Tag Archives: Gigabit

Reviewing the situation . . . .

19 May

Ofcom’s recent ‘separation’ stricture has ensured that BT Group’s annual results presentation to the city gave greater airtime to the leadership of its now semi-detached property, Openreach.

Investors need to understand past performance and assess the forward risks and opportunities.  The bigger picture – mighty ships battling against headwinds – was roundly ridiculed as thin cover for self-induced blunders rather than unknowable forces of nature.   Could that overall decline, investors might ask, be offset by Openreach’s discovery and ultrafast colonisation of new Gigabit lands?

Last week, the captain of BT’s Openreach gave his crew early warning of a new direction. But his ship’s crew comprises far more than loyal employees – it’s a complex weave of stakeholders including investors and wholesale customers (Communications Providers – the ‘CPs’) – so the occasion provided anxious risk-takers with opportunities to read the runes.

Openreach chief exec Clive Selley was reported as saying; “So it is my job to collaborate closely with all the other CPs to figure out at what pace we roll out the ultrafast platforms. And we are going to do that hand in glove with the CPs, because ultimately they are the ones that are going to have to compete and beat the alt-nets in the market place.”

Inevitably the tech-media headlines shouted ‘Fibre Rethink‘. But the espousal of an enhanced collaborative credo suggests more than relationship counseling. Was this a concern to nip in the bud any hint of a wholesale mutiny or jumping ship? Why so? It’s a reflection of finding a radically different market situation to that for which the CP crew had first been recruited. They signed up to flog phone-lines and ‘leased lines’.   Now they need to shift to new services that need far greater reliability and capacity and have little in common with the old voice telephony. The CPs have laboured long with short-term fixes and unlikely performance claims. Now they are increasingly attracted to work with those alternative network pioneers and are held back only by the rate of pure fibre deployments.  Meanwhile Openreach still holds to seeing those very different, vastly superior and ‘fit for future’ networks as direct competitors rather than contributors to the greater good.

Other (imaginary) voyages of discovery

Imagine if you will, dear readers, that this is the year 1500.

The good ship Openseas is sailing nervously towards the previously presumed precipitous edge of a flat world – and the crew are mightily troubled by the rumoured fate of earlier voyagers who did not return. On the bridge the captain anxiously scans the horizon but he and his crew are alone. Their resolve to push on can only come from an inner determination. These are complex and confusing seas with shifting currents and a need for confident navigation. With no hope of external assistance they must overcome fears or resign to their fate but they will earn (eventually) the accolade, ‘pioneer’.

And now, friends, imagine that we are in the year 1839.

In the latest episode Dickens’ Fagin is casting around for a way out of social storms on all sides to secure his survival. Desperately he considers the alternatives:

“This rotten life is not for me.

It’s getting far too hot for me.

Don’t want no one to rob for me.

But who will find a job for me,

There is no in between for me

But who will change the scene for me?

…I think I’d better think it out again!

Hey!”

There is, of course, no one to ‘change the scene’ – he alone must choose a new path. To survive, his enterprise must think again to find a new re-formed direction that rejects all previous convictions and missteps along the way. That resolve may be prove to be beyond his reach.

And so, back now to 2017.

Is it any wonder that Openreach is ‘Reviewing the Situation’? Is this the end of ‘the line’ or is this, beamed through pure fibre, a new, low energy, low maintenance, high performance, enlightenment that costs far less and shines far brighter for his enterprise and for the for the entire economy?

So, let’s wrap up this reflection with the answer to a light-bulb joke. It takes only one psychotherapist to change a light-bulb but that light-bulb must really want to change.

 

___________

 

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Teaching Mama to Suck Gigs

24 Oct

microphone in focus against blurred audienceA recent Telco industry conference listened attentively to a speaker extolling the wonders of Software Defined Networks. The audience was curious. Some delegates wondered why on earth their customers should be handed the keys to the profitable network management business – it could surely lead only to further loss of business. Convenience for customers seemed missing from their agenda.

Other delegates were even more appalled at the SDN turn of events – not only had the speaker broken ranks; it was more troubling than that. Here was an advocate for both SDN and (breathe deep, clasp forehead) Dark Fibre!

A horrified hand shot up at question time. No ordinary delegate and no ordinary question from a Telco senior. And the question spoke volumes for the gulf between Telco industry insiders and Customer expectations. “Surely”, he said after announcing his prestigious rank, “surely the service you seem to be offering . . . does it not require an element of pre-provisioning?” And there, in that moment, the chasm was revealed.  Steady on – let’s not anticipate this digital stuff catching on!

And at an even more recent conference a senior Telco apologist was busy tweeting that there was no need, no demand, no conceivable rationale, for supplying customers with more bandwidth than the Telco deemed necessary. He was not admitting that his technology was in any way inadequate – he was simply continuing the blinkered line that a better service was not needed. Proud he was of their great achievements in supplying a service that (even when stretched) fails to meet customer expectations. ‘Lines, damned lines and statistics’, muttered industry outsiders.

This aversion to demand, ignorance of market realities and imagined fear of investment risk goes deeper. In Telco Land the disbelief of demand is embedded in the very soul of their organisational being. Even if (surely when) they recognise the glimmer of a multi-Gigabit truth those insiders will want to deliver it with new forms of shared service – although most readers will not remember those distant telephonic times.

The consumer optimist may say that those Telco insiders are approaching the end of the line. Some consumers (a few) may already be fortunate to experience, at home or abroad, levels of broadband service that starkly reveal the shortcomings visited on others. Other consumers may ask why? They may ask whether the industry regulator is concerned? They may almost certainly ask why this shambles required so much tax-payer funded investment? And they will be told that it is all very complicated and impossible for ordinary mortals to understand.

It is time to wake up and admit that our experts (even with honest endeavour) made great mistakes. We now know it was a mistake to demand competition at the level of holes and poles. It was a mistake to allow those assets to be monopolised by their owners. It was a mistake to believe that copper phone lines could ever be future-proofed. It was a mistake to assume that Mobile would render fixed-line investment unnecessary. And, above all, it was a mistake to invent that dereliction of regulatory duty – technology neutrality – the ultimate achievement of Telco political lobbying.

But now, at last, we have a government that is minded to make amends.  It may be unwilling to admit to past errors (even though these stretch across many regimes) but it is only realistic to seek a better way forward. Fortunately the cost of doing the job properly has fallen and the previous over-hyped estimates are discredited. Cue rapid repositioning in Telco land – or watch that old guard drift away in a sea of irrelevance. It really is time to teach Mama to suck Gigs.

 

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FISP Calls for Greater Connectivity Ambition – London, a Gigabit City?

30 Mar

hi=-tech buildingFollowing a survey that exposes the extent of digital discontent amongst Londoners, the Foundation for Information Society Policy issued a challenge to London’s mayoral candidates to tackle infrastructure issues.

FISP suggests that a public-owned agency could be based on the successful model of Transport for London – the UK’s most successful Municipal Enterprise.   The new agency (codenamed Digital for Londoners) would be charged with transformation of London to a Gigabit City by 2020.

The FISP proposal targets more than raising London’s standing as a major connected city and its economic competitiveness – the proposal is designed ‘to enhance the lives of Londoners (and their children) and all who work in the UK capital‘.

For full details visit http://www.fisp.org.uk/dfl/

 

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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.

________

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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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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The Rural Imperative – Dig for a Gigabit-enabled Future

14 Apr

As the UN considers the prospect that by 2050 over 70% of the global population will be working and living in cities, and as policy developers continue to invest in cities to stimulate their economies, the New-York-based Intelligent Community Forum announces its Rural Imperative – a focus on developing smarter rural communities to offset the strains of unbalanced and unsustainable mega-cities.

The economic and creative power of cities cannot be denied but inequalities in digital infrastructure provision are beginning to drive rural communities towards radical moves to build a more-balanced economy.

Full story here

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Gigabit Broadband – too much to choo choo? 2013 Study Tour preliminary details announced

10 Feb

The first of this year’s Community Study Tours is planned for June and will visit Chattanooga – the USA’s first Gigabit City.

The final details will be confirmed soon after we get back from our ‘pathfinder’ visit (today we are only half way through) but the preliminary plan can be seen in the Business and Community Development section of the main Group Intellex website.

Chattanooga will interest not only ‘smart city’ developers but also innovators from energy utilities, environmentalists and investors.  With inward manufacturing investment from VW,  service relocation by Amazon and strong leadership in public services, the city has  become an economic exemplar.

Further details and registration process will be confirmed in early March.

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