By: MarkJ - 30 January, 2012 (2:41 PM) - Score: 1385 - Fixed Line Broadband
The UK county of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough have shunned government concerns over the pace of their combined Local Broadband Plan (LBP) by putting out a new tender for the project, which could be worth between £70m and £100m +vat (total value of the contract over its life time).The county is seeking to ensure that 90% of all premises can access superfast broadband ISP speeds (30Mbps+) by 2015. But doubts were cast last week after the government warned that the region was at a "medium" (amber) risk of missing the deadline for submission of a "draft" LBP (here), which could result in related funding being withdrawn.
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough's Public Funding:The tender notes that "other funding sources, such as from EU Funding Streams" will also be sought. The private sector will then be expected to match any public investment, which at present would total (public and private money) up to just under £60m (absent of any additional EU funding).
• £6.75m from Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK)
• £23m from Cambridgeshire County and Peterborough City Council's
According to Ofcom UK, just over half (53%) of Cambridgeshire can already access a superfast broadband service and that figure rises to 76% in Peterborough. However 15.8% of Cambridgeshire receives a speed of less than 2Mbps, which rises to 18.2% for Peterborough.
Cambridgeshire's tender also appears open to a "consortium of suppliers acting as a single legal entity" or a single provider (e.g. BT or Fujitsu). In reality we've yet to see any successful consortium's come together for BDUK funding. Meanwhile BT has already secured a sizeable chunk elsewhere (e.g. Wales, Highlands and Islands), while Fujitsu appears to be struggling.
The Cambridgeshire Council's website describes superfast broadband as "more usually" being achieved by "substituting some of the copper with optical fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) – using new green cabinets in the streets"; a fairly obvious nod in BT's direction.
Many councils' are now rushing to meet the governments end of February 2012 deadline and we expect similar tenders to surface over the next few weeks. Credits to Thinkbroadband and Computing.co.uk for spotting the news.
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough LBP Tender
http://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:28993-2012:TEXT:EN:HTML
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Comments: 23
New_LondonerPosted: 31 January, 2012 - 5:04 AM
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Good to see that momentum is finally building with theese tenders. It will be a real shame if local authorities in some areas of the country don't get their act together in time to get moving on this - it's not as if timescales habe been limited!
NickPosted: 31 January, 2012 - 1:38 PM
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They are going to have a problem. Unless they use the BDUK (BT only) Framework, they aren't going to get any bidders for this except BT anyway. For a £100M project they will have to limit to companies with at least that turnover and all of those previously interested in such projects have all pulled out. And of course pulled out of projects where less than 70% of the funding was expected from the bidder. So for anyone except BT, a no-brainer no-bid.
DeductionPosted: 31 January, 2012 - 7:07 PM
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quote"The Cambridgeshire Council's website describes superfast broadband as "more usually" being achieved by "substituting some of the copper with optical fibre to the cabinet (FTTC)..."
Clearly brainwashed by certain organisations if they think "superfast" involves any use of copper.
I spose in nonsense speak pure fibre is "supery-dupery fast"
Good luck to them and the waste of several million on something that will need updating in another 10-20 years.
New_LondonerPosted: 31 January, 2012 - 9:41 PM
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^^^^
So what would you do? Not enough money for FTTP, so do nothing or get FTTC with speed of up to 80Mbps soon, potentially a lot more in the future?
NickPosted: 1 February, 2012 - 12:42 PM
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Do a tender properly, not designed to have only one winner, would be a good start (anything with BDUK attached to it is going to be a non-starter here)
If they really have the budget they say then FTTP for the majority of the unserved could actually be done, but not the way they will structure it unfortunately.
New_LondonerPosted: 1 February, 2012 - 5:33 PM
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@Nick
I'm pretty sure the councils would be very receptive of any approch to do FTTP across the area within the available budget.
DeductionPosted: 1 February, 2012 - 6:50 PM
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quote"So what would you do?"
Id have MOST of the cash to Virgin rather than BT and had it spent on a system that can do 4x that of FTTC.
For those to expensive to reach id had said the remaining funds go to a wifi supplier and typically upto 20Mb rather than the 2Mb the final 10% will be left with.
Would also be cheaper considering their system covered 50% APPROX of the country before the rollout of this FTTC rubbish even started. and for rurals and wifi no digging needed.
Theres also less chance (IN THEORY) of Virgin ducts being blocked, so easier job. In fact theres more chance everything is in an actual duct rather than just BT cabling only a foot or so under the pavement (NO DUCT) as it is in my street (AND NO IM NOT RURAL).
NOW WHATS YOUR PLAN........ Give it all to BT and hope?
New_LondonerPosted: 1 February, 2012 - 9:24 PM
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@Deduction
Quote "Id have MOST of the cash to Virgin..."
It hasn't been bidding, can't as it does not offer wholesale so a non-starter really as a plan. Sorry. And that's before you get into the detail about what happens when the coax runs out of capacity, but academic really as not an option.
Briecheese TotalpongPosted: 2 February, 2012 - 10:59 AM
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Anyone but BT would be better
New_LondonerPosted: 3 February, 2012 - 5:50 AM
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@cheesy
So let's see which companies bid, stick through the tender process to the end.
DeductionPosted: 4 February, 2012 - 3:12 AM
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Which companies are wholesalers and by your logic allowed to bid?
New_LondonerPosted: 4 February, 2012 - 7:10 PM
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@Deduction
See previous answers to this, anyone can offer wholesale if they choose to, it's a commercial decision. Examples include Fujitsu, Fluidata, IFNL, BT.....
DeductionPosted: 5 February, 2012 - 5:23 PM
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Who do fluidata wholesale to?
C&W are technically a reseller not a wholesaler.....Cable & Wireless plc demerged in 2010.
Fujitsu AFAIK do not wholesale to anyone either.
and other nonsense you want to make up?
New_LondonerPosted: 5 February, 2012 - 6:08 PM
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@Deduction
Who mentioned C&W? As for the others, suggest you look up who uses their networks, good to know that you're now a wholesale convert though?
DeductionPosted: 6 February, 2012 - 1:45 AM
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Fujitsu doesnt wholesale to anyone the consortium involved was scrapped.
C&W you mentioned in another news item you repeat the same spew in
Name the organisations Fludata wholesale (NOT RESALE) to.
None of who you mention apart from BT have a wholesale division.
New_LondonerPosted: 7 February, 2012 - 6:21 AM
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@Deduction
Obviously you're right, sorry! BT are in fact the only organisation that wholesales in the whole of the EU and the EU state aid rules are a BT-inspired conspiracy to ensure that only BT can qualify for state aid-funded projects anywhere in Europe.
DeductionPosted: 9 February, 2012 - 2:10 AM
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That sounds more plausible than the rest of your drivel.
New_LondonerPosted: 9 February, 2012 - 5:57 AM
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Odd that Shetland Telecom are in on the conspiracy too though!
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/story/2012/01/31/scotland-uk-releases-national-superfast-broadband-infrastructure-actio
n-plan.html?cpage=15#comment27
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/story/2012/01/31/scotland-uk-releases-national-superfast-broadband-infrastructure-actio
n-plan.html?cpage=15#comment28
DeductionPosted: 11 February, 2012 - 1:09 AM
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Dunno what you are talking about, Shetland dont wholesale either currently.
Still waiting on you to inform us all who Fludata wholesale to.
New_LondonerPosted: 14 February, 2012 - 1:30 PM
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@Deduction
To be clear on the point in question, the quote from ST was as follows:
"you do need to have wholesale services/products to comply with State Aid regs. It's a technical requirement which is in place to ensure that other operators can work on the publically funded network."
DeductionPosted: 15 February, 2012 - 2:48 AM
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Who do they wholesale to then?
Answer = Nobody
New_LondonerPosted: 16 February, 2012 - 2:47 PM
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@Deduction
As you can see from the same quote, they will wholesale when they have finished building the network. Premature to condemn them before it is even built!
DeductionPosted: 18 February, 2012 - 7:18 PM
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So they currently wholesale to nobody then.
Meaning your blabber about them having to provide wholesale before they can bid is just that... blabber
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