Q7. The UK government’s own Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) plan, which aims to make superfast broadband (25Mbps+) services available to 90% of the country by 2015, has recently faced criticism from both the European Commission (EC) and a House of Lords Select Committee Inquiry (here).
Both the EC and Lords inquiry appear concerned at the lack of competition in the BDUK tenders, with only BT and Fujitsu allowed to bid; Fujitsu has already withdrawn from several projects and smaller ISPs seem to have been economically excluded.
Related concerns have also been raised over the speed target (25Mbps+ vs the EU’s 30Mbps+) and lack of open access to BT’s Dark Fibre lines. What are your thoughts on these concerns and the state of the government’s current broadband strategy?
ANSWER:
The lack of competition was due to the process the councils initiated. It effectively eliminated altnets from bidding. Also the experiences with ‘superfast Cornwall’ when other suppliers couldn’t compete with an incumbent who already had the capability to deliver a limited service over existing copper infrastructure proved that the contracts weren’t worth bidding for.
The speed targets are a strawman, the real deal is to get infrastructure in place that can deliver whatever is needed into the future. The 25+ was chosen to make sure adsl2+ was not accepted as a standard, and to eliminate satellite service from funding.
BT will never allow access to dark fibre. They would be mad to, because it would break their business model. The government’s current broadband strategy seems driven by people who don’t really understand the technicalities, they are being led by the nose by the incumbent and they believe that copper can deliver a solution.
A further tranche of funding has been announced from the BBC digital switchover [ISPr ED: £300m to be spent between 2015 and 2017], let us hope that is used for Altnets this time, or at least to start a build out of parish pumps. Analysis mason say parish pumps would cost 1 billion. When you add matched funding to the £530 million already allocated to the Digital Britain project you can see that pumps would have primed a new build out of altnets.
Q8. What is the biggest challenge that you’ve faced so far?
ANSWER:
The biggest challenge was taking the final decision to press the GO button and actually start spending shareholders money. This was discussed at length, we set ourselves a target and worked out what we would need to raise, the cost to do the core, and the risk of failure. It was a big decision to make, knowing full well that we had no support from government or the council. This is not public money we are using, it is the share money from our community, who trust us to spend it wisely. It’s a big responsibility.
Once the decision was made and all the cogs started turning we’ve been faced with other challenges, the weather this year has been especially bad in this area, and our project relies on the farmers to help build it. They have been far too busy trying to get crops in for winter, so we have concentrated on the hub and getting the connection to be live.
Q9. What are B4RN’s future plans beyond phase 1?
ANSWER:
The immediate plans are to ensure that phase 1 is complete and functioning as intended, all the processes are in place and tuned accordingly. Beyond that, B4RN has already had requests for service outside of our initial areas but it is important we have the service right with the first phase before we move on. B4RN is provided by the community for the community so the priority is that it serves the community well rather than rush through providing service to additional areas before service is established in initial areas.
Once people can see what the B4RN service offers they will find ways to exploit it. We have already had people contact us regarding new ideas they want to explore once they have the connection. We expect this to increase.
END.
ISPreview.co.uk would like to thank Chris Condor for being kind enough to do this interview. Chris notes that an AGM will be held in October 2012, which should sort out the final company structure and update B4RN’s original business plan with the latest progress.
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