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.

In this Age of Austerity, here is a handy money-saving idea for HM Government that puts several hundreds of millions of pounds back into the Public Purse, then available for more important purposes that subsidising broadband.

Surely this is sacrilege?!

Everyone knows the Final Third won’t get superfast broadband without Taxpayer intervention right?

WRONG.

Before the last General Election, the Conservative Party took an eminently sensible position as regards delivering better broadband for Britain at best value for Taxpayers Money, along the lines of:

Create the conditions conducive to investment, mandate shared access to BT ducts and poles and let the market have the opportunity to deliver until 2012 then review where any exceptional intervention might be required.

Getting best value for Taxpayers Money would indeed be a refreshing change where broadband is concerned, notwithstanding the successes that have been achieved.

- over the years the UK Taxpayer has seen £100M+ wasted on non-sustainable broadband projects, endless consultancy, mapping databases of need and precious little delivery of service to people, the thing that actually matters.

- [see http://www.catchwater.net/abc/rdaspend from 9 March 2007]

There is neither luxury of time nor Public Money available to entertain a repetition of such wasteful Quangocratic tendencies.

Now is the time for JFDI – Just Finally Do It – time to get NGA building without further delay.

The problem today is that the Final Third is defined by the declared investment intentions of BT, namely that BT is investing to some extent into improving services for 66% of the UK population.

This private sector investment by BT is to be welcomed.

What is required from BT is clarity as to where, on a location by location, postcode by postcode basis there is not going to be investment

This defines the Final Third and is an area where perhaps regulatory and competition intervention by OFCOM may prove helpful.

And provides investment certainty for new entrants with alternative business models to step up where BT fears to tread it seems.

The NextGenUs private sector proposition is that the natural monopoly that is NGA is best governed in the Community Interest, putting the customers interests ahead of shareholders, otherwise local communities will miss out on a golden opportunity to rebalance the terms of trade for telecommunications.

An option at least worth thinking about by any community that wants to find better ways to create a future proof open access 4th Utility fit for purpose for the rest of the 21st Century.

Investment in NGA by the private sector in the Final Third is also presently hindered by uncertainty around Government intentions as regards State Aid intervention.

The forthcoming BDUK Industry Day on 15 July will hopefully help to clarify these matters.

Bearing in mind the Age of Austerity we now find ourselves in as a society, then here is a simple mechanism to ensure best value for limited Taxpayer intervention:

ATFF – After The Fact Funding

Put Taxpayers money towards rewarding those projects most that deliver the most connected customers in any given locality e.g. Parish, District, County.

ATFF incentivizes and encourages those projects where private and community sectors are most prepared to share the risk and step up
with their own money.

An additional benefit of rewarding results rather than promises of NGA Ubiquity is best value for Public Money and that can’t be bad.

According to the brass plaque above, the village of Ashby in Lincolnshire got its original Village Pump Utility back in 1887.

Now some 123 summers later, Ashby is getting its Digital Village Pump delivered.

What works in rural Lincolnshire can work across the country as a whole and the recent keynote speech by Jeremy Hunt MP, now the Secretary of State with responsibility for matters Notspot and Broadband, gives confidence that there is the political will to ensure the effective priming of these Digital Village Pumps, within the Austerity Imperative of ensuring best value for any penny of scarce Taxpayers Money employed.

There follows some thoughts and suggestions from the Final Third perspective as to the opportunities and pitfalls of delivering Digital Britain.

MediaKeynoteThoughts

Today’s Parliamentary Questions regarding INCA, CBN and BIS – The Noble Lord, Lord Laird continues to progress the Taxpayers Interest.

Lord Laird to ask Her Majesty’s Government to which departments or agencies applications for funding have been made by Community Broadband Network Ltd (CBN Ltd); how much those applications requested; and whether they will place in the Library of the House copies of the business cases, business plans and cash flow projections submitted by CBN Ltd to support applications.
HL309

Lord Laird to ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will investigate why on 17 December 2009 a grant offer was issued by the Director, Communications and Content Industries Directorate, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, to Independent Networks Co-operative Association (INCA Ltd) addressed to Mr Malcom Corbett, their chief executive; and why a payment of £32,750 was made on 15 March, while the terms of reference of the Scrutiny and Liaison Committee were in draft form. HL310

Lord Laird to ask Her Majesty’s Government how the Technology Strategy Board ensures that those who assess requests for funding for advice and projects on broadband and next generation access are impartial and have the appropriate qualifications, knowledge and experience. HL311

Lord Laird to ask Her Majesty’s Government who were the independent assessors who (a) have been assessing, and (b) will assess, the delivery of advice given on broadband and next generation access by Independent Networks Co-operative Association Ltd and Community Broadband Network Ltd; and what were or are their qualifications and experience. HL312

Lord Laird to ask Her Majesty’s Government what measures are in place for evaluating the benefits of advice given by, and any deployment of broadband and next generation access by, Independent Networks Co-operative Association Ltd and Community Broadband Network Ltd. HL313

Thanks to Andy Halliwell and the NWDA team for facilitating a most useful NGA Consultation Workshop at the Rheged Centre in Penrith, Cumbria on 28^th May 2010

More coverage shortly over at the Final Third First Campaign

This exercise brought together 50 or more stakeholders to debate and explore the issue of making World-Class NGA happen in Cumbria and the North West and is directly relevant nationally across the Final Third of the population.

There follows the combined FibreStream/NextGenUs consultation response:

A potential vision for next-generation access (NGA) in the region is summarised below.

The Northwest should have ubiquitous access to NGA as soon as possible, with 90% coverage being exceeded by 2015, and 100% coverage achieved by 2020. NGA will be provided by a range of retail providers in a competitive market to ensure that low prices and service innovation continue. The technology used to deliver NGA must be capable of delivering the connectivity required to support world-class applications to which businesses and consumers need access. The region will be globally competitive in the widespread use of NGA by all sectors of society.

This is an initial iteration and should be debated and evolved so that it is ambitious and achievable.

Q1. Do you agree with the vision? If not, what alternatives or changes would you make, and why?

A1. Yes in so far as no changes are required to what is stated as the vision.

Additional elements should be included that recognise the window of opportunity that NGA represents for local communities, namely the choice and chance to rebalance the terms of trade in favour of the community interest, on the basis that regardless of our day-jobs we are all 4^th Utility customers

– perhaps in the words “Any public sector intervention must act on the guiding principle of Putting People First, in recognition of both the once-in-a-century opportunity that NGA deployment represents and also the real risk of entrenching shareholder-value-driven local access network monopolies through inaction and thereby limiting the latent demand that NGA will otherwise fulfil for the betterment of current and future generations”

What is NGA?

For the purpose of the regional NGA strategy, the term ‘next-generation access’ refers to super-fast broadband that is enabled by replacing copper phone lines with fibre-optic cable (fibre) . There are three distinct types of NGA, as outlined below:

• Fibre to the premises (FTTP) where fibre is laid all the way from the telephone exchange to the customer premises, enabling symmetrical broadband services, typically of 100Mbit/s.

• Fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) where fibre is laid from the telephone exchange to street cabinets, enabling faster speeds over the short distance of copper wire that remains (this option is less expensive than FTTP, but performance is slower, particularly for upload speeds).

• Cable broadband using DOCSIS3.0, which has the potential to provide download speeds of up to 200Mbit/s. This technology is used by Virgin Media to provide its 50Mbit/s service.

However, it is worth noting that this network is not open access (i.e. no competitors have access to it) and it could be difficult to implement open access on a cable network.

Q2. Do you agree with the definition of NGA? If not, what alternatives or changes would you make, and why?

A2. Agree that FTTP and DOCSIS3.0 are credible NGA delivery types, FTTC, as recognised above, lacks the upload capability and remains cable-distance-dependent, both factors which do not make FTTC more than an intermediate stepping stone to NGA – this reality is recognised already in the statement above that:

“For the purpose of the regional NGA strategy, the term ‘next-generation access’ refers to super-fast broadband that is enabled by replacing copper phone lines with fibre-optic cable (fibre)”

It is good to see that BT’s BET is rejected as being fit for purpose, as per http://www.trefor.net/2010/04/20/isps-plunge-knife-into-bet-technology-digitalbritain-finalthirdfirst/ and http://www.fibrestream.co.uk/2009/09/23/bad-bet/

More seriously, the omission of wireless technologies, particularly as relevant to deeply-rural Final Third locations must be addressed – wireless has had and will continue to offer a vital bridging function to enable communities and businesses to benefit from effective connectivity until such time as Fibre can be built out to reach to the more remote areas.

– the suggested addition to the NGA definitions is “FiWi, the combination of ensuring Fibre Optic service delivery to within at least striking distance of a community, with Wireless delivery in the First Mile is a valid and useful means to deliver NGA services at low CAPEX cost, as a stepping stone to the 4^th Utility eNdGAme of end to end Fibre for future proofed fixed access”

NGA needs to be dynamically benchmarked against global standards of service delivery to customers i.e. maintained and upgraded as necessary to ensure fitness for purpose in global competition terms – it is vital not to become bogged down with specific speeds, particularly of the “upto” variety.

Strategic priorities

Following on from the vision for NGA, we believe that the single most important strategic objective should be:

The effective use of NGA by all, to participate and compete in the global economy.

Achieving this goal will then lead to the numerous economic and transformational benefits that are associated with NGA. This will put the Northwest in the strongest position to exploit the full benefits that NGA brings. The strategic aim is supported by four strategic priorities, as shown below:

Q3. Do you agree that ‘the effective use of NGA by all, to participate and compete in the global economy’ is the single most important strategic objective? If not, what alternatives or changes would you make, and why?

A3. There needs to be consideration beyond simply the narrow economic case, that extends to encompass both public Sector sevvice delivery and wider Quality of Life enhancement for each local community.

Suggested addition:

“and provide Quality of Life enhancement including for Public Sector Service delivery, including Healthcare, Education and eGovernment/tGovernment, that are fit for a developed 21^st Century Society”

Strategic aim and priorities [Source: Analysys Mason]

“The effective use of NGA by all, to participate and compete in the global economy”

Ubiquitous availability Range of competitive suppliers

Without ubiquitous availability the Having a wide range of suppliers in usage of NGA will be limited by the a competitive market will help to

proportion of citizens and drive innovation and lower costs to businesses that can access NGA end users

All of which maximises the

attractiveness of NGA

The highest levels of

adoption are key to

maximising the

economic and

transformational

benefits that NGA can unlock

World-class networks Attractive services

and applications

Networks need to be sufficiently Without attractive services and

advanced to support the applications for end users, the take-up

applications that deliver the of NGA will be limited

economic and transformational

benefits

Services need to be attractive to

both existing broadband users and

those who are currently digitally

excluded

The four strategic priorities help to support the widespread use of NGA in the region, which in

turn is the key driver for the benefits that are expected to arise from NGA. The activities that the

region takes should all be aimed at delivering these strategic priorities.

Q4. Do you agree with the four strategic priorities? If not, what alternatives or changes would you make, and why?

A4. Yes with the following additions:

Under Ubiquitous Availability, tie in the deliverable of “Unleash Latent Demand from local communities and businesses”

Under World-class networks, add the words “dynamically benchmarked to global best practice standards”

It is again vital to differentiate between the infrastructure that acts as the platform for NGA and the services, content and applications that run across that infrastructure;

The former is a natural monopoly in the first mile whereas the latter is naturally able to be open and competitive.

Therefore Structural Separation of the former, preferably with an ownership and governance model that puts the community interest first (e.g. externally regulated CICs) from the latter is both highly desirable and something that should be required wherever any Taxpayer funding intervention is being considered.

Activities to deliver the strategic priorities

We have looked in detail at the options for each of the four strategic priorities and have identified

activities that could be undertaken which are deliverable, practical, and will make a difference to

the region. These activities have then been grouped into five different areas as shown below.

Q5. Do you agree with the suggested activities? Are there other activities the region should consider, and why?

A5. Broadly yes – care needs to be taken to establish the true nature and extent of market failure by considering the market to be wider than the incumbent operators BT and Virgin Media.

A major cause of reluctance of new entrants into the 4^th Utility NGA market is the uncertainty regarding both where the Final Third is located (i.e. BT has announced they do not have a business case to privately invest themselves in the Final Third. Therefore the market requires certainty from BT as to which local communities this refers to so that investment decisions can be made for best use of capital).

Also it is important to establish that the plans the Public Sector, including NWDA, has to use taxpayers Money to address the Final Third issue will not end up distorting the market

• clarity and accuracy of plans and information are key.

Q6. What sectors should be the focus and priorities of the strategy activities? What is the rationale for your selection?

A6. Rural Depopulation is the key issue that NGA has the ability to effectively address therefore the focus must be on providing the 4^th Utility into those areas where businesses are materially disadvantaged by the current lack of fit for purpose connectivity – putting the Final Third First in fact, which will have an important stimulating effect on accelerating the rate of NGA roll-out in the areas containing the Two Thirds of the population that the incumbent operators have committed to invest into.

Q7. Where should intervention activities be prioritised (white, grey, or combinations thereof)? What is the rationale for your selection?

A7. Intervention activities should be focussed on those areas where true NGA is not going to be delivered by the incumbent operators.

It is important to recognise that these areas represent the majority of the land area of each affected county and region on a national basis and that therefore it is impractical (and in the current climate unfundable by the Taxpayer) to find the CAPEX required to simply overbuild NGA infrastructure.

Public Sector intervention needs to be SMART and several suggestions are as follows:

Reduce investment uncertainty by pinpointing the postcodes of Final Third communities in the region.

Public Sector has two main capability available to help:

1 – pay to build (and we have already identified that this is unrealistic on any comprehensive scale in the current and foreseeable economic climate)

2 – Commitment to pay to use – Public Sector has an important role to play in acting as an Anchor Tenant to support the overall Private Sector investment proposition in NGA;

Public Sector must guard itself carefully from being cherry-picked, a situation whereby tactical savings gained from aggregating Public Sector spend inadvertently lead to a strategic failure to realise the full benefits of NGA by hollowing-out the investment value proposition, to the enduring detriment of the wider community.

The work conducted by Devon County Council’s Economic Development Team is to be highly commended in terms of being an effective economic and GIS mapping correlation methodology and may act as a useful benchmark for other counties and regions nationally.

Finally, the application of pressure upon BT to open up as Points of Presence (PoPs) their existing and largely amortised fibre assets associated with the decade-old COLOSSUS network that reaches over 5000 active exchanges nationally, and thereby radically reduce the tyranny of distance that disadvantages unfairly rural areas due to distance based Middle Mile connectivity charging, is something to be encouraged across all levels in Government and community.

info@nextgenus.net

31 May 2010

From a Final Third First perspective, the most interesting speaker was undoubtedly BT’s Simon Roberson who presented the following slide:

BT Confirm Final Third is Outside Planned Investment Envelope

What is clear (and highlighted in yellow above) is that 34%, the Final Third, is now confirmed as being beyond BT’s plans for NGA investment.

This is an important step towards providing the certainty that emerging independent networks, localised initiatives and new entrants into the NGA space require in order to commit their own funds towards delivering the Final Third First

Simon was asked at the event to go that simple step further – please identify the postcode areas where BT will not be investing in NGA.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, a ready answer was not forthcoming beyond some vague talk of each local area being assessed on its own merits on a case by case basis.

This issue needs a rapid solution, which in turn may require political input from Messrs Vaisey and Cable to steer OFCOM in the right direction, namely:

OFCOM must instruct BT to publish at the earliest opportunity either the list of postcodes for the 66% of the population where BT will be investing, or the Final Third postcodes where it will not, or preferably both.

That way, alternative non-incumbents First Mile NGA providers like NextGenUs UK CIC will have the opportunity to make derisked private sector investment decisions, safe in the knowledge that for some defined period, 5 years perhaps.

During this period, BT will be barred from selectively stepping into any such previously-identified non-commercial area which would risk chilling investment by damaging the local independent community interest CAPEX proposition before it has had chance to mature and become established.

This methodology will in turn have the added benefit of minimising the scale and nature of any residual Public Sector intervention requirement, very much in line with the Conservatives’ pre-election position re NGA

Thanks to Lindsey Annison’s pointer, here is an excellent blog post from Geoff Daily at App Rising on both the problem and solution for fixing fixed NGA for the UK

Well said Geoff! – you go right to the heart of both the UK NGA problem and point to a key part of the solution.

An option for SMART government intervention, maximum bank for buck, is to act as underwriter for that most local level of democracy and taxation, the Parish Council.

Parish Councils can levy precepts for the provision or upkeep of services in the common good.

A century ago, Parish Councils were instrumental in pioneering the provision of utility services we now take for granted e.g. piped water, electricity.

NGA is the 4th Utility, so it follows that there is a 21st Century role for the Parish Council Precept (PCP).

The challenge for local communities, across a patchwork of perhaps 15,000 localities spread across the UK in predominantly-rural areas, is how to make the significant CAPEX costs involved with FiWi deployment digestible for the local community.

By underwriting centrally, the Westminster Government could simply enable each Parish Council to spread this CAPEX over a decade or two, rather than a year or two.

County Councils are the obvious and natural choice as intermediaries in this process

- John Marsden, until recently Chief Executive of North Yorkshire County Council, acted to test the subsidiarity proposition that Parish Councils are best placed to determine (and also reinvigorated by) local solutions, which in turn resulted in the successful NextGenUs NandS NGA FiWi project in Newton & Stape in the North Yorkshire Moors.

The incoming Government, particularly Dr Vince Cable (BIS) and Mr Ed Vaisey (Broadband), has a golden opportunity here:

Combine this PCP funded approach with Government action in directing the £200M (perhaps still ring-fenced from the Digital Switchover fund?) available for the “2Mbps USC by 2012″ Digital Britain Report deliverable into making available Digital Village Pumps (Isenberg’s Dumb Fat Pipes) and achieving the Final Third First is now within reach.

The NextGenUs NGA Testbed is now officially live in Hull and Humber.

This NGA Testbed Trial supports 1000 Residential Subscribers on Phase One, serving a nationally-representative range of socio-demographics and locations from Inner City Urban to Remote Rural.

Heartfelt thanks must go to Councillor John “Digibobbins” Robinson and his trusty Knowledge Manager, Steve Fleming of Hull City Council.

Let the fun commence!

Here is a lovely report from Country Week, the rural magazine of the Yorkshire Post, regarding the NextGenUs NANDS project in North Yorkshire.

http://nextgenus.blogspot.com/2010/04/making-final-third-happen.html

This is really not good enough and puts into question BT’s assertions that they are genuinely wanting to work with OFCOM, industry and communities to deliver Digital Britain.

Is BT too big to care?

Structural separation of Openreach from BT Group is now urgent, in the National Interest.

There follows part of an email received from a senior Openreach Ops Manager by an active rural CIC who applied to share a pole run, there is nothing  ’confidential’ about it and it has not been altered from the original.

“I am aware of the recent discussions and media interest in duct sharing & pole sharing with other telecoms providers, and I am sure you are aware that no such agreement is currently in place.
Ofcom has said that BT must develop the proposition around duct and pole access as they see it as a way of potentially driving more NGA deployment in areas where BT has no plans to roll out.

BT may have an initial view of a duct product by December 2010, and a launched product available around May 2011, but these dates are aspirational. A product for poles is likely to take a few months longer.

 
BT has already said that it is willing to open its ducts, subject to working through the right terms and conditions, including price, and all the practicalities, and will do this, through the Ofcom consultation response and through subsequent trials and product developments.

It will not be possible to shortcut this process at a local level with all of the safety, security, maintenance, charges and responsibilities undefined; and there are different proposals suggested depending on the different telecom structures around the country.
The reference to BT sharing poles with Electric Distribution companies is true for some parts of the country at the discretion of the power company concerned who own the poles. The permission for each individual pole concerned has an independent wayleave associated with it along with very strict conditions of use, responsibilities and rights. There are no circumstances where power companies share BT poles.”