Broadband News

Something very unusual has started to happen in the UK over the past couple of years and it is has been happening in Scandinavia too. Alcatel-Lucent, which rolls out broadband networks and switching equipment across the UK for the likes of BT, among several others, has started to receive an increasing amount of calls for the first time from customers who are not in the telecommunications industry.

Instead of getting invites to quote for major, conventional networks the infrastructure developer has been getting many calls from local communities, regional business organisations and local government bodies which its Head of Marketing and Solutions for Northern Europe, Houston Spencer, admits it wasn’t too sure what to do with at first.

“It’s obviously different from a major infrastructure provider to start getting calls which aren’t invitations to tender but rather calls from people who say ‘we’re thinking about getting fibre put in, could you come and chat with us about it’,” he reveals.

“We had to adapt to be able to meet the demands of non telcos who don’t have their own engineering divisions and don’t necessarily know what they need up front.”

However, as an American raised in Canada who cut his professional teeth in Australia before coming to work in London, via Shanghai, he can say with the authority of an impartial, well-travelled executive that these calls and the subsequent Digital Britain report are a good sign that maybe Britons need reminding of.

“We speak with people in communities and other broadband groups and I guess while I wouldn’t say that the Digital Britain report was perfect, I’ll tell you what, the great thing about the UK is that people truly care about broadband,” he says.

“That’s a great start. The Digital Britain report didn’t have all the answers but it was a great stake in the ground. It was a catalyst to end that chicken and egg debate about next generation access and say finally the government accepts the case for faster broadband is clear and proven, now let’s figure out how to roll it out.”

This encapsulates the spirit of community campaigners and local government in Cumbria, South Yorkshire and Gateshead which Alcatel-Lucent is working with through supplying equipment and building next generation networks. These campaigners and councillors, Spencer points out, are admirable for the way they can build a business case for fibre not just through traditional commercial calculations but by also factoring in better education, health and public service outcomes.

Will copper tax slow some projects?

While Spencer largely welcomed the Digital Britain report, there is the ironic possibility that its proposed 50p per month levy on copper phone lines could give rise to delays or a partial reigning in of community broadband proposals, Spencer admits.

“The idea of taxing the old technology to pay for the new has a lot of sense in it, but I think they missed a trick by just taking phone lines, what about old mobile technology, why not tax mobile connections to pay for fourth generation access?” He contends.

“The other issue that we have to be aware of is that with the tax on copper starting next year it’s going to be a while until any serious money is collected and before anyone decides what to do with it. So we simply don’t know if some communities are going to hold back their plans and wait to see if they can put in a bid to get some help in funding their programme.

“I think what may well happen is that people put in fibre to some of their region and then see if they can get a grant later on to help co-fund moving that fibre even further out in to the periphery of their region.”

If this means the roll out of next generation networks is not a fast land grab, then it might be for the good. Spencer has seen community fibre projects flourish across the Nordics, which his remit covers, but points out that take-up of higher price, super fast access is often below predictions.

“It’s very clear, particularly in Denmark where there have been a lot of interesting projects that you can get a real chicken and egg situation,” he says.

“People don’t want to pay for the extra speed when they feel they can get what they need from lower speed and so there’s less of a compulsion for application companies to roll out great applications which need faster speeds because not enough people have that kind of connection.

“So I’d never say I want next generation access to roll out slowly, I’m a true technology romantic who believes if you build it they will come, but I do accept that you need to build out at a pace where you create steady demand for fast access services so you don’t get so much of a chicken and egg debate which really gets neither side anywhere.”

Misleading speed

When these faster networks are rolled out, Spencer hopes that many will see fibre to the home, where it makes economic sense, which will mean that ISPs can move away from misleading headline speeds and actually give a guaranteed speed. If anything, he believes, the broadband debate has been marred by an over concentration on speed which, while obviously important, should not take away from the crucial issue of building in capacity.

Again he is optimistic this will happen because, in an admission again that he is a technology ‘romantic’, he optimistically suggests, “I’ve never known a new network yet which has been engineered to more than deliver its promise”.

This will surely be put to the test as next generation access is rolled out in to areas where it does not make economic sense for BT to go it alone and local groups and government have to try to mix and match funding from local sources, banks, network providers and central government to roll out fibre as best they can with as little budget as possible.