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We had set ourselves a challenging mission to accomplish.

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Provide superfast broadband to one of the most remote-rural locations in England.

Spurn Point, located where land, river and sea meet (Yorkshire, Humber and North respectively), where RNLI Humber crew and their families are permanently based, is unsurprisingly an ADSL Notspot.

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Here is the speedtest.net result from the RNLI Crew Facilities using the NextGenUs NGA FiWi Connection

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Said Sean Royce, Commercial & Finance Director, Kingston Communications, on news of the service going live for RNLI Humber:

“Wow!

Those boys deserve that and KC are proud and delighted we could help.

Looks like it proves we can deliver Next Generation Access!

Hopefully more will benefit from our combined efforts.”

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Said Dave “Spanish” Steenvoorden, Cox RNLI Humber:

“It’s Brill!”

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“Together We Are The Network” is the ethos of the wider NextGenUs NGA Testbed of which the RNLI Humber deliverables of superfast broadband form an important part.

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Thanks once again to our partners and project co-sponsors, some anonymous and others named:

• Emtelle
• AFL Telecommunications, a Fujikura business
• Kell Systems
• Kingston Communications
• Steve Medcalf Ltd
• Pharos Films
• Yorkshire Wildlife Trust
• Screwfix
• AND the RNLI Humber Crew & kids!!

More news on the Testbed and other developments here at the NextGenUs blog.

And cached here – letter-CBN-June09

There follows an open letter to one of the original project promoters regarding how best to ensure that INCA delivers Digital Britain.

Shaun,

Several key points and actions came out of the INCA ad-hoc pre-board meeting in Leeds on Monday that you very kindly invited myself and Saul Marchant to attend on behalf of the wider Third Sector and Community constituencies, alongside private sector suppliers of NGA build, carriers and operational services e.g. Red-M, LN Comms, FibreStream, Beeline BB with Andy Carter and the team at BIS.

Having discussed that meeting and the teleconference at length with other stakeholders, we have summarised the situation as we understand it as follows:

See here also http://www.fibrevolution.com/index.php/topic,72.msg220.html#msg220

1 – BIS is considering funding INCA

2 – CBN has expressed its desire to separate from INCA at the earliest opportunity

For clarity, we believe that this should be extended to exclude CBN Directors from the steerage of INCA (including the Initial Board) for an appropriate period until INCA is formally and legally established. Thereafter, we would hope that the membership criteria decided upon by the Interim Board would see CBN’s re-involvement in the organisation through democratic process or simply as members. With a suitably balanced interim board there may be advantage in having a single CBN member, based on their experience in setting up INCA so far.

2a. The responsibilities of the Interim Board (which require clear and transparent definition and discussion) would also include drawing up an initial business plan to ensure sustainability for INCA beyond the seed funding from BIS. It was stated on Monday by CBN that a figure of £40,000 had been “spent” by CBN during the preliminary work to establish INCA.

It is only reasonable that CBN is given the opportunity to present to the Interim Board any receipts for costs incurred. The Interim Board, Scrutiny Panel, Formal Board and BIS should all consider whether any or all of these costs are reimbursable or could be considered speculative risk, or even a generous donation. (It should be noted that £40,000 would be greater than 25% of the initial round of funding and payment of such a sum would restrict INCA’s activities from the outset.)

Allowing CBN to submit accounts for its costs to be considered for repayment would therefore reiterate the need to separate CBN Directors from due process in the setting up of INCA. This will then permit the Interim Board and BIS to make a fair and just decision without vested interest.

3 – JON is a CBN proposal that is not funded by BIS and is separate from INCA

4 – LDS is a CBN proposal that is not funded by BIS and is separate from INCA

5 – INCA needs to direct its attention as a matter of urgency upon membership types and fees, respective criteria, exclusion policy and reasoning for such.

5a – The membership fee structure depends on defining the value proposition that INCA is to offer potential members, whilst demonstrating credible sustainability modelling. We understand this is currently missing/undeveloped from the INCA model/business plan

6. An Interim Board is to be formed as soon as possible from the wider forum of interested parties. A minimum of 6-7 persons has been envisaged.

6a. It has been recommended that the model for this is taken from BSG COTS (the Peter Shearman Plan). An Interim Board of a minimum of 10 self-elected members, across all stakeholder groups would seem admirable.

7. The Interim Board will complete all set up tasks to lay the foundations for the democratic election of the First Board and the launch of a legally established co-operative. This must include as an utmost priority the recruitment of members to the INCA co-op (or expressions of interest until the paperwork is completed) through marketing, widespread communications amongst the stakeholders, media and so on.

8. To ensure the right methods and vehicles are used, an independent scrutiny panel (not members of the Interim Board) should be established to monitor the actions of the IB on behalf of all stakeholders. The Interim Board must report in full to the Independent Scrutiny Panel all decisions proposed and/or taken.

The Independent Scrutiny Panel then continues to provide comfort and assurance to BIS that best value for Public Funding is maintained throughout its grant-enabled early life until INCA becomes fully self-sustaining from membership fees, revenue etc.

9. To date, there is open acceptance that INCA has failed in communicating clearly and comprehensively to stakeholders its purpose, agenda, structure and so on. This needs to be rectified, again using the Peter Shearman COTS model, by immediately making public the specific documents that Lindsey Annison requested from CBN prior to this week’s conference, namely:

a) List of current steering group members

b) Proposed Foundation Board members

c) List of INCA key objectives and funding milestones

d) Pre-Christmas meeting dates for steering group as the now wider INCA Forum

e) Minutes (or Powerpoints) from previous INCA steering group meetings

To this end, and acknowledging both CBN and INCA’s financial circumstances, a public area has been created at http://www.fibrevolution.com/index.php/topic,72.0.html for the upload of and access to the documents (see above section 9) required to move INCA forward.

In conclusion, the wider constituency polled feels that INCA has a useful role to play, dove-tailed into the BSG COTS process already underway, in helping to realise the BIS policy objectives of delivering upon the Digital Britain Report in the National Interest.

In order to achieve its aims, INCA needs to be established on an effective set of principles, scope and deliverables. It is hoped and intended that this can be achieved through the two safeguards of:

1. The Interim Board
2. The Independent Scrutiny Panel

Shaun, perhaps you would be so good as to circulate this message to the other participants from the Monday meeting in Leeds or alternatively provide their email addresses.

Kind Regards and Approved by:

G Jarvis

W Garrett

S Davison

S Marchant

M Purdom

L Annison

N Hall

A Waters

G Rewston

G Garrett

C Knowles

M Boswell

RNLI Humber NextGenUs FttH Groundworks completed.

Next phase – Fibre Blowing then Active Equipment Installation then Live.

A key milestone in this NextGenUs “Together We Are The Network” Charity Project, delivered by FibreStream and its partners:

• Emtelle
• AFL Telecommunications, a Fujikura business
• LG Nortel
• Kell Systems
• Steve Medcalf Ltd
• Pharos Films
• Yorkshire Wildlife Trust
• Screwfix
• AND the RNLI Humber Crew & kids!!

Here’s our Video of the Day

Here’s our Vision of Future-Proof FttH

What the Yorkshire Post has to say here and here and for a wider perspective here

What the Hull Daily Mail has to show here

The FttH groundworks for RNLI Humber were completed by the lifeboat crew literally digging their own fibre today, with the volunteer cooperation of FibreStream, Emtelle, Steve Medcalf Builders and Pharos Films

- special thanks to ScrewFix for providing the PPE (Personal Protective Equipment).

More to follow and here’s a taster.

If you want us to bring service to your community, and if you can prove there is sufficient demand, then we will work to bring it to you.

What do I have to do?

You will need to show us that people in your community are interested in next-gen access so that we can direct resources to areas where there is likely to be a good take up.

How do I do it?

To start with you should talk to your neighbours to ensure that they are as interested in getting next generation broadband services as you are. Assuming that this is true, you need to get your neighbours to tell us that they are interested so that we can establish whether or not there are enough people in your area to warrant service.

We have created an email address for people to register their interest. Send your email to nextgenus@fibrestream.co.uk

We need to know: (you can copy and paste these questions into your email if you like):

• Your full name
• Your full address
• Telephone number (if you have one)
• Email address (if you have one)
• Are you a pensioner?
• Do you have children of school age?
• Details of any businesses in your community which might benefit from fast broadband
• Any information about what has been tried so far e.g. is there a local activist group who are already working together to lobby BT/KCOM etc?

The question about pensioners and children relates to both groups of people being of interest to the Department for Children, Schools and Families and the Department of Health, which could help get the network happening sooner too.

If your neighbours don’t have access to email, then please ask them to call 01482 778 554 and leave a voice message with their details. Alternatively, you could always print off the questions above and ask them to write the answers down on paper. You can then either email your neighbours responses to us, or send the paper responses to our mailing address on the contact page.

If you do decide to take up the role in your local area as ‘community champion’ for next-gen access then please let us know in your email to us. We’ll note you down as a point of contact and make sure that we keep you in the loop.

What next?

We are sorry, but we do not have the time to reply back to each individual email making an expression of interest as soon as we receive it. Please be assured though that your email is making a difference! Each expression of interest in an area shows us where the demand is, is mapped and recorded and is exceptionally useful to us.

We will collate the requests received and look for trends in particular areas. When an area looks promising we will begin investigating the costs and technical requirements for delivering service and get in touch with you to let you know more.

If you are interested in getting a budgetary idea of what it might cost to Fibre to the Home (FttH) your local area then this Analysis Tool may be of interest to you.

Do please let us know how you get on. You can share your experiences of promoting NGA in your locality using the comments function on this page along with any suggestions you have for others promoting NGA too.  And finally, good luck, we look forward to speaking to you soon!

“FibreStream – Together We Are The Network”

According to http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2006-01-18b.43102.h and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humber_Bridge the Humber Bridge actually cost around £100M on completion in 1981 and, through the magic of compound interest, this represents a debt of £300M+ today that will still take 29 more years to repay.

The current consequences of servicing that debt burden are river crossing toll prices that effectively prevent the transformational socio-economic benefits that the Humber Bridge was envisaged and intended to provide to the local Humber Valley community by linking North and South of the river.

How does this all relate to next-gen Fibre to Every Home/Business/School/Hospital in Hull and East Yorkshire in 2009?

Simply that delisting KCOM will create similar additional debt levels to those of the Humber Bridge and cause similar failure to deliver the transformatory benefits in terms of health, wealth and learning that the alternative of mutual-ownership of next-gen offers instead.

In other words, taking on that debt burden would create similarly lacklustre outcomes for the local community, if passed on as a cost increase impost upon local consumers for next-gen access.

Some say that KCOM is an inevitable part of any next-gen telecoms solution for the Hull Valley Humber Valley, whereas it actually represents a defined value asset source for passive infrastructure reuse plus a handy backup metallic path for civil contingency aka homeland security purposes.

KCOM has useful assets in, on and above the ground, from a next-gen perspective:

Local staff – worth keeping and reskilling as part of Fibrestream, in its role as design/build/operate partner of FibreUs, the mutual next-gen infrastructure owner.

Ducts, cabinets, poles etc – worth perhaps a £25M to £30M saving versus the new build alternative.

This is a tenth or less of the price, according to informed sources, that might be required to delist KCOM from the London Stock Market, both providing some measure of return to existing shareholders in so doing and settling its debts, so that its assets might be migrated across to next-gen via some self-funding transition, in turn governed by some new community-interest ownership structure, in place of the present PLC imperatives.

Which begs the question:

Why would any local community choose to saddle itself with a debt of 10x the extra cost of electing not to and opting for new building instead?

Each technology has its own merits:

Fibre to the Home (FttH) provides future-proofed fixed access

Wireless provides mobility and temporary or nomadic access

Each technology can also provide mutual redundancy, so that if one fails the other can keep the service operating uninterrupted

For permanent, fixed installations, FttH is the preferred delivery technology and wireless best provides access over short distances from Fibre feedpoints

In order to realise these benefits, this requires a quality, consistent and symmetric, same upload and download, of 1Mbps per staff member.

Elastic Domain Cloud Computing readily generates ongoing cost savings of 30% to 40% which is hugely significant when you consider a conventional 30 users business network has a 3 year Total Cost of Ownership of £150,000 or more.

This is an interview from BBC Radio Scotland, “The Business” with Graham Stewart  – podcast here from 17 Minutes 50 Seconds onwards and archived at the end of this post.

Transcript::

GS: Let me bring in Guy Jarvis, who runs telecommunications solutions specialists FibreStream – Guy you are very much engaged with the Next Generation of Communications Technology, what is it you offer?

GJ: We take an alternative approach to Next Generation Access, the simplest way to describe the Fibrestream difference is we say the First Mile rather than the Last Mile…

This is because where communications networks are concerned, its the people in communities, the businesses, particularly in rural areas, who pay for the services, who make it happen, so they need to be put first in this mix.

This means as much mutual NextGenUs ownership as it does the technology itself.

Our sense of The Carter Report is that it is not a bad report per se, it just a little bit conservative with small c in terms of its aspirations for the country.

GS: Why… 2017 for extra fast broadband, what’s wrong with that?

GJ: We are talking about aspirations, being world leading, let’s take just the two examples of the South Korean and Japanese Universal Service Obligations – 100Mbps upload and download today, their aspirations are for 1000 Mbps in 2012, this is in contrast to Carter’s 2Mbps download-only for 2012 and perhaps 50Mbps for 2017.

GS: Do we really need those speeds though?

GJ: Yes I think we do, if we are looking at the direction that business computing is moving in.

One of the really big growth areas is what’s called Cloud Computing which mean low cost machines in the business, less requirement for scarce and costly support staff on site as everything works remotely.

This is instead of having a lot of expensive equipment on the premises especially in rural areas where also there are often issues with power supplies and reliability.

GS: Final question to Danny  – As regards the economy of Scotland and the Highlands, are we at risk of remaining second class citizens on the global information highway?

Danny Alexander MP – I think there is a real danger of that and it is very interesting to hear what Guy has just been saying about other countries ambitions and I think we should be setting our ambitions for Scotland and the Highlands at the same level too  -the answer though is in our own hands….

scotbiz_20090621-snippet

RNLI NextGen Project

Covers the RNLI Humber project and touchs on the key message:

Next Gen Access is not primarily about the technicalities of FiWi – it is all about people, community and choices.

FibreStream is planning on rolling out fibre to an estate in Hull. Working with the Goodwin Development Trust, the network could eventually serve 5,000 people.

For residents it offers a cheap way to hook up to High Definition TV.

“The triple play of voice, ultra-fast broadband and TV is attractive to people. To get even free HD content involves having a satellite dish and a set-top box and not everyone can afford it,” said Mr Jarvis.

But there are some very real social benefits too.

Read the full BBC Story here