Dear Tim,
Yes my Company has submitted a tender bid, and Yes it was late. However I consider to have bidded with a sensible proposal Third Generation Proposal.
The reason why I tendered late was because at a previouse CBN meeting Iin Basingstoke, was told to register with
www.alert-service@supply2.gov.uk to see the tender to be posted regarding Barham Down in Kent.
The problem was that Kent never advertised on this site and they did not include the Barham Tender "not spot".
My reasoning for the late tender is that Kent is letting the communities decide as to what they want.
IWe have had plenty of experience with bidding against BT for Rural Exchange enablements, because BT claimed these areas were unviable. It did not matter how much Iwe bid, BT were always awarded the tender. Our Tender promised to FTTH all Dwellings in that Exchange District. Despite this statement we still lost and a lot of Dwellings in these areas still have no Broadband. In at least one area BT sold the local Exchange and all the residents have suffered.
Four years ago we were invited by the resident of Lyndhurst, Hampshire to roll out FTTH in the Area. We now have a building to deploy our fibre from, but run up against local problems. The local District Council told us BT were doing a great job and would we go away. I talked to Ofcom about FTTH deployment in Lyndhurst and they informed us a Section 50 would be Otok to lay ducts and fibre.
The local authority wrote to the Highways authority, stating their objections and we have waited for two years for permission to commence works. The excuses as to why we should delay were always plausible. At the beginning of this year we went back to Ofcom and told them of our experience. Ofcom stated we should apply for Code Powers, if we did then we would have the same rights as BT.
After a fee of £ 10,000 to Ofcom they granted us Code Powers on the condition that we laid 50% more ducts than we required to expansion and replacement for worn out electricity cables. The cost of these additional ducts are not included in our tender price.
Hampshire Highways now tell us they want three months notice before commencing work. It would be mad for us to dig up the High Street before Christmas, so apart from laying ducts with the Gas Board across a busy Road we are waiting for after Christmas.
Kent CC seems to be the only sensible authority to allow the use of the Public Service network. If you are going to deploy FTTH it is just as cheap to set the Dwelling network links at 1000 Mbit/s, as we have done in Lyndhurst.
Having Code Powers allows us to employ direct labour for building the network and we intend to use duct routes under footpaths and bridleways to provide service.
That is why we had entered a sensible Third Generation Bids, we have jumped the FTTC stage.
We have the resources, knowledge and experience, to have these networks running and completed.
Our last failed tender was Rotherwas Industrial Estate in Hereford for the County Council, they considered that we did not have the expertise or experience. They never bother to visit our site in Lyndhurst and seem to prefer low speed wireless deployment ( all tender say 2 Mbit/s speeds ) for a wireless solution. Our tender included the additional ducts for power cables. The site suffers from decent power feeds. You can look up the place on the Web.
I spent 37 years in BT looking a fibre networks. I am an engineer so please excuse my response.
Best Regards.
Bill Mabey
Internal Communication Systems
Unit 88
Capital Business Centre
South Croydon
CR 2 OBS
Tel: 0208 916 2272
E-mail
bill.mabey@intcoms.co.uk
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