As previously highlighted, this development threatens particularly to discriminate against rural communities by significantly impacting the costs and therefore viability of delivering broadband services to local residents and businesses, as the lower population density in rural areas makes wireless First Mile delivery solutions attractive from a Social Inclusion perspective.

FibreStream invites all interested parties in the wider community broadband constituency to tell us your concerns and opinions about this development which we will collate and share with VOA.

The consultation is scheduled to take place in the early part of February 2010.

Dear Sir,

LOCAL GOVERNMENT FINANCE ACT 1988 – NON-DOMESTIC RATING

TELECOMMUNICATION NETWORKS – WIFI AND WIMAX NETWORKS

The Valuation Office Agency (VOA) is an executive agency of HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) with 21 Group Valuation Offices located throughout England and Wales (website: www.voa.gov.uk).

Each Valuation Officer has a statutory duty under part III of the 1988 Local Government Finance Act to compile and maintain non-domestic rating lists for all relevant non-domestic hereditaments.

The sites and any rateable infrastructure associated with wireless radio based networks (WiFi & WiMAX) are potentially relevant non-domestic hereditaments, which could be liable for non-domestic rates and accordingly will need to be valued and assessments entered in the appropriate rating lists in England or in Wales.

I am currently considering the appropriate levels of site rental values and assessments that should be adopted for Wireless Fidelity (WiFi) and Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) installations.

Before I reach my final conclusions, I thought it would be beneficial to arrange a joint meeting to discuss the valuations with you and with the other WiFi and WiMAX operators.  In particular I would like to discuss;

• 1. Variations of WiFi and WiMAX Equipment.
  2. Identification and cost of rateable elements.
  3. Site Rents – Details of recent transactions.
  4. Locations and addresses of hot spots.

I would stress that it is in your interest to take part in these discussions and provide relevant information to allow the VOA to accurately determine the appropriate value of any rateable sites.  In the absence of information from you and the other operators, the VOA will have no option but to estimate the valuations, which may lead to an excessive rates burden or underassessment, which may have to be corrected at a later date.  The VOA is keen to avoid having to estimate as it is clearly in no one’s interest.

The subject matter is how independent community networks might go about sharing existing BT infrastructure like telegraph poles in rural areas and comments are welcomed here regarding how feasible such a contract might be in practice, from a community perspective.

Having checked that there are no issues with eg Non Disclosure Agreements, please find attached scans of the relevant document which may be helpful in the wider context of pole and infrastructure sharing which Ed Vaisey mentioned was a priority area that he has asked OFCOM to investigate.

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Based on the success of the day and the overwhelmingly positive feedback received, we have decided to organise a rolling series of regular colloquia and would encourage communities and champions to get in touch as we are interested in working with local communities to host our unique flavour of practical, no-nonsense, jargon-free gatherings in your area.

Special thanks are due to:

Councillor John Robinson and Hull City Council for an amazing venue, great lunch and use of the facilities, and thank you to the Lord Mayor for taking time to talk to us and listen in to the debate.

Antony Walker and Peter Shearman from BSG for kindly bringing national NGA focus to Hull

Malcolm Taylor for effective chairing of the afternoon COTS meeting.

Please get involved in post-colloq discussion through the forum at http://www.fibrevolution.com.

The BSG COTS meeting webcast is available here courtesy of Hull City Council

Some blogsphere commentary:

Mark “Mr NGA-UK” Purdom

This thread on Fibrevolution goes to the heart of what NextGenUs Colloquium is all about -

Great Summary Link for 5ttH team here

Whilst that delay has been a source of constant frustration to the Next Gen pioneers, 5tth being a prime example, this blog another, there is an interesting inverted historical parallel going on here, worthy of closer attention.

The Industrial Revolution arguably was pioneered first in the UK and took a whole series of twists and turns, booms and busts to reach a mature modern industrial state, over the course of perhaps 150 years.

Other countries, the followers, were able to speed up their own Industrial Transformations faster precisely due to the lessons learnt from the experiences of the pioneers in the UK – what worked and what didn’t, how to most effectively achieve technology-driven commercial and societal progress in least time and at least cost.

This insight leads directly to the inverted parallel

- by the very virtue of being a laggardly follower, UK PLC has the de-risked opportunity to join the world leaders for 21st century technological transformation at a faster, cheaper and surer rate than our peers in communities spanning Korea, France, Japan, Holland, China, Belgium, USA, Poland, Canada, Spain, Italy, Slovakia, Rwanda

- collectively the global movement from metallic path to optical fibre connectivity.

FibreStream means practical delivery, radically reduced costs, with community interest at heart because that makes great business sense too.

Why?

Simplicity itself – without consumer-creators, Next Gen Access is worth nowt, hence 1st Mile not Last Mile (BT please take note!)

Fibrestream exists to realise sustainable 1st Mile Next Gen Access and provides a twin track choice for local communities everywhere:

1 – We help, support, facilitate, nurture grassroots Community ISPs that want to run their own NGA affairs directly.

2 – We enable future-proof community-centric open access choice for global IP applications, content and services direct to local communities that want the benefits of NGA without the hassles of operating and maintaining the necessary FiWi infrastructure.

So, now you have been energised by the BBC and are ready to realise Next Gen Access for your local community, to move beyond watching, listening, thinking to action then please get in touch and together let’s JFDI