Having discussed the reaction with those who were there and who were not, it is worth clarifying the position as regards the wider Final Third NGA picture.

It is helpful to consider NGA as a Digital Supply Chain, most simply as a two stage process:

1 – the Digital Village Pump that get a fat pipe into at least striking distance of each local community and ideally into its heart

2 – the First Mile Access Network that delivers the bits to and from every home and business.

The NextGenUs Community Interest Business Model is concerned with the latter stage and that is where Taxpayers Money is not necessarily required, given enough customer demand from the outset.

This is the area where the Big Society initiative, being pioneered for rural broadband in Cumbria, can help to realise that demand by grassroots action, awareness-raising and education so that communities can make some informed choices as to their 4th Utility Futures.

Recent news regarding our friends in Utopia simply confirms the economics of rural FttH

The former stage, the Digital Village Pump, is a different beast.

The biggest challenge and cause of individual project uncertainty is the distance based charging that hits rural areas hardest for Fat Pipe provision.

One solution worth considering is for Government/OFCOM to mandate that there is a single DVP price available everywhere across the Final Third.

As BT has by far and away the most comprehensive national footprint, and in rural areas is often the only commercial provider, then this mandate would fall upon BT, as a standard DVP product.

This sounds simple and appealing – the approach would level the Fat Pipe playing field for everyone – will it work commercially though?

No – Why?

As pointed out by a senior Exec on Friday, for BT to drop prices in rural areas as part of this levelling then it would have to increase prices in non Final Third Areas elsewhere to compensate for lost revenues (setting aside the fact that those revenues losses may be hypothetical as the current price points make those Fat Pipes non-viable to use at present).

The unavoidable problem for BT is that in those other markets, BT is competing with many other carriers and therefore cannot raise prices nas it will lose business – i.e. distance independent pricing for DVPs looks to be a self-defeating proposition – unless every carrier is regulated (or taxed) equally to remove the disparity, which in turn creates a vast new reel of red tape to bind up the market.

Hmm.

So what are the alternatives?

Public Sector Asset Building is the most interesting prospect – the reuse of infrastructure, prime examples being connectivity for schools and other public buildings, that is already delivering the bits into these areas of Final Third need.

NYNet is a helpful model as a guide to how this might be implemented, the drwaback with NYNet being that it does not actually own any network infrastructure, rather leases circuits from BT – this means that the prices charged are not dissimilar from what BT themselves would offer.

What is really required, and this is where Taxpayer Subsidy (with appropriate clawbacks to keep HM Treasury happy!) can play an important role, is for Public Sector to translate its current connectivity OPEX into CAPEX by building out the interconnects and making available the Digital Village Pump feeds.

A great example of how this can be delivered is the CLEO network in Lancashire and Cumbria, that supplies rural schools across two counties and also deliver the Digital Village Pumps to a number of pioneering Community networks including GAB and WENNET

From there onwards, each community can then elect to build its own infrastructure or employ the services of a wide range of different suppliers to do it for them.

So by focusing Taxpayer Intervention on the Digital Village Pump and letting communities and market decide and deliver the most appropriate First Mile delivery infrastructure, ultimately FttH and FiWi for starters, we move a step closer to building the 4th Utility that the UK requires to compete (and cooperate) globally.

Anyone who spends any time at industry events will immediately recognise the gender imbalance in the telecoms sector – where are girls?

There doesn’t appear to be any technical reason for testosterone to be a mandatory requirement and the 4th utility that results is surely as relevant and suited to the fairer sex, so why the disparity?

It is all too easy to become focused on the technology and politics of telecoms delivery and to forget that what telecoms actually is.

An utility service that benefits all people.

The telecoms sector, like its close cousin Information Technology, is both historically and arguably currently over-represented by the male of the species and under-represented by the female.

Hence, it is helpful and salutary for the former to listen to the latter

Having had a serious b*****ing of late by certain women for whom this male author has the greatest of respect, with due contrition, let us consider what actually matters.

Namely that the 4th Utility we all want to see delivered for the UK will only be successfully built if it takes into account the needs and wants of all of us.

And in order to deliver, we as a Big Society, must learn to work together, regardless of our personal agendas, friends and foes and above all Dangly Bits

In no particular order, and by no means an exhaustive list, thanks to the following females for inspiring this post by what you do:

Helen Anderson

Libby Bateman

Val Smith

Chris Conder

Lindsey Annison

Fiona White

Imelda Havers

Jenny Wilkinson

Lillian Sizeland

Sally Bowman

Ruth Brown

“I would like to know what they think about the possibility of ceding the infrastructure relating to final third provision to a national/multiple local CICs to allow for local enterprise and development.

In other words would BT be open to the suggestion that they allow others to utilise those parts of their network that they find too costly to upgrade
thereby allowing the Govt to to fulfil its obligations with very little cost to BT and a massive increase in the number of people receiving NGA or
improved broadband?”

The above question fits in well with the broader subject of infrastructure sharing and takes the point further.

If BT is not willing to invest into certain areas on economic grounds then those assets should be made available for others, with more cost efficient methodologies and social objectives, to use to deliver service instead.

The Use it or Lose it principle

that highlights the hidden true cost of broadband via ADSL (if available of course!), namely that a telephone line must also be rented in order to take service, regardless of whether customers actually want to make voice calls.

Whilst the mooted 50p per month telephone line tax was scrapped in the recent Budget, it now seems that BT has stepped in to secure the increase for itself.

Perhaps this means BT are going to deliver the USC with all this extra revenue?

Of course, had BT invested in the infrastructure it was gifted at Privatisation a quarter century ago by incrementally deploying fibre in the access network, then BT’s OPEX costs would be a small fraction of that incurred by having to continue to support its now antiquated copper wire access infrastructure and UK PLC should now be expecting a reduction in the cost of broadband instead.

Business Secretary Vince Cable said:

“We are absolutely committed to reducing the number and cost of quangos that we no longer need. I have already said that I want to reduce the number of these bodies by a third and we’ve achieved a lot in a short space of time. This is the latest phase of that work.

”By bringing these functions back into Government, we make their activities more accountable and can reduce the considerable administrative costs that they place on the taxpayer.”

Food for thought as regards matters Broadband, where there is yet to be proper need identification for the creation of any new QUANGOs until the market has opportunity to deliver and the actual scale and scope of Taxpayer intervention established.

Particularly in light of the pushing back of the 2Mbps USC for the Final Third of mainly rural communities to 2014/15 from the original 2012 target, as announced by Jeremy Hunt last Thursday.

The Noble Lord, Lord Laird continues to provide vital Parliamentary scrutiny service to the Nation with the net of enquiry now expanding to include the wider BDUK initiative and the relationships and agendas of Senior Civil Servants within BIS.

The more that the proposed deliverables from the BDUK Industry Day are digested then the more it seems that Taxpayers Money is being proposed to be wasted, to the tune of £200M perhaps, on totally unnecessary “Market Testing” projects which in the context of the present Age of Austerity seems quite extraordinary.

What the UK needs is to find better ways of 4th Utility delivery than the same old, tired-out, top-down thinking that BIS and their QUANGOs are so keen on perpetuating.

The reality is that there is no Taxpayer intervention required to provide the world-class 4th Utility that the UK needs.

What would be helpful from Government is ATFF

Where BDUK can be genuinely helpful is in rolling back regulation and barriers to market entry then stepping back and letting the private and community sectors get on with the job they are already doing.

Tabled on 19 July and due for answer by 2 August.

Lord Laird to ask Her Majesty’s Government in what circumstances members of the House of Lords may be prevented from attending meetings to which persons who are not parliamentary pass holders are invited, which are held in a civil service location and which Members of Parliament are allowed to attend. HL1556
Lord Laird

to ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will place in the Library of the House a list of those attending the Broadband Delivery UK Industry Day on 15 July at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, denoting those who were invited to attend and those who were not.
HL1557

Lord Laird

to ask Her Majesty’s Government what procedure was used by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills in awarding grants to Independent Networks Co-operative Association on 17 December 2009; how many other applications were made for the grants; how they were advertised; when; by whom; and who selected the successful applicant. HL1558

More to Follow as regards how Localism can offer the answer.

It has been a most unexpected journey along the INCA Trail from what started out in September 2009 as merely a minor, routine enquiry to BIS Civil Servants, initially Andy Carter and latterly Simon Towler and Sam Sharps.

The concern expressed to BIS Civil Servants centred on the apparent scope creep of INCA and the worrying lack of openness and transparency by those behind the scheme.

This scope creep being in clear divergence from the INCA proposal from the Digital Britain Report, inexplicably marginalising the core Final Third constituency (the very communities where market failure might actually warrant the use of any Taxpayer intervention!) and creating the consequent risk of undermining Private Sector business through the waste of Taxpayers Money on yet another useless QUANGO.

This journey has taken some astonishing twists and turns, Independent Scrutiny being unilaterally dismissed by Dave Carter, the then acting chair of the INCA Interim Board, with the apparent connivance of BIS Civil Servants and has finally led on to a wider political and major constitutional question

- namely who has supremacy in the UK, Parliament or Executive?

As regards INCA, as it stands it offers no discernible value-add to what we do, is not an organisation that we would recommend any community or indeed any Publicly-funded body should consider joining either.

The genuinely useful INCA proposed functions of lobbying and sharing best practice for independent NGA and USC networks are already dealt with effectively by respectively the Final Third First Campaign and initiatives including the Rural Broadband Partnership.

Unlike INCA, in both cases not a penny of Taxpayers Money was involved in their establishment, simply action by people motivated to bring about positive change for Digitally Disadvantaged Communities in mainly rural areas.

From a NextGenUs perspective, now that the Big Issue has been broken by Computer Weekly following the unprecedented events at the BDUK Industry Day last Thursday, we are happy to let others more qualified in matters of State to deal with the subject.

This allows us to get on with what we do – providing 4th Utility service to people in a way that safeguards the Community Interest.

The time for Taxpayer-funded talking, Market Testing, Report Writing, Theoretical Consultancy and general navel gazing is gone, the gravy train excesses of the NuLab years are over folks.

The UK is about to experience protracted economic challenges and this requires all of us to step up in a positive manner.

Like the Aussies say, “Time for some Hard Yakka mate”

With cuts to Government Departmental budgets for non-essential activities expected to range between 25% and 40%, anyone affected by these cuts and genuinely looking for a way to add value to society can always pick up a spade and dig a trench for those too old or infirm to get FttH.

Together We Are The Network is the NextGenUs approach and our contribution to helping Build the Big Society.

The overall sense of the day was of bold aspirations and genuine determination on the part of ministers, Martha Lane-Fox and the new BDUK team to start delivering positive outcomes to enable the UK to compete globally with a 4th Utility infrastructure fit for 21st Century purposes.

It is to be hoped that the BDUK team is able to show some further stretch of ambition to extend the proposed three “market-testing” NGA pilots to provide many more localised real-life demonstrations of what NGA can do, ideally at least one location per each county, so that everyone in the Final Third has somewhere local to visit and see and experience the services they can look forward to.

Unfortunately many others were not invited to attend and in some cases, inexplicably uninvited at the door – still overall the day was worthwhile and reinforces the message that the time for debate is over and the time for action is now.

There has been disappointment expressed at the set back from 2012 to 2015 for a 100% Universal Service Commitment of 2Mbps – this is understandable both from a rural community/business point of view and also from the perspective of the severe constraints imposed on Government expenditure.

The way forward for Final Third, mainly rural, communities is clear enough – it is time for each local community to step up and work together with partners in the industry – the UK’s Final Third First FttH Village provides a benchmark for what can be achieved without a penny of Taxpayers Money.

A particularly helpful comment from Jeremy Hunt was that Fiscal circumstances mean that any change must be revenue neutral. There must be a level playing field for all, and that the rating system must not inhibit the roll-out of superfast networks.

More to follow.

Some fascinating developments from Google acting at a grassroots level to get local communities to step up,  get organised and demand service and no Taxpayers Dollars in sight.

Sure some might say this is a Digital Beauty Contest and nonetheless the engagement that FttH can clearly generate in the USA is surely a great way to help Build the Big Society in the UK.

It is interesting to note that in the UK the Rural Broadband Partnership is seeking to also create a framework for local communities to express their 4th Utility demands in a consistent and auditable manner, using a simple traffic light system to identify communities that are unready, nearing readiness or ready move forwards now.

And again, a recurring theme, this innovation is being delivered without  a penny of Taxpayers Money.

1 Victoria Street

London SW1H 0ET

Sam.sharps@bis.gsi.gov.uk

BIS Ref: 10/1433

Your Ref:

13 July 2010

Dear Mr Jarvis

Thank you for your email of 23 June in which you requested information about the Independent Networks Co-operative Association.

You asked:

We request you to inform us with minimum delay a complete list of members of the Interim Board of INCA and the membership of the organisation at the date 14 days before the AGM proposed to be held on 30th June 2010.

• I can confirm that the Department for Business holds this information.

• In respect of the Interim Board of INCA, the information is exempt under Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), because the information is accessible to you, as it is already in the public domain. The information you requested can be retrieved from the INCA website at http://www.inca.coop/about/governance.

• In respect of the membership of INCA at the date 14 days before the AGM (i.e. 16 June 2010), the information we hold is as follows:

Furthermore, please advise what is the place and time of the INCA AGM, as the meeting must be open to the Press and other Media as Taxpayers Money is involved.

• We do not hold any information as to the place and time of the INCA AGM, other than the date of 30 June 2010.

If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request, you have the right to ask for an internal review. Internal review requests should be submitted within two months of the date of receipt of the response to your original letter and should be addressed to:

David Hendon

Director, Information Economy

1 Victoria Street

London SW1H 0ET

David.hendon@bis.gsi.gov.uk

Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future communications.

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF

The other comments in your email were not treated as requests under the Freedom of Information Act but I can respond to them as follows.

• Posting the minutes of INCA board meetings on the website is a matter for the INCA board.

• You mention para 34 of INCA’s rules, which as I understand things governs the circumstances in which amendments to the organisation’s rules can be made. Adherence to this rule is a matter for the board, although I am not aware that any amendments were proposed or made.

• Attendance at the AGM by non-members would be at the discretion of the INCA board unless it is specifically governed by the organisation’s rules or law.

• My understanding is that Dave Carter was acting as chair of the Scrutiny and Liaison committee in disbanding that forum – the footer to his email simply reflected the email address he was using. Whether he was authorised to do so would be a matter for the organisation’s rules.

Yours sincerely,

Samuel Sharps

Deputy Director

Information Economy