Had a very interesting meeting today with some household name hardcore engineers, on the subject of NGA projects around the UK and likely projects worth considering for seed capitalising to create Community Interest PoWC (Proof of Working Concept) NGA deployments, over the next 3-6 months.

The purpose of PoWC projects are simple enough – as communities, businesses and Government at all levels from Parish Councils to Westminster, reach the stage of fully realising what the NGA transformation means (and therefore the opportunities being lost in every day by their local communities not yet having NGA), then PoWC serves to show what NGA means by doing and delivering – not death by powerpoint!

Now, from an engineer’s standpoint, making a product (eg. building an NGA First Mile network) has a defined cost plus a certain margin or surplus so that the business is sustainable – the product costs what it costs in other words.

What is interesting as regards telecoms is that a different pricing paradigm is commonly used – the so-called value-add model.

In plain English, find out what is the highest price the market will bear for the product or service being offered and that is the selling price, so long as that price also meets the cost-plus test (if you want to stay in business that is!)

The renewal of the UK’s First Mile telecommunications access infrastructure through the replacement of copper to the home with FiWi to the home is creating transformation on several levels:

The capabilities of NGA increase the telecoms value proposition for customers exponentially, bandwidth ceases to be a limiting factor, no more BBC iPlayer white dots dancing in a circle for example.

The process of renewal itself offers a once in a century opportunity for Cost-Plus businesses to enter the NGA market and claim their slice of the FiWiPie – it will be interesting to see how agile the incumbent telcos are in terms of adjusting their thinking to this coming step-change.