Hereford Enterprise Zone Hunts for Ultrafast Fibre Optic Broadband Fix

The Herefordshire County Council are working to deliver an alternative “ultrafast broadband” solution to help businesses within the Hereford Enterprise Zone at Rotherwas, which can already receive expensive leased lines or cheaper FTTC connectivity from BT; but apparently neither of those are good enough.

Under the alternative plan the council is seeking a Joint Venture (JV) with an ISP partner that could help to build the areas underlying cable duct infrastructure, which would need to support an open access fibre optic infrastructure, with a view to some of the necessary investment eventually being returned to the authority.

Apparently two unnamed operators have already given an expression of interest and several more, including BT, Virgin Media, Airband, Gigaclear, Broadway Partners, Hyperoptic, ITS Technology Group and WarwickNet, are being mentioned as potential candidates.

Interestingly the four phase deployment has already begun, with the first and second phases being complete and installation costing around £300,000. The next (third) phase is now getting ready to be installed and the final phase, which is set to cost £175,000, will only follow if a partner for the scheme can be found (as above).

Council Statement:

EZ status provides a huge opportunity to fast track the build out of 170 acres of development land, creating 4,000 job opportunities over the 25 year lifetime of the zone. Access to good broadband is seen by Government as a major policy priority in establishing the zones. This is even more important in Hereford, where to exploit the zone’s full potential we need to address comparative locational disadvantages particularly in accessing physical transport infrastructure such as the motorway network.

Having ‘best in class’ broadband capability gives the zone first mover advantage as a business park and a competitive edge in attracting communication focussed and data hungry businesses. Without taking action, only BT FTTC (fibre to the cabinets) and leased line services will be available. These do not allow the site to be competitive against other areas, particularly with the increasing scope of the Super Connected City programme.

To undertake a joint venture development to deliver ultrafast broadband services requires an appropriate partner (or partners) to provide the necessary investment and technical capabilities. A respected company in the sector has approached the EZ with a view to undertaking a joint venture to commercialise the investment in duct infrastructure on the site having become aware of that investment. Their interest suggests that the approach is commercially viable.

The company in question has provided an outline proposal for a joint venture development. However, it is believed that the initial proposal may have scope for an improved commercial outcome for the council. Interest in undertaking some form of joint venture commercial arrangement has also been expressed by another local company – who already have a high bandwidth (1 Gbps) backhaul fibre connection to the site. Further activity to identify and select the most appropriate joint venture partner is considered necessary and appropriate to seek to ensure the best deal.

Overall the HEZ represents around 170 acres of development land at Rotherwas and the council are keen to attract plenty of hi-tech firms and big defence companies into the area, which they claim could in theory create 4,000 job opportunities over the 25 year lifetime of the zone. Credits to Thinkbroadband for pointing us to this development.