Tag Archive for 'community'

NGA closer to home

Published on June 28, 2011 in Adrian's tech blog. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Over the past six months or so I’ve been sitting on Oxfordshire’s Working Group considering how we might make the best of our  landscape. Oxfordshire is the most rural county in the South East, making it challenging for , yet it also generates many more high-technology start-ups than most – not an easy balance to achieve, especially when you realise that, unlike Cambridge with its science parks, many of these small business that will lead the UK out of our economic woes are as likely to appear in converted barns in Cotswold villages as they are in the  dreaming spires.

The process, similar to many up and down the country, has taken the County Council into new territory and has required much scratching of heads, but it now feels like the group is close to a strategy which is ambitious both for the public sector and our economy,  making the most of the county’s resources; not the least of which is smart people. Hopefully the draft strategy will soon be published and you can judge for yourself but at the moment I’d have to say that if the council leadership approve the last draft I saw then they will be one of the council’s to watch.

While this was going on at a county level, communities were beginning to come together to work out what they wanted to do – when broadband was being deployed the first time around the county spawned more than its fair share of broadband programmes and networks. Blewbury, a village with long standing broadband problems, was one of the first to put its head above the parapet this time, winning the “Race to Infinity “, shortly followed by Chipping Norton and its hinterland.

At Oxfordshire’s recent Digital Summit, the County Council’s Deputy Leader David Robertson gave his support to projects that build on the ’s ‘’ ideals, and the Chipping Norton ambition certainly embodies that. “Chippy” has looked at its options and decided, for economic and social reasons, that while FttC  may fix the town’s problems for the time being, it won’t help many of the villages that rely on the town, and that ploughing ahead on its own would make a marginal business case for investing in the surrounding area impossible.

Take the small village of Chadlington in the Wychwood Forest and just outside Chippy – it has its own small telephone exchange but all the homes and businesses (including the Prime Minister’s) are connected straight to the exchange – there are no cabinets in Chadlington so FttC is not really an option. And rather than condemn villages like Chadlington to a broadband wilderness, the group is looking to install fibre optic network all the way to every home and business across the entire hinterland.

The group are also being both innovative and realistic when it comes to investment. This is a major project in a hard to reach area, and any funding from BDUK is like to amount to no more than perhaps 5% of the sum needed. They recognise that a venture such as this needs all the stakeholders to help in anyway they can, not just the telecoms industry and the public sector, but also local people and businesses. So the group is looking at how their plans for  a wholesale open access network can be owned and financed in part by the local community.

The group has already attracted financial support from the INCA’s Big Society Broadband Fund to carry out the initial feasibility study – some of their findings will soon appear in the Knowledgebase. They are now looking to gain wider public support and, in partnership with the City, raise community investment for the project.

Led by an old friend of mine who lives in the town, Neil Homer is a social entrepreneur with an urban and rural planning strategy background, the contributors to the project draw on the wide range of sage expertise you find in villages in this part of the world, including my old colleagues from Oxfordshire Rural Broadband  who delivered the first generation of broadband to west Oxfordshire (the group cut his broadband teeth on when he was an MP-in-waiting).

This is the big society writ large, and very different from the pioneering projects in Alston and Wray – this isn’t a community that would find it easy to dig trenches but they bring a whole lot of other things to the party which make next generation broadband possible.

With a County Council preparing what I hope will be an ambitious strategy for the county and the likes of Chipping Norton taking a lead, it feels like Oxfordshire may be something of a waking broadband giant. Fingers crossed!

Transition Chipping Norton is hosting a public meeting on 6th July at 7:30 in the Town Hall to explain to the communities in and around the town just how they can benefit and how they can get involved.

Mixed Ambitions

Published on May 28, 2011 in Adrian's tech blog. 24 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

Or why this isn’t an IT project.

Last year, when announced the BDUK competitions, I commented at the time that it felt like ambition was back on the agenda.

A year on, is really beginning to play out – or perhaps more accurately, a developing understanding of what it might mean is beginning to grow  as local authorities construct their strategies. This process has created a space for communities, the public sector and the telecoms industry to have a dialogue.

As with any organic and new process, progress is far from uniform – in some places communities are developing a stronger voice; in other the local authority is taking a stronger lead; and some parts of the industry have been more receptive than others. In some areas progress has been rapid, and in others painfully slow.

If there is a criticism of the new localism agenda, it is this.

Local authorities have spent more than a decade increasingly micro-managed. There has been little reason to consider risks in their corporate strategy as they were largely told by how and what to prioritise. There has been little reason to open a dialogue with local communities because there was little scope to adapt to their needs.

Localism has put this process sharply in reverse – local authorities now need to consider their appetite for risk and to match it with their communities ambitions and needs – yet these skills no longer come easily to many councils. This isn’t a criticism of councillors or council officials – its simply a reality.

In fact, to their credit, many councils have risen to the challenge – at times it may be faltering but nevertheless localism is happening and I suspect it feels rather liberating.

But in some areas it has proved harder – the tools with which to form a dialogue with communities have been harder to muster, and the risk associated with taking risks has been too difficult to contemplate.

A common theme among these areas is that they typically draft in the IT department to lead their bid, assuming that developing a broadband strategy is a technology process which can be developed from the centre and in isolation using their specialists. Its not!

  • Broadband plans are about the local economy and competitiveness,
  • Broadband plans are about how local services are delivered,
  • Broadband plans are about people and businesses.

Local authorities who hand their broadband strategy over to their IT department will ultimately be as disappointed as if they had handed teaching or social work over to them.

IT is an enabler that helps to solve real world issues; broadband is just a tool they might use that cuts across every possible policy area. The strategic basis of a broadband plan must be in the hands of people who deal with those real world issues.

Look to . Ed is a multi-faceted person but he’s not a technologist, he doesn’t surround himself with geeks, and yet he fully understands the impact a good broadband strategy will have on the creative industries and media, rural areas and the wider economy.

Rory Stewart has seen the benefits of localism and the impact broadband could have on his rural constituency without resulting to a discussion on bits, bytes and symmetry.

The certain disappointment of not following their lead may be hard, expensive and slow to rectify as well.

If neighbouring areas solve this problem better then rate-paying businesses will begin to migrate, making the rural areas a place to retire to rather than grow a business.

If businesses migrate, younger people will migrate to find the work.

And an area with relatively poor infrastructure means even elderly people will slowly migrate as the services which would keep them in touch with their families and allow them to stay in their homes longer won’t be there.

The risk associated with avoiding risks is much higher than developing a measured appetite that allows local ambitions to be met.

Being ambitious for your locality is the less risky path to tread.

Why waiting to bid for BDUK may be the smartest option . . .

Published on April 15, 2011 in Adrian's tech blog. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

. . . at least until after the 9th of May.

This advice is probably too late for some local authorities so apologies for the unhelpful suggestion to those who’ve sweat blood in the last few weeks and put together a submission to BDUK already. But if there’s any doubt in your mind that your bid isn’t quite what it might be then take my advice, submit an Expression of Interest and delay.

made it quite clear at Peter Aldous’ Suffolk event last week – the money doesn’t run out next week – there is funding available for many more bids after next week’s closing date – and its far more important to get it right than get it early.

Why delay? In recent weeks there have been a number of significant announcements and movements in the broadband landscape that need to be carefully considered, and which could have a fundamental impact on your bid.

Up until the last week or so much of the discussion surrounding many local authority bids has focussed on (PSNs), regional backbones and digital village pumps. This was always only half of the story – a very important half but never enough to make a successful bid to BDUK.

The really hard bit is the access strategy – how do you get from the village pump to homes and businesses?

Strategies which simply delegate this responsibility to a locally unaccountable multinational is at best a fairly risky option, especially when we are in a new world of  and the .

Wishing to hand over responsibility for the access strategy is understandable – its complex and costly, a long way outside most people’s core competence. These are the holy trinity of criteria traditionally used for outsourcing. And certainly these are very good reasons why most if not all local authorities should not be attempting the access network themselves but the traditional options aren’t necessarily the only ones on offer.

There isn’t a business case for a top down deployment of next generation broadband for good reasons – and its not just about cash. Its certainly true that its very expensive to put fibre in the ground, regardless of how deep into the access network it reaches, but that isn’t the only, or even perhaps the biggest, reason a top down approach doesn’t work.

The demography and landscape of the UK varies tremendously; the desires, aspirations and capabilities of the UK’s communities vary tremendously. These factors naturally suggest more than one technical solution and more than one investment profile. A traditional top-down telecoms model only works where a common solution can be applied to the widest possible population. So delegating the access strategy to company offering a traditional approach is likely to result in a lowest common factor solution rather than an optimal solution which unlocks the more ambitious in your economy.

Three good reasons are emerging which mean there are now alternatives and mean you should delay bidding to BDUK.

The most obvious perhaps has been Fujitsu’s announcement that it intends to build a fibre to the home (not cabinet) solution to 5m homes and businesses in rural areas. Their press release suggested this was not just a traditional top-down steam-roller deployment:

“The collaboration will actively support the involvement of local broadband groups, enabling dynamic and flexible solutions in rural communities for the first time”

At the moment it isn’t clear what that involvement will mean but the approach so far  has been much more inclusive than other major announcements by the industry – something anyone developing a BDUK bid needs to at least contemplate.

Secondly, the Big Society Broadband partnership’s knowledge-base, offering advice on how to approach rural broadband, will soon be published. Work put together by a wide array of experts including INCA, the Plunkett Foundation and ACRE. Plunkett’s experience of sustainable rural enterprise is being joined by ACRE’s network of rural community councils and the collective knowledge of INCA members’ of delivering .

And finally, but certainly not least, city institution Jendens, have been beavering away behind the scenes for some months looking at scalable models which the City can be comfortable investing in while delivering that rich tapestry of local solutions.

While they may not be a name your have heard of, their knowledge of franchise structures, large-scale investment, and the telecoms industry makes their announcement very significant, bringing a fresh and exciting new approach to solving the final third problem. Their approach cracks the knotty problem of  how marry top-down and community-up approaches into a nationally deliverable, sustainable, and flexible model.

Jenden’s have released a document which describes their approach of enabling local authorities to create a menu of options for their county, allowing each community to enjoy a broadband solution that closely reflects their needs, capabilities and aspirations; the franchise structure can then attract local and national investment, and match the right organisation to build and operate the network in partnership with the local authority and community. The commonality of the franchise model makes it scalable and attractive to external investors and the service provider market while the flexibility of local franchise companies ensures solutions support local conditions.

The franchise model and the Big Society Broadband partnership’s approach have a lot in common, and together offer a new perspective on delivering a county-wide access strategy. This and Fujitsu’s announcement mean that if you have any doubts about your bid to BDUK then delay.

Jenden’s are co-hosting an event with INCA and the Big Society Broadband partnership on the 9th May in London

If you’re directly involved in developing your BDUK bid, click here to reserve your place.

The broadband landscape just got a lot more exciting!

A framework for localism – from pump to home

Published on March 28, 2011 in Adrian's tech blog. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Local authorities across the UK are readying themselves for the BDUK process – some are in the process of issuing tenders, others preparing their bids to BDUK for the next wave, while others are doing the hard graft of getting their local plans ready for later in the year.

A common theme among many plans is to use to deliver digital village pumps – points where local access solutions can emerge, relying on a school or GP network connection as back-haul. This requires that the core network procurement needs is drawn up alongside the for delivering the access network. Without both, how can tender responses for the backbone be judged if the strategies, plans and aspirations of those expected to become stakeholders and customers haven’t been considered?

BUT not every has the same capability; not every has the same aspirations; and not every has the same access to resources.

A village pump strategy needs to understand and support every type of community within a seamless and sustainable access framework. The uniqueness of each community is at the heart of the agenda of the , and the local broadband access strategy is one of the first – and best – places the policy can become reality.

Trying to construct a regional model which is able to support every community in a manner which plays to their strengths and aspirations is challenging, and requires careful and creative thinking.

Some communities will be perfectly happy with a “race to infinity” where they need do little more than express a vague intention to buy something delivered to their door, and where their demands for speed can be met by a lower-cost technology like wireless or fibre to the cabinet (FttC). While this type of community is perhaps the easiest to support, it also generates the weakest investment profile and applying this lowest common denominator approach across a county would deny more energetic communities of the opportunity to express their capabilities and to demonstrate their ambition.

Some communities will want to become stakeholders, perhaps investing their own money or digging the trenches for a permanent solution to the broadband needs. Its the ambition of these groups that will drive the future  innovation and economic growth in a county, so its critical that their ambitions are supported alongside less technologically needy communities.

However, based on my email box, phone calls and conversations I sense that communities are becoming confused as often there seems to be less clarity surrounding the community access strategies than their is about the development of a joined-up local PSN. The access network is the most expensive and challenging part, and reflecting differing community needs and capabilities is hard but it is necessary for a successful local broadband plan.

In an earlier article I commented on the apparent lack of the manifesting itself in some local authority strategies. Developing a county-wide access framework which encompasses a range of solutions that can engage communities of all needs and aspirations fixes that. It certainly isn’t easy, and it will require creative and new thinking, but there is help available.

There are people who can help develop a community engagement programme that goes beyond a demand registration site; others who can build an investment case that leverages both city and community funds; and other still that can help shape the technical choices and delivery models that leave the community as stakeholders in a solution that fits their purpose, from within a coherent framework which can be delivered across the county.

In the coming weeks there will announcements regarding practical help and support for local authorities, communities, and network operators developing inclusive access strategies but If you’re in the middle of this work now contact me and I’ll put you touch.

Chicken or Egg – Broadband or PSN?

Published on February 11, 2011 in Adrian's tech blog. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

As Local Authorities around the country are beginning to scramble to prepare for the competitions, a question seems to be hanging over everyone and is largely going unanswered: Which comes first – the PSN or the ?

A good number of local authorities are rolling their internal networking needs into the wider infrastructure project, which is tending to result in a PSN process leading the strategy and a fairly traditional ensuing. But its not clear to me that this is always the best approach.

Certainly the public sector is normally one of the biggest customers of broadband in any geography, and knowing that there is a willing anchor tenant certainly improves the business case but using the PSN as the basis for the procurement isn’t quite the same thing – the combined weight of the SME and consumer markets are considerably larger than the combined weight of the public sector, so procuring the network in the image of the smaller stakeholder doesn’t seem to make sense.

The case for broadband infrastructure can be made with or without the immediate custom of the public sector, while the existence of a next generation infrastructure will certainly make the procurement of a PSN easier and more powerful. Adding the promise of public sector business alongside that of local businesses and domestic customers helps the case – it doesn’t make it alone.

So if the public sector is seen as one of the stakeholders rather than the lead, how does this change the approach?

For any number of reasons, the procurement of a PSN means a traditional procurement exercise with a single county-wide winner. There is a relatively small pool of possible winners, all from the more traditional end of the market – it would be unlikely that Rutland Telecom or Vtesse, for example, would seriously consider bidding for a PSN contract, yet they are two of the most innovative network operators in the UK today and have demonstrated their ability to provide the kind of platform on which a flexible and high-speed PSN might be based.

Each locality will need to adopt its own approach, reflecting local needs and opportunities, as it prepares to bid for BD-UK cash. This may, in some areas, lead to a single big contract being awarded but its not the only approach, and its not one that easily meets the diverse needs of many geographies.

A more nuanced approach is likely to lead to some kind of framework, made up of a variety of providers coming together with a diverse set of stakeholders, each with their own needs and capabilities.

One such approach might adopt the LEP process, with  communities or parishes that naturally associate with each other joining forces as combined elements in a county-wide framework.

  • Some of these areas will have money to invest;
  • Some may be happy to sign pre-orders as collateral;
  • Some will dig the trenches;
  • While others will race for infinity.

Such a framework will attract a wider range of bidders, greater scope for investment, and a more creative solution able to optimise every inch of every county.

A PSN built on such a rich and diverse infrastructure, based on known and existing standards, will generate a greater scope for service transformation and the development of stronger partnerships with local people and businesses.

For me, the broadband comes first – the PSN is one of its anchors.

Communities see the case for broadband investments – the proof

Published on November 19, 2010 in Adrian's tech blog. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

I met Rutland Telecom during the week on Exchange business and we got talking about their success. Its been clear to me for a long time that for a great many areas (but not all) what they need is a new business model rather than grants to companies that helps to buffer established but inappropriate  . Rutland Telecom is a great example of a company that has understood the new landscape and successfully moulded a sensible, sustainable business model around it.

Rutland use funds invested with them by communities to build well within the “final third” – the areas traditional operators find almost impossible to invest in. They have very successfully constructed an investment model which gives them access to capital and provides the with a fair rate of return on their cash – shared .

During the chat, they told me that they recently issued dividend payments to their earliest projects, and that some of those initial investors asked Rutland to roll-up the interest and re-invest the sums in other communities. While larger, more established companies are struggling to see the investment case for in some of the UK’s hard to reach areas, the people who live there can – and with Rutland Telecom do.

It was clear from talking to them that we can expect to hear more exciting stories from Rutland in the near future but I’ll let them tell you about that first!

In the mean time, if anyone tells you there’s no commercial investment case for broadband in your area – be polite but smile wryly, turn away and look towards England’s smallest county.

Oxonline

Published on September 30, 2010 in Adrian's tech blog. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Recently there has been a run of really good events around the country, and last weekend was the turn of Oxfordshire. It’s been such a manic week that I haven’t had time to write much about the event but I’ve had several requests for my presentation from the event. The wonders of Powerpoint mean the slides doesn’t run too well in anything other than Office 2010 so feeling I needed to do something I’ve converted the slide-deck a video. So here is the (so far silent) movie:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7in2JudXvj4

When I get a moment I’ll try to add a narrative and make it slightly less dull.

Ambition is the new agenda

Published on July 18, 2010 in Adrian's tech blog. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Last Thursday I attended the ’s Industry Day where they laid out their key policy framework and work programme for and the . If you hung around just long enough to hear , and Caroline speak, and with only one ear on what was being said while you rushed to submit your copy you might be forgiven for thinking this was another platform where the new government blames the old for a delay in delivering on a promise – BUT you’d be VERY wrong.

Before the election two phrases kept cropping up – “We’re in this together” and “Big Society”. For me, Thursday’s event was possibly the first time I’d seen a concrete example of what that meant in real terms. What was announced wasn’t a policy which handed large sums of money to a semi-state organisation to proscribe how better broadband would be delivered from on high. Instead we heard from Ministers explaining what their role was in defining and delivering the future, what we could reasonably expect from , and what needed to come from others.

We heard how the Government will remove barriers to investment and create the structures necessary to support local communities in defining their own broadband futures, and how industry would be encouraged to support that process, enabling a smart division of skills that could solve all but the most intractable of broadband problems.

And we heard from a Minister with a vision of 50 Mbps symmetrical services reaching most people by the end of this delivered by the combined efforts of Government, industry and communities. I suspect that sent a few shivers through Whitehall but knowing the people involved I’m sure they are universally excited by the challenge.

Starting immediately is a month long consultation seeking paper solutions to three paper broadband problems. These will be used to shape the Government’s support programmes, ensuring both commercial and organisations receive the right kind of support in the right manner. At the same time, the English regions and the devolved assemblies are each being asked to construct a long-list of areas they want to benefit from next generation broadband. From this, Broadband Delivery UK () will announce the location of three real market testing projects in September and begin a tendering process to find the right mix of commercial and community players to make them a reality. From these projects they aim to learn about the impact of state aid, forms of broadband registration and demand stimulation, and infrastructure sharing open access models.

While this is going on, BD-UK will be negotiating with the EU towards a national state aid agreement which for the first time since dial-up modems were in short trousers will provide clear guidance to local authorities on what they can and can’t do.  State Aid legislation has been a bigger block to UK investment in broadband than almost any other, with state sponsored projects crippled by fear of challenge or paralysed by years of rulings before they can begin work. The first roadblock gone – and with it gone, a new process will be in place to unlock the public networks which already reach many of our most remote communities.

Secondly work will push ahead on infrastructure sharing including the opening up of BT’s ducts as well as other assets like the sewers and culverts. This is a knotty problem and not a panacea but an important element in making the UK an easier place to invest in. Second roadblock going.

With all this work hopefully complete – the lessons from the market testing projects learnt, infrastructure hopefully opened up, and state aid put to bed – the Government will announce the main programme of work next year to support local delivery of super-fast broadband, supported by what they termed “mid-level ” to make it easier for the service providers to link to homes and businesses. This time next year we will be well prepared for the main challenge ahead.

Did I hear all the answers on Thursday?No
Does that worry me?Quite the opposite – I’m relieved!
Am I excited?Absolutely!

For the first time in a long while, ambition is back on the agenda. Whether we actually achieve at least 50Mbps symmetrically to every corner of the UK doesn’t matter nearly so much as the way it will change the shape and aspirations of an industry, and the people and businesses that it serves. The journey matters as much as the arriving, and we are on our way.

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