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.”

Newton and Stape (NANDS) are two adjoining parishes in deeply rural North Yorkshire where conventional broadband is patchy at best and non-existent for the majority of the 140+ homes and businesses present.

The NextGenUs NANDS project is the first of its kind in North Yorkshire and it is hoped that NANDS can be replicated to enable other local rural communities in the county of North Yorkshire and nationally to likewise benefit from super-fast symmetric connectivity.

Read more about this practical example of Notspot Elimination over at the NextGenUs blog

Something that was apparent as regards NGA is that we can see emerging a bipolarity between open access infrastructure with clear separation between access and services on the one hand and closed access infrastructure on the other hand, whereby the NGA proposition is delivered in a monolithic vertically integrated fashion.

Examples of the latter include satellite delivery eg. Avanti, mobile broadband via 3G and cable eg. Virgin Media in on-net areas.

An interesting question to pose is whether there is any particular technical reason why consumers should be obliged to take ISP services from their access provider at all.

Or put another way, why should consumers not be able to select their preferred ISP using cable, 3G or satellite connectivity as a dumb fat pipe, in the same way as is available for copper-based xDSL service today and via the work of COTS and NICC will be consistently available for ALA in the NGA near-term?

Certainly there are commercial and to some degree historical conventions at play here, however, fundamentally there seems to be no reason why, in a truly technology-neutral sense, consumers should have to take any further applications or content service from their baseline access connectivity provider.

The issue is important to consider in the context of possible public funding particularly for so-called White Areas aka NotSpots which are mostly found in the First Third of the UK, those mainly rural areas that are presently so poorly served for broadband and where arguably the need for reliable and capable connectivity exceeds that of urban areas.

If the consumer is to be assured of the maximum choice and best value proposition from NGA, regardless of where they live and by whatever means their connectivity is delivered then Open Access is surely a must.

The following video clips show how an ADSL broadband feed can be extended some 3KM to provide service to a farm house that is beyond the range of ADSL.

If you do not feel entirely confident and competent at performing any of the following tasks – then please don’t DIY and rather seek professional advice and/or installation.

Step 1 – [31 seconds] Replacing an A2 junction box with an NTE5 ADSL filtered faceplate – The property from where the broadband service is to be sourced, itself is on the very limits of ADSL, hence we need to ensure the best signal quality. By fitting a modern master socket at the earliest point of ingress into the property and connecting the ADSL router at that point, we extract the best performance available.

Step 2 – [20 seconds] How the drop wires were originally fitted to A2 junction box

Step 3 – [24 seconds] Cleaning contacts to ensure good connection

Step 4 – [36 seconds] Internal Wiring Colour Coding

Step 5 – [17 seconds] Using the Push-Down Krone Tool

Step 6 – [36 seconds] Performing dog, aerial installers and overview of the purpose of the wireless connection

Step 7 – [48 seconds] Wireless Aerial Pole attachment and cable run

Step 8 – [22 seconds] Cable run to point of property ingress

Step 9 – [94 seconds] How to bring internal wiring into NTE5 junction box

Step 10 – [21 seconds] NTE5 Test Socket

Step 11 – [28 seconds] NTE5 with Filtered Faceplate, the end result

step 12 – [17 seconds] Drilling a hole (note from inside to outside)

Step 13 – [22 seconds] Using rod to insert CAT5 cable through the wall

Step 14 – [36 seconds] 11KV Powerlines – capable of carrying Fibre too…

Step 15 – [54 seconds] UG Box maintenance

Step 16 – [53 seconds] remote end aerial and cable run

Step 17 – [51 seconds] Final internal WiFi installation and job done

First up, a 9 minute overview

Some early arrivals meet and greet – [20 Seconds]

More Convergence Conversations – [19 Seconds]

People Create Change – [25 Seconds]

NGA will be a Patchwork of diversely different and equally valid networks – [64 Seconds]

Funding Brickwall – [33 Seconds]

The Community Perspective – [153 Seconds]

Structural Separation of FttH Natural Monopoly – [239 Seconds]

Colloquium in Full Flow – [228 Seconds]

Great Thornton Street Estate Hull – a Case Study – [108 Seconds]

More videos to follow once uploads to Youtube completed – oh for symmetric NGA hey!

Full version of BSG COTS meeting courtesy Hull City Council here – [2 Hours]

A NextGenUs Open Source Consultancy Tool

Fibre Nears the Home

The next step towards next gen access is to bury the microducts and for that FibreStream is Shouting Out for RNLI.

For the lifeboat crew and their families to go out “on a shout” means the RNLI crew risking life and limb to save others in trouble at sea

Here’s your chance to help them in return

Fibrestream is leading the project to provide the latest FttH (Fibre to theHome) Next Generation of ultrafast broadband (100Mbps symmetric to start off with)  in partnership with Emtelle, AFL Telecommunications, LG Nortel, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust and Steve Medcalf Builders.

The fibre optic cables and ducting have been delivered to site and the next step is to bury them!

Which is where people who want to support RNLI come in – This is a shout to come down to Spurn, pick up a shovel and help the crew to dig their own fibre.

FttH is the future for HDTV, voice and ultrafast broadband and uses a Fibre optic cable all the way to each home doing away with the copper phone wires of old.

A whole raft of other advanced services like eHealthcare, TeleMedicine, Safe Access to the internet for school kids are all made possible by FibreStream Next Generation Access (NGA)

Fibrestream is proud to bring FttH to the crew and families of RNLI Humber, located in one of the most remote-rural parts of the country.

So c’mon if you want to lend a hand then please get in touch and together we can fix a day and get digging!

Email address – RNLIHUMBER at fibrestream.co.uk
Telephone – 01482 778 554 and leave your contact details

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.

Thanks Jane and Andy

Audio – 2H 10M to 2H 15M