BDUK no go...

So Staffordshire have released their 'preliminary' coverage map for BDUK investment. Unsurprisingly I am in the 3% who will get 2Mbps by hook or by crook by 2016. As I am the local 'Digital Champion' I have posted some questions and observations on their Facebook page - a remarkably lonely place but given that those who will get fibre have nothing to say and those in the 3% are unlikely to have BB anyway its not surprising.

I have Satellite and I can say that it is NOT going to provide a solution to the 3%. I am on the Tooway Ultimate package at £65 per month. It purported to offer 20Mbps down, 6 Mbps up and unlimited downloads. In reality its about 3Mbps and a FUP has been introduced of 60Gb/month as the service is horribly oversold. Its not upscaleable, latency is poor, downloads limited and its expensive.

The Staffordshire Project Manager contacted me (after a particularly spicy post of mine) to explain the situation.

I was amazed by 2 things.

1) BT are telling the Council what they can and will upgrade. There does not seem to be a dialogue where the Council can go back and say 'no don't go there, go here'.
2) The coverage map is very clearly put together by identifying cabinets, drawing a zone around them where 24Mbps can be provided with certainty and then joining up the circles.

The latter results in some crazy situations. My 90 year old neighbour 75m across the road will get Fibre. A single dwelling about 600m away and off the road will get Fibre, whilst all around it will get 2Mbps. The reason is clearly that my neighbour and the house in the woods are within ?1Km of a cabinet from another exchange.

My Exchange (Field) has one cabinet adjacent to the exchange. It serves about 400 houses and businesses. Most of these are strung out along the B5027 along with the phone lines - I am at 5k. So about 100 houses and business in and around Field will get Fibre - the rest 2Mbps.

BT will not be installing new cabinets and will not be using pole mounted cabinets and linking them with fibre - its either a) too hard or b) too expensive or c) both.

In terms of equity its poor and before anyone says it, no I am not moving. I moved to a rural area so that my frail elderly mother-in-law would not have to go into a nursing home and be supported by the state.

Anyone else find themselves high and dry?

In reply to a post by knighton:

I was amazed by 2 things.

1) BT are telling the Council what they can and will upgrade. There does not seem to be a dialogue where the Council can go back and say 'no don't go there, go here'.

Why is that amazing? The lines and equipment are owned by BT. The council can't tell BT which bits of its network it should upgrade. The council may have asked BT to cover as many people as possible but there's a limit as to how far the council can interfere with how BT runs its business.

2) The coverage map is very clearly put together by identifying cabinets, drawing a zone around them where 24Mbps can be provided with certainty and then joining up the circles.

That might be part of the process but the biggest part (the overall intent) will be to maximise BT's revenue. Or more likely minimise the loss they are going to take.

BT are just trying to make money off a service they offer. Unfortunately you seem to live in a place that is difficult to supply and/or doesn't have enough potential customers to allow for an adequate financial return. People have queried BT's plans in the past and found mistakes in their figures so it's worth pursuing that but I doubt it happens often.

Edited by Andrue (Sat 07-Dec-13 20:06:22)

In reply to a post by Andrue:

Why is that amazing?...

Because the BDUK is tax payers money and should be being spent where businesses don't see/get a good return?!
I'm with the OP surely there should be a dialogue.

Edited by b4dger (Sun 08-Dec-13 12:05:38)

In reply to a post by b4dger:

In reply to a post by Andrue:

Why is that amazing?...

Because the BDUK is tax payers money and should be being spent where businesses don't see/get a good return?!
I'm with the OP surely there should be a dialogue.

Oh I imagine there's a dialogue but it consists of requests rather than instructions. Most likely as I suggested BT attempt to provide the greatest number of people with a service for the money on offer. If the council insist that 300 people in location A get an upgrade it might mean that 450 people in location B and C don't get anything.

The joy of a cold harsh reality where no one from private firms or Government was willing to put up more than enough to ensure everyone benefited from much faster broadband.

The reality of a UK wide promise of 90% getting super fast speeds meant that 10% missed out...now in some counties it is looking to be less.

No-one has done an analysis of how much money contractors and power supply firms are gaining from the work.

I have yet to see a Public-Private project end up with the Public bit seeing all the benefits anticipated and the Private bits NOT ending up seeing their benefits realised.

As an NHS Consultant I see this every day with PFI projects for Hospital building and the ISTCs introduced by Lord Khazi. The latter are closing en masse as no-one uses them and they are p*ssing money away. The former are so crippled with long-term debts their future is unclear.

The sad truth is that the Public Sector does not have people with the skills to negotiate and manage such large projects - witness the PAC destruction of BDUK progress so far.

As at least 50% if not more of the local money comes from Taxpayers, there should be evidence of a greater degree of input from those people.

Whats galls is that I, others nearby and many in similar communities HAVE engaged with the 'public consultation'. We have filled the forms, gone to Council meetings, had Village Hall Sub-committes, completed our project reports and sent them in. It would appear that this was also a waste of time and money IF the effort was never going to influence the outcome in any way.

BT/Openreach were always likely to win the contract with Virgin and others not bothering to apply or precluded because of the rules, and Fujitsu pulling out.

That being said, the coverage map could have been produced 5 years ago by a competent Land Surveyor with a map of BT cabs and the rules around speed falloff after the cab.

It feels that the last 5 years have also been a waste of time and money.

Speaking to the project manager, what amazed (yes amazed) me was that there will be no de novo infrastructure build, simply the upgrading of exchanges and the siting of new fibre cabs.

A £25 million pound project of which the only visible signs will be a rash of new green cabs next to the old ones and those without will remain without.

In reply to a post by knighton:

A £25 million pound project of which the only visible signs will be a rash of new green cabs next to the old ones and those without will remain without.

?
So many of those without will become with? I'm not sure what you are trying to say, other than all cabs should receive FTTC at a cost of a heck of a lot more than £25m. Also bear in mind the effect of distance of the user from the cabinet. The benefit of FTTC drops of dramatically after 800 metres.

Err...what I am trying to say is that those with the biggest problems in the first place i.e. not able to have any form of BB via copper, will remain without it because there appears to be none of the funding being applied to extending the reach of the current exchanges beyond where the last cabinet can reach to in terms of providing 24Mbps once fibre enabled.

My hope is that either fixed wireless (geography depending) or 4G will provide some of the infill - mind you, I assume BT/OR would have to subcontract this.

In reply to a post by knighton:

Err...what I am trying to say is that those with the biggest problems in the first place i.e. not able to have any form of BB via copper, will remain without it because there appears to be none of the funding being applied to extending the reach of the current exchanges beyond where the last cabinet can reach to in terms of providing 24Mbps once fibre enabled.

But those without are the hardest to provide for. It's not some hatred of people in remote areas that led to the current situation. It's economics and civil engineering FTTC may not change that situation much if at all.

Hence my comment. Providing for 300 people who are currently 'without' might lead to a situation where they leapfrog 450 who currently have a poor service. In that situation perhaps it's justifiable but suppose the 450 have a service that will soon be inadequate. Now you're talking about ensuring that 300 people have a useful service at the expense of 450 who will soon not have a useful service.

Again this isn't about discrimination. It's about money and the limitations of the landscape. If you happen to live in the most difficult to supply area in the country there's not a lot anyone can do. Beyond a point we can only shrug and say that you're not economically viable.

In reply to a post by knighton:

1) BT are telling the Council what they can and will upgrade. There does not seem to be a dialogue where the Council can go back and say 'no don't go there, go here'.
2) The coverage map is very clearly put together by identifying cabinets, drawing a zone around them where 24Mbps can be provided with certainty and then joining up the circles.

1) Is absolutely correct. BT have agreed to hit a certain level of coverage, the council have agreed to this. BT know how they plan on reaching this level of coverage. The council could've said they would micromanage BT, however they would have had to accept a lower level of coverage in return.

I will repeat that the council agreed it would be this way. BT didn't just lay down the law on this and would've agreed to provide a lower level of coverage had the council told them to. The council would've requested that BT serve as many homes as possible and left to them how to achieve this.

2) Yep. Virtually impossible to do it any other way. Obviously the coverage is approximate but to calculate coverage down to the premises would've cost way too much and taken way too much time. This time and money is better spent actually deploying.

Unsure why you're saying that the latter results in crazy situations - it doesn't. The way the copper network was built results in these 'crazy situations', not how the coverage map is made. That just reflects the reality of the copper network.

In reply to a post by knighton:

BT will not be installing new cabinets and will not be using pole mounted cabinets and linking them with fibre - its either a) too hard or b) too expensive or c) both.

The answer is B). Could be done, would cost too much and result in lower overall coverage. The agreed coverage level given the budget probably doesn't account for building new cabinets every km across a 5km cable run, building new fibre twins for those, and then provisioning them with fibre backhaul and power.

It sucks but this is in no way amazing, it makes perfect sense. To serve your 300 premises would've soaked up funds that would've provisioned I can safely say well over 1,000 premises nearer existing cabinets. It's a no-brainer from the point of view of both council and BT. Would it be reasonable to expect upwards of 1,000 premises to go without to serve you guys?

Again, rubbish but they did what they could with the resources available.