London Firms Seek Open Fibre Network to Replace Costly Private Circuits

Perseverance Works, which is a unique company and community that represents around 400 people running their own businesses from the creative hub of Shoreditch in London, has put out a new tender document in the hope of attracting a supplier that could deliver an ultrafast open access fibre optic network into the area.

The tender outlines the importance of good connectivity to the PW’s long term development and warns that the existing “piecemeal solutions“, which usually involve expensive private circuits (£6k-£12k pa) that carry large extra construction charges each time a new need is identified, are no longer suitable for the area.

Apparently all the legacy PSTN with DACS and ISDN2e services remain in place, while the private circuit capacity to the site is “under-utilised and un-shared“. As a result PW wish to appoint a supplier that could deliver an “open access, future proof solution to all premises on site“.

Perseverance Works Tender Statement

While PW and PHY will install passives in all 80-plus locations, take-up of service will be gradual as existing contracts need to run their course and customers gain confidence in the new infrastructure and service partner.

We would expect a minimum of 10 customers taking immediate 100Mbps symmetrical contended connectivity services. By the end of year five all 89 tenant customers will be using the network infrastructure, replacing a substantial part of, if not all, the current communication expenditure with services consumed on the access network installed.

We would therefore like to see a five-year proposal where at the end of each year 20 additional customers are consuming a connectivity service. We are requesting a pricing proposal which reflects this growth, where annual bandwidth charges fall for existing customers as more bandwidth is consumed by more tenants.

The tender said that tenants were “not seeking a reseller of private circuits” but a communications partner capable of taking “the potential of the proposed access mediums on-site and allowing site users to consume connectivity services as their needs expand.”

The tender, which appears to have the support of local MP Meg Hillier (Labour Member of Parliament for Hackney South and Shoreditch) who visited the site and took the matter to a committee, is due to close for review on Friday 22nd November 2013. A final decision on the successful provider is then expected to be reached by mid-December 2013.