In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Lots of technical solutions available just the cost per premise is the stumbling block.

Cost is very likely the issue, but the provision of a minimum 2mbps has always been a government commitment. So should any BDUK funded project be allowed to proceed before a solution to how the 2mbps service has been identified and incorporated into the county plans?

Otherwise in a couple of years time, the county council will just say sorry, we have run out of money.

Incorporated how? i.e. everything planned before the first cabinet is ever stood as part of the project?

Or should the 10% be decided NOW and just get given BET or a satellite voucher? Thats the easiest option

Solutions BT have used in Cornwall

extra fttc cabinets on long lines
extra fttp for clusters where no point putting a cabinet as everyone would be within easy reach of aggregration node

Not sure if there is any BET, but there was some sometime ago in Scotland.

At end of the day its either give the best solution for that property, or just mandate BET or similar and just meet the bare minimum and if the rest of the project goes well and is under cost - heaven forbid you come back and look again at the areas you spent money on in the early stages,

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Incorporated how? i.e. everything planned before the first cabinet is ever stood as part of the project?

Or should the 10% be decided NOW and just get given BET or a satellite voucher? Thats the easiest option

I am arguing that there should be a costed technical solution for each area which should be published. That way people will know what they will get and can react accordingly, and the County Councils will know whether the project can be completed within budget.

Before or after contract signing?

My understanding is that BT does some preliminary modelling before signing.
After signing council input on intervention areas, which will get FTTP as a priority, or which hard to reach areas MUST be superfast as opposed to just 2 Mbps to 24 Mbps.
Then BT replans and we get the basic maps and BT starts the next phase of with surveying/planning on the actual cabinets, e.g. calculate locations/power costs
Then BT starts the getting quotes for power and lodges road works applications and starts the work.

The last two parts appear to be done in phases, rather than every cabinet planned to the n'th degree.

The worry people have really I suspect is that BT can walk away from the project and ignore the USC areas if they splurge all the money on cabinets in the early phases.

Lets get real here! We are talking about customers at long distances from both the exchange and their cabinet. UNLESS the BDUK scheme installs a fibre cabinet alongside the existing (and I think all who are not bedazzled by the 'Emporer's new Clothes' recognise this is unlikely to happen for small clusters) the customer will be on ADSL so unless you have rewritten the rules for ADSL it IS distance from the exchange that matters. Of course, if some other form of technology is implemented then we start a new sheet.

As the conference on Monday revealed BDUK have just woken up to the consequences of this farcical procurement exercise.

Had they stuck to the conclusions of their own survey in 2010 they may now have a solution that doesnt involve shoving the 2mb commitment further and further into future.

To quote from that survey "BDUK has concluded that a solution to the challenge of universal coverage will involve a mix of technologies and all �bit-carrying assets �have a role to play. Geographic densities �expressed as premises per km2� begin to emerge as an approximate guide for determining the most cost effective network upgrade: e.g. fibre-based solutions are cost-effective in denser areas; areas with fewer than 350 premises per km2 points towards a wireless solution; and deeply rural and hilly areas with fewer than circa 35 premises per km2 may indicate satellite solutions."

The USC areas were always going to be done after the main fibre based roll-out as far as I was aware.

Why? Because the enabling of various rural and town exchanges made deploying some of the USC solutions easier.

Maybe BDUK has only just woken up to this, but I don't see why the amount of surprise from the lobbying groups.

Should be said some councils have used fixed wireless already and others satellite schemes, and Wales had a voucher scheme previously, the current one is a bit messier due to lax wording by civil servants.

At the end of the day the real political reason for the spending was so they can declare a better broadband service than the other major European countries and several sources have now said we are at that stage now.

The whole thing fell apart when they started the bidding for counties outside the pilot areas before the pilot areas had actually delivered anything.

Well I already have Satellite. The BDUK contract was signed in May this year and as nothing would actually happen until 2014 I went ahead and got Tooway installed.

The dilemma now of course is that (as many have found), the service is oversold. My 20Mbps download on the XXL package at £65 per month was running at 0.3Mbps all last night and to be fair, most nights when I would want to use it.

So IF Satellite is the answer for places like mine, I cannot see the USC of 2Mbps being achieved anyway. If the Satellites are currently oversubscribed, what will happen when the remaining 2% of 'unviable' areas for alternatives are added in?

Questions that the satellite providers who are lobbying for inclusion in the final hard to reach areas should answer really.

In theory new satellites or beams could be refocused from other areas of Europe, though some of the current problems may not be spot beam related but the way that the backhaul from the earth station is being handled.

For all we know we might have a new Government in 2015 and they could spend more on broadband, or less or just leave things alone - impossible to project really.