borough gets knocked off over the coming months, so assume this is going to be an(other) hidden issue of disconnected folk.

We need to see more alt nets springing up. SYMsip, 3G and other services need to be widely promoted so that consumers understand they have CHOICE.


Ofcom need to take their statutory duties more clearly. Stop the telcos from lying for starters.

Co-ax is not fibre.

ADSL is not broadband.

FTTC is not NGA or FTTH.


And let's see some real competition out there. I know we have fibre less than 1km on one side of our village, and about 4km on the other down the Settle-Carlisle railway. Get me off the monopoly network, allow this village (and many others) to return to the edge of the network independence that saw the start of ALL these utilities, and then let's see some real competition. Not in the ownership of the network infrastructure, but in providing services. Let the community run the network.

Because in this village, we ran exceptional water and electrics services without central involvement, way before Manchester or other cities had electricity and sweet running water. We can do the same now. But you, who want to play on our networks, and take money from our residents, you can offer services: IPTV, HDTV, e-gov, access to telemedicine etc etc. But let us supply our connectivity, because I hate to say it, but we really do know best and have proven it, nationwide for years.

There are two fine examples of community -provisioned networks, beyond those already given from my village, that no longer deliver even close to their original intentions, to the detriment of their consumers I BELIEVE. And this is a very personal opinion. One is local to Hull, and the other is national. It is time to give the power back to the communities, and -provide what is required by those communities, and let it be owned by those communities.

/rant


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