Labour Calls for North Swindon to Stop UKBN Wireless Broadband Rollout

The Labour Leader for North Swindon, Jim Grant, has called on the council to stop spending public money on the construction of a superfast (24Mbps+) fixed wireless broadband network from UKB Networks because it is now in “direct competition” with BT and Virgin Media’s new “fibre” networks.

The history of broadband connectivity in North Swindon (Wiltshire) is a long and politically convoluted one. Until recently most premises in the northern half of the town suffered from a lack of access to faster “fibre broadband” because, according to the Swindon Borough Council, neither BT (Openreach) nor Virgin Media had showed much concrete interest in upgrading the local fixed line infrastructure.

After trying and apparently failing to secure an agreement with the two big boys, the local authority eventually contracted UKB Networks, at a cost of £1.9 million, to build a new 4G based Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) network that could deliver a minimum 24Mbps download speed. This aimed to reach over 19,500 homes and businesses in the intervention area (13,000 were in outlying rural areas).

However, many in the local area continued to campaign for “fibre” connectivity and some were able to disrupt UKBN’s deployment plans (example). Nevertheless UKBN proceeded with their deployment, although this occurred at about the same time as Virgin Media (Project Lightning) and BT both seemed to be having a slow change of heart.

Last year Virgin Media announced that their ultrafast cable broadband and TV network would be extended to 7,000 premises in North Swindon (here) and this was followed two weeks later by a similar commitment from Openreach (BT), which pledged to reach 6,500 premises with their FTTP service (here). BT are also testing their new G.fast technology with 19,800 premises in the town (here).

Suffice to say that the contract with UKBN has now been put under some strain.

Councillor Jim Grant said (Swindon Advertiser):

“North Swindon residents have always said they wanted fibre optic broadband and now they are getting it I think it would be wrong to invest taxpayers’ money to fund direct competition to BT. Especially competition that residents don’t want.

Frankly, local residents and the Labour Group have said from the very beginning that the Conservative cabinet were embarking on a big mistake in rolling out the UKBN’s infrastructure.

Thankfully huge sums haven’t been wasted yet, but now is the time to draw an end to this scheme.”

In fairness, both BT and Virgin Media only made a solid commitment sometime after the UKBN contract had been signed and it would have helped a lot if they had both been more pro-active a few years earlier. In addition, the local authority only had a comparatively small pot of money and the wireless approach gave them the ability to reach many more premises than might have otherwise been possible via fixed lines.

On the other hand the Labour Group are correct to say that the council now finds themselves in a tricky situation, where public money is being spent to fund a wireless network that is both slower and also in competition with the commercial fixed line upgrades being deployed by BT and Virgin Media.

At present no decisions have been made about the future viability of the contract, although Conservative councillor Toby Elliott claims to be in discussions with UKBN. “It remains an option to remove North Swindon from contract. This is due to the market intervening thanks to our work,” said Toby.