Tag Archives: broadband

This Box Contains Up To Ten Eggs

4 Jun

[This script was written in preparation for a UK conference on digitally-enabled economic development.  This version does not include presentation guidelines and other stage directions]

 

egg box This box contains up to ten eggs.

These are no ordinary eggs. These are Broadband Eggs. Enjoy – they usually come in a Free-Range Broadband Egg Box, probably from a trusted supplier of some other trusted supplier. Be sure to read the small print and limitations of liability.

 If you buy this box of eggs please be aware:

  • the box may not be full
  • some eggs may be cracked
  • box & contents not suitable for long journeys
  • some may have been eaten by strangers on the way home
  • each egg may be of variable quality
  • some may already be scrambled

But, we believe this box of eggs is all you will ever need. 

We do not accept returns of more than one egg at a time.

Terms and Conditions apply.

 

There are many beneficial aspects of Municipal Enterprise – the increasingly evident focus on growing community development and local economic well-being. But possibly the most under-rated impact of Municipal Enterprise will be a major revolution in business and political honesty.

But – woah – before I go on – I must explain what I mean by Municipal Enterprise. We can come back to broadband egg boxes later.

Municipal Enterprise is not an oxymoron.   Municipal Enterprise is (A) local public/private investment in local enterprises, (B) generating local employment and local economic growth, (C) enhancing community well-being, and (D) often linked to essential infrastructure and community services needs.

Moreover, the profits of Municipal Enterprise can be returned to the public purse for local re-investment and replacement of local taxation such as property rates.

With devolutionary aspirations espoused across the political spectrum, folks are beginning to remember what made this country a great place before politicians imagined they needed to run everything from the centre.

More than a century ago, The Great Stink of London was in large part solved by Joseph Bazalgette’s sewers – the construction of which explains why some old waterfront properties are now on the inland side of The Embankment.

Look at the great Town Halls of Victorian times and you are looking at Municipal Enterprise writ large – built on the profits of local enterprises.

You may not all have heard of the Municipal Works Loans Board – the Treasury controlled lender for infrastructure works. You may not have heard of the Local Government association’s new Municipal Bonds Agency – designed to provide cheaper and more flexible finance for Local Authorities.

You may not be aware of how much Municipal Enterprise is practiced – not least because much of it is kept below the radar for fear that Whitehall will seek to claw back the profits from Local Authorities.

Such are the post-80’s ingrained attitudes towards public expenditure and wholesale deference to private enterprise, that, even on electioneering doorsteps with evidence of local tax reductions, Municipal Enterprise is somehow viewed askance.

Even though Municipal Enterprise is accountable through the ballot box, citizens seem to imagine that distant shareholders, motivated by short-term profits, can exclusively ensure better local outcomes attuned to needs of local people and businesses.

They may of course be right. It would be prudent to question the current investment expertise of Local Authorities who for so long have been reduced to service agencies for the delivery of national policy.

Citizens may find it difficult to understand something that seems to contradict the supposed ‘natural order’ of things – except of course that there is no natural order that does not reflect local community wishes and local needs to grow employment, retain and accommodate its children for future prosperity.

So far, in the UK, the devolution debate has focused on countries, regions and major cities – territories where the implausibility of Whitehall micro-management is increasingly obvious.

And the responses to that debate have been both fairly unimaginative and ignorant of unintended consequences.   Does major city A declare UDI and create major tax headaches for businesses and postcode lotteries for citizens needing services? Who draws their boundaries?

Municipal Enterprise is not an argument about tax and spend or ‘optimising’ welfare standards. Municipal Enterprise is about local leaders recognising future needs and investing to ensure better local outcomes.

Which thought brings us back to these broadband egg boxes.

Your local economy, your local community of people and business, needs future-proofed broadband access. Will you, dear citizen, trust your local government to ensure that the egg boxes contain what they say they contain?

Will your local leaders seek investment partners who will agree to not deliver a dismal digital cul-de-sac designed only to maximise profits and dividends for distant shareholders?

Will you locally review what some ‘expert’ regulator in London deems adequate?  Or will you demand that the regulator is ‘unbundled’ so that you can set the local standards that will meet the local needs, attract further local investment, create further jobs and innovation, and generate revenues for your local community?

And at this time of ‘Peak Snake Oil’ will your community leaders question the salesmen that promise otherwise?

For too long the over-centralised state has dis-empowered local communities and allowed those broadband eggs to be sold in boxes that are rarely full or fit for frying.

BUT

These need not be passing broadband eggs – theoretically coming your way.

These need not be pretend broadband eggs – these may be truly fully fibred, future-proofed, really SuperDooperFast broadband eggs.

These could be broadband eggs that are actually available, when you need a full set.  These broadband eggs could perform exactly as you might expect, even as your children’s expectations increase in the future

Ladies and Gentlemen – I give you – a full box of ten eggs.   Catch.

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Note: For Ofcom-based data on the level of broadband services Delivered versus Advertised see this report produced by Which shows that whilst cable services from Virgin Media largely deliver ‘what it says on the box’ all other services based on BT’s DSL and FTTC fall woefully short of expectations.  broadband-advertising-not-up-to-speed-june-2015-406391

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What we all know

7 May

What we all know . . . . . is mostly based on old assumptions that may well have been rendered obsolete.   Evidence-led policy/decision-making may limit forward thinking but at least it doesn’t negate the need for ‘reviewing the situation’.

This need for current evidence is hugely important to local authorities as they seek (or are given) more responsibility to support their local economic growth.   Empowerment, devolution and decentralisation are all in the melting pot for any new government – and the currency of the evidence base is particularly important in policy areas where the fundamentals are rapidly shifting.

Fiber optics

Fiber optics

Take, for example, what we know about investment in future-proofed Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) broadband infrastructure. What we all know is that it’s horribly expensive, of dubious viability and there’s uncertainty around whether folks really need it.  BUT, what we all know is largely based on analysis that was produced more than a decade ago – analysis that some would say was a wee bit suspect even back then.

How important then is it that Local Authorities seeking to spend public sector funds on digital infrastructure are fully aware of cost reductions, improved deployment managements, dramatic shifts in uptake of better services and the scope for increased revenues for network operators and dividends for investors?

It should not be a surprise that the old ‘rules of thumb’ have shifted a bit – and it should be no surprise that hindsight reveals the unintended consequences of now-outdated motivations.

By bringing together best-practice experience from our own and other countries new models for investment can now be considered – and, moreover, considered in the context of what we can now deduce will be future requirements.

Based on his multi-country experience, Richard Jones, Chief Commercial Officer of VentureNext, has offered has offered to share an interactive business model that illustrates some of the challenges with investment in FTTH. Knowledge sharing in this arena is beneficial for all parties – investors, suppliers and citizens – and provides a way to refresh ‘what we all know’ in this vital area for future economic growth and societal development.

Further details

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2015 NextGen Digital Challenge Awards – Nominations close 29th May

14 Apr

 

Idea

The Open Call for entries in the 5th annual NextGen Digital Challenge Awards programme has already attracted some great ideas from across the UK.

In addition to the original categories for innovations in City, Urban and Rural Broadband Networks, Open Data and Digital Inclusion, the 2015 programme includes opportunities for projects in the ‘Sharing Economy’, Digital Health and ‘Municipal Enterprise’.

A full list of the Awards Categories is available together with details of previous winners and short-listed Finalists.

The Open Call closes at the end of May and the 2015 short-listed Finalists will be announced in June. Nomination is FREE.

The independent judging panel will review the Finalists in September.

Winners will be announced on November 5th at the Awards Dinner hosted by Lord Merlin Erroll in the House of Lords, Westminster. The celebration follows the NextGen15 Workshops & Trade Fair.

Sponsorship opportunities for some Awards Categories are still available – contact: Marit Hendriks via awards@nextgenevents.co.uk or call 07734 919479

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Toronto Triumphs as 2014 Intelligent Community awarded at ICF in New York

8 Jun
Intelligent Community Forum

Intelligent Community Forum

The climax of the 2014 Intelligent Community Forum’s annual summit  came as the ICF Top7 communities, their leaders and mayors from around the world gathered on Thursday night for dinner in New York.

The gathering also heard from Suneet Singh Tuli – Founder of DataWind and ICF’s ‘Visionary of the Year’.

In one sense all of the Top7 Communities were winners simply by taking part in the intensive ICF process but ultimately there could only be one winner – and it was Toronto that triumphed.

But the Summit was far more than just the award of the ultimate accolade.  Throughout the week Mayors and Civic Leaders from Europe, Asia, Australia, New Zealand and North America have shared their experiences and gained great insights in economic and societal development.

Full story here

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Converging or Diverging? Untangling Regulatory Directions

14 Nov

Over complex regulation is a nightmare for policymakers who want to move forward and a gift for corporates bent on ‘regulatory capture’.

Teasing the tangled remits apart is the best bet for governments who wish to focus the regulatory effort where it is most needed for the delivery of national imperatives.

Ahead of debates next week at ITU Telecom World 13 in Bangkok we reflect on the mixed motivations of communications regulators and the expectations of their governments.

Full story here

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Not symmetric, not fast, not super, not fibre – and not relevant.

29 Oct

hi=-tech buildingThe ‘Cities-are-Supreme’ brigade gathered for the RSA’s Cities Growth Commission launch yesterday.  They seemed oddly united in their view that rural dwellers should accept relative broadband poverty and stop whining.  The city enthusiasts may be searching for economic growth but curiously they overlook the poverty of digital infrastructures within their own cities.

Thirty years ago, as a young teenager, my son watched TV ads with far greater interest than he summoned for any of the programmes.  Eventually he concluded that you should always ask, ‘Why are they telling me this?’

In the late 1800’s an early expert in the new field of advertising reckoned that the message should be delivered 20 times before it gained acceptance.   From childhood we know the power of repetition.

It may be heroic engineering to squeeze a little data through a copper wire designed to do something completely different but that alone is no cause for celebration.

It may be commercially ‘prudent’ to avoid paying tax (and a tad less than communitarian or socially responsible) and it may be ‘convenient’ to overlook the provisions for asset replacement funding but we should not celebrate this prudent convenience – we should ask, ‘Prudent and convenient for whom?’

Next year no doubt someone will come up with the idea of ‘celebrating’ the 30th anniversary of the privatisation of British Telecom.  For free market enthusiasts the timing was fortuitous.  They got it off the government books five years before the penny dropped and digital communications became understood as an essential utility.  But no matter – we could pretend that we now had choice.

Even better – now we had a market we could also have a market regulator.  Oftel did a really great job – determinedly reducing prices (remember RPI-x?) and, as the incumbent felt so squeezed, the regulator very reasonably allowed that an irreducible part of their line rental charges should compensate for their need to fund the replacement of the ageing copper network on an 18-year basis.

By that reckoning we should by now all be benefitting from an access network rebuilt nearly twice over but, curiously, it seems not to have happened quite that way.   Far more convenient it seems to try and squeeze digital data down copper wires and extract much value as possible from the legacy analogue network before anyone suggests that the emperor is not wearing any clothes.  Yes, we are back to children’s stories and endless repetition. These clothes are super. They are fast. Say it often enough and folks will buy it.

Fortunately we are blessed with children who do not buy it.   They know that these clothes are not woven with fibre.  They know they are not fit for purpose.  They know that muddling through with not do.  They know that so-called ‘fibre broadband’ is not fully fibred, is not super, is not fast, is not symmetric, is not future-proofed and is not relevant for they way we live now.

They also know that they’ve been massively let down by a generation who trusted too much and did not dare to ask, “Why are they telling me this?”

The City Growth Commission will ask lots of questions – mostly about empowerment of cities, their leadership and their capacity to prosper.  In gathering evidence they’ll not apparently be asking, ‘Where are the UK’s Gigabit-Cities and who is building them?’

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The Normal Diversity – Internet Study lays bare the digital realities

3 Oct

OxIS report cover For 10 years the Oxford Internet Institute has been studying the phenomenon of recent times; watching online activities grow, spreading into all corners of the UK’s economy & government and changing the way we all work, learn and play.

For 10 years they have charted the emergence and fluctuating fortunes of innovative services, new devices that make their usage easier, the gradual growth of better broadband access networks and the shifting demand for digital skills matched to global opportunities.

Now in their 10th year the researchers have concluded that the Internet is normal.

Not only is it normal – no longer in any way a remarkable phenomenon – but it seems, in our diverse attitudes to it, to be comfortingly reflective of the major personality traits of the population.

The 2013 OxIS report maps five distinct cultural groups amongst the 78% of the population who are in some way digitally touched.  These groups range from the wildly enthusiastic (the ‘e-Mersives’) through to those who are distinctly uncomfortable about the Internet (the ‘Adigitals).

OxIS 5 cultures In our generally tolerant island population, 37% of Internet users, the largest single group, are classified as ‘cyber-moderates’ – accepting the benefits but moderate in both their hopes and fears.

The groupings do not, apparently, align with age demographics, life-stages, socio-economic classifications, employment status, or even the long-standing notion of ‘digital natives’ that youngsters born during this era are universally enthusiastic Internet adopters.  Moreover there was no evidence that these Internet Culture classifications were unstable despite a small drop in the proportion of users who believe there is too much immoral material online.

But they also imply a warning for a government pinning hopes for economic recovery rooted in UK on-line success.  The three more-enthusiastic culture groups may not yet have the scale to fuel internationally competitive growth.  It provokes a question – how can ‘Cyber-Moderates’ and ‘Adigitals’ become more engaged, and are we not all constrained by access infrastructures?

Slightly more controversially, and probably counter-intuitively for bloggers and blog-readers, researchers found a distinct cooling of enthusiasm for Social Media.  This effect may however be explained by the research methodology not perhaps moving fast enough to catch the trends towards newer Social Media services – or simply that the noise of the Internet is generated by relatively few very active users and more than balanced by the great and growing weight of ‘Cyber-Moderates’ and ‘Adigitals’.

Observers with a more global perspective such as Robert Bell of the Intelligent Community Forum point out that there are marked differences between the usage patterns of countries and even between different States of the USA.  Although not part of the OxIS work, researchers who probe the diversity of behaviours evident in populations of different countries will be fascinated by the parallels between the widely accepted Five Factor Model of personality traits and the OxIS five cultures of the Internet.  Both Robert Bell and OxIS report co-author Professor William Dutton will be speaking at NextGen 13 at Wembley (October 14th & 15th) and we can expect to hear a great deal more insight into this quite complex study.

Other highlights of that 2-day event include many new topics that one might not expect to hear at a conference (now in its 6th year) that was originally founded to campaign for better broadband infrastructure investment.  Those battles are still being fought, particularly away from urban centres, but the acknowledged pervasiveness of the Internet leads directly to concerns about digital skills, collaborative creativity, the openness of data and the plight of the 20% who, according to OxIS, have not yet encountered the Internet at a time when it has become pervasively normal and an increasingly essential utility.

It’s no great surprise, then to find that the NextGen 13 team has themed this year’s conference ‘Changing Agendas: shifting broadband futures’.  The oft-used term ‘Digital Economy’ becomes redundant now that the pre-qualifier ‘digital’ is no longer a significant differentiator within the entire UK economy.

If folks want to understand the nature and diversity of what it means to be British perhaps they need only to look at our diverse attitudes to the Internet and what it is to be normal?

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NextGen 13 is a 2-day conference and exhibition at Wembley on October 14th and 15th 2013.

For details of the agenda, speakers, exhibitors and registrations please refer to the website.

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Waiting at Wembley for Winners

30 Sep

wembley-imgIt’s always a tense time two weeks before any big conference event.

Right now the build-up to NextGen 13 is no different as the pace and pressure of programming for the conference builds.

The pressure may be even greater – not least because the 2013 themes are different in many ways.  One of the downsides for a conference series that’s enjoyed a long run (it’s the 6th year for this two-day event) is that many of the players must get up to speed with the changing agenda.   The annual conference reflects the topics of its time – not the battles of the past.

It is much easier for the speakers.  Recruiting them involves ensuring that they are relevant and have something new to contribute.  Exhibitors, all no doubt leading busy lives focused on their own rationales, only wake up to new themes at the eleventh hour.  Maybe this annual event provides a time for reflection – a chance to check alignments with market realities?   And delegates?  The regular attendees will once again be shocked that the agenda has shifted and newcomers will be intrigued to find they are not alone in their recent penny-dropping digital discoveries.

Amid the hectic noise of last-minute programme adjustments and choreography there’s one small corner where silence has momentarily settled.   The Digital Challenge jury is out and until 14th October fingers may be crossed but no one will tempt fate by speculating on winners.  Even here, in the Digital Challenge awards, the shifting agenda is apparent.  Three new trophies signal the importance of Skills, Innovation and Open Data – key topics that rise above the basic broadband battles.

The 2013 NextGen focus is not, of course, a secret.  Last December’s paper on ‘Economic Revitalisation’ set the scene.  The conference theme, ‘Changing Agendas: Shifting Broadband Futures’ was proclaimed earlier in the year along with an expansion of five topics that have since informed the final schedule.  And locating the event at Wembley itself carries a massive message about regeneration.  Delegates have options to visit the Stadium, the Arena backstage, local fibred premises and even Brent Council’s new Civic Offices to understand the realities of fully fibred networks and designs for sustainability.

Pulling it all together may be hectic.  Fitting all shades of opinion (and a fair few technologies) onto the platform and into the exhibition will demand another two weeks of patient attention to detail.  And the winners will be found in all those who change their agendas to meet the shifting demands of the UK’s digital economy.

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NextGen 13, October 14th & 15th, at the Wembley Hilton, London, is the UK’s leading event for Next Generation broadband activity

This annual landmark event will build on Digital Scotland 2013 and the Intelligent Cities conference (Leeds) – events also managed by NG Events Ltd.

NextGen 13 provides the focus to take forward the UK’s digital access and application requirements debate. An exhibition and trade show will run alongside the conference.

Registration for Delegates

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There’s no smoke but maybe some learning is burning?

21 Jul

learning is burning jpegThere’s muffled murmuring in the background but no loud music, no unexpected truck or post deliveries, no obvious waste or smell and, amazingly, no significant demand on the Bank of Mum & Dad, but surely there is something going on in there.

It’s clearly not a complete secret – judging by footsteps on the stairs and occasional giggles – but she’s not for telling us, leastways not yet.

Ma says she should get more air. ‘Not good to be cooped up in that room all day’.   I’d like more conversation during meals but often now she doesn’t show up and when she does join us we get evasion and ‘you wouldn’t understand’.  Does anyone really need earphones at breakfast?

It’s clearly important, this life-changing stuff but the only way we can help, it seems, is to give the space, not ask annoying questions and make sure we all have even more connectivity.

This trust, this faith we have, this uncertainty is being tested.  Even her ‘what would he know’ older brother, has no clue and has resorted to casting aspersions.  But he’s off to uni in few weeks so, blessed relief; at least we’ll not have to endure that sibling rivalry.

‘Really, you should have a word’.  ‘Why me?‘ Parental Ping-Pong, batting back and forth, is a game for reluctant players.  ‘About what?‘  ‘What if?‘

The small mysteries of the digital revolution can be happening anywhere.  How things can flip from lonely localised passion to global success, how those tiny tweaks can make a huge difference, can never be explained.

Her only guiding rule, it seems, is “Screw it – let’s do it”, or, more forcibly, “Just (F) Do It”, or as we old stagers marvelled back when Net was new, ‘ Innovation Without Permission’.   That ‘so last century’ constraint of seeking permission does not now trouble young digitally liberated minds.

So relax, rejoice in their empowerment.  The world has moved on since some of us threw away the brakes of copper-constrained wires.  There is no going back.  Sit back, enjoy the ride, and hope they make a better job of it than your own tentative last generation efforts.

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If you made any sense of this try ‘Spot the Link‘ at our main editorial website.

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From Nano-dots to Giga-blots

11 Jul

As a follow-up to our earlier note (28th June) on the questions that might be asked by the UK’s Public Accounts Committee when they consider the NAO report on broadband delivery, we’ve spotted another possible mind-mapping connection – the Federation for Small Business report on the value of local procurement.

In the minds of those who think that digital infrastructure is so complex that it can only be addressed by Mega Phone companies, the notion of locally designed and managed network initiatives might seem an unlikely concept.  Fortunately the economic experience elsewhere in Europe and the USA shows otherwise.

Our editorial, ‘ The great dot-joining debate‘, asks whether the FSB’s procurement report will be considered as an ignorable nano-dot or be a broadband Giga-blot when the PAC meets to take ‘expert’ evidence on 17th July.

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