Features

How wireless is transforming rural Britain with broadband

At government level ministers like Stephen Timms are keen to see social enterprise playing a strong role in broadband development in the UK. This is being followed through with funding in the regions. The community sector is vibrant and inventive - whether campaigning for ADSL services or building their own wireless networks. Over the next few months we will see how much of this potential can be realised.

One of the country's most rural and remote areas claims to be "Broadband Capital of Britain". Alston in Cumbria now has 330 homes and small businesses connected to the Cybermoor wireless broadband service, out of a possible 1000.

At 33% take up that's way ahead of the UK average of 8% of households. Critics argue that Cybermoor is a relatively small, grant-aided project. But they must be getting something right. Amongst the reasons for Cybermoor's success are price (it's great value), bandwidth (it's plentiful) and community involvement. Prices range from £5 per month for those on low incomes, £15 per month standard and £30 per month for businesses. Subscribers are encouraged to join the Cybermoor community coop and can help determine the future direction of the project and how profits can be used to benefit the local community.

How Many Community Broadband Networks?

Cybermoor is just one of a number of local projects providing great examples of community enterprise delivering affordable broadband, inventively and in a socially inclusive way. How many more are there setting up? All over the country there are broadband groups, mostly campaigning to reach trigger levels. But information about those forming their own community broadband enterprises is patchy. In April Heloise Tierney of DEFRA published a list of around 40 rural projects on the Rural Broadband Brainstorming Group website. The ABCampaign (see below) also plans to develop a database of local projects. If you know of other sources of information please let us know.

Funding

The South East Development Agency is soon to announce new funding for community broadband projects totalling £2m over the next 12-18 months. SEEDA prefers to fund social enterprises and will work mainly through rural community councils to bring forward suitable projects - possibly as many as 100 - from areas not served by commercial providers.

As Easy as ABC

The Access to Broadband Campaign ran a hugely successful conference in London on 9th July in London. Around 150 people showed up to hear speakers discuss technologies, regulation, community networks, and the public policy agenda. Keith Todd, Chairman of the Broadband Stakeholder Group (BSG) - and Chairman of Easynet - described those campaigning for broadband as "revolutionaries" and called on people not just to sit back and complain, but to "take action". Much of the conference focused on community and DIY approaches often using wireless. However Trish Jones of BT made the point that soon 85% of the country will be covered by ADSL enabled exchanges, yet take-up is lagging far behind at less than 4% of the population. BT's answer is more 'Demand Create' programmes to stimulate local demand. She cited the actnow project in Cornwall which has achieved 22% take up amongst SMEs. Actnow is a partnership between regional agencies involved in economic development, education and business support. It offers subsidised ADSL connections in the main population centres. Meanwhile Malcolm Matson of First Broadband described the creation of Penwith Community Broadband using wireless technology to deliver services to the furthest corner of South West Cornwall.

Amongst the demands emerging from the conference were calls for government action to release more radio spectrum, to change the rules on power output for rural WiFi devices and to open up bandwidth running into public facilities for community use. Lindsey Annison of Edenfaster made a strong plea for more funding to help community networks share expertise.

Trigger Levels

BT has announced trigger levels for a further 500 exchanges. For details see the Update page at www.bt.com/broadband. Bruce Standford, director of products at BT Wholesale said: "We're keeping our foot on the throttle by identifying new developments to increase the number of towns and villages within reach of broadband and push up the numbers of people choosing up for broadband services." In total more than 300 exchanges have been upgraded to provide broadband on top of the 1100 BT had already enabled in major towns and cities and a further 400 are in the upgrade programme.

In practice what this means is that even more local groups will be campaigning to sign people up to meet the trigger levels. Once the trigger level is reached the exchange goes into the upgrade programme and the local community wins the right - to receive a service! This is a truly great marketing and sales operation: the local community establishes the demand and does most of the pre-sales work. BT Wholesale and its retailers take the revenues.

This is in contrast to the approach developed by Invisible Networks, builders of wireless networks in the East and South-East. They work hard to involve local communities in demonstrating a demand for broadband services and then reward their efforts with a £2 per month per subscriber commission back to the community enterprise. Invisible have three live networks, three in build and more following along.

In part it is simply the trend in adoption for any new technology. Early adopters come first, the mass market follows behind. But for the mass market to develop a number of factors have to work together: service availability and quality, price, effective marketing and so on. Broadband suffers from problems in all of these areas and price is probably one of the major barriers. Japan and Korea both have over 10 million broadband users with a mixture of DSL, cable and fibre. Prices are extremely competitive and services are fast, typically 3-12Mbps according to researcher Adam Peake of Glocom in Japan. Glocom recently published a detailed comparison between broadband in Japan/Korea and the UK.

In the UK most home and soho users are using local call pay-as-you-go or flat rate Internet services at £10-£15 per month. For many SMEs the broadband price differential is likely to be marginal. But for many others upgrading to broadband at £20-£30 per month is a big step. Yes, it's great to get the extra bandwidth and the always-on service, but are there enough compelling reasons to encourage the upgrade in the mass market? Cybermoor and similar community projects demonstrate that with a zero or small price differential, plus good bandwidth, switching from dial-up is a no-brainer. Similarly Eastserve, the Wired-up Community project in East Manchester, now has 850 broadband users connected to its wireless network for £16 per month, with a further 650 applications to process.

Aside from straight price reductions, bandwidth sharing could be encouraged. Homes for Change in Manchester is one of the country's most innovative social housing developments with 75 flats and 26 small businesses. They have set about wiring up the complex and connecting it to a 2Mbps ADSL connection. The £80 +VAT per month charge is now shared between the residents and businesses for £4 and £10 per month respectively. Currently 40 flats and four businesses are connected.

A different approach to sharing is being taken by start-up Myzones with a new ADSL/Wi-Fi offering encouraging subscribers to share their bandwidth with friends and neighbours. The Myzones service launches towards the end of July.

Public Hotspots

There are plenty of warnings around about the dangers of over-hyping wireless. Hotspots have been a great source of excitement for investors, but the statistics on numbers need to be treated with care and it is hard to see how they can create a viable business model in themselves - as opposed to being a differentiator for hotels, restaurants and other chains.

However an interesting discussion is emerging about whether public facilities like libraries and schools could become hotspots for their local communities. There are certainly attractions to this approach, after all substantial sums are going into providing bandwidth to the public sector and much of that bandwidth is under-utilised for large chunks of the day. Meanwhile one of the problems faced by the community networks is the cost of backhaul. Undoubtedly there would be significant technical and funding problems, but if public sector bandwidth could be opened for community use, operating through a local social enterprise for cost sharing and service aggregation, potentially everyone gains. Indeed the recent Broadband Report (see below) of the Parliamentary Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee recommended that "the Government help develop imaginative means by which other users can 'piggy-back' on public infrastructure."

Aggregation

The BSG 'Broadband Aggregation Programme' gave a progress update in June. Under this programme each RDA will set up a 'special purpose vehicle' aiming to aggregate all public sector broadband demand in their region. This ambitious plan intends to:

* Provide a cost-effective way of meeting the broadband needs of individual Government organisations whilst meeting their procurement targets

* Enable the extension of broadband networks to increase the availability to the wider community, thus contributing to regional economic development objectives and national targets

" Ensure value for money for the public sector as a whole

Currently private and community sector organisations are not included in the plans for SPVs due to concerns about 'state aid' and their possible designation as telcos. However community networks need to watch their progress and work out ways that they can interface with these developments for wider community benefit.

OGC Publishes Wireless Broadband Guide

The Office of Government Commerce has published a meaty guide for public sector procurers on wireless broadband. The prime purpose is to stimulate wireless as a means of delivering broadband in both rural and urban areas. The OGC are seeking comments and suggestions which can go through the BSG Secretariat.

Spectrum Policy

The Radio Agency is expected to publish their consultation document on wireless broadband in September. The BSG Wireless Group and others have been arguing for the opening up of more spectrum in 'appropriate bands' and on the right terms. One of the biggest issues confronting the community wireless networks using the unlicensed 2.4GHz frequency is the problem of signal propagation at the permitted power levels with trees and other obstacles preventing signals from getting through. Clever design and 'mesh networks' can overcome these problems in many instances. But other parts of the spectrum are often better suited to fixed wireless broadband delivery. A large amount of spectrum is unassigned in large areas of the UK "locked in either delayed or stalled licensing processes" according to last November's BSG Wireless Report. Opening up some of this spectrum for rural broadband - particularly community broadband would be a big step forward.

A second step that the community networks are arguing for is an increase in the permitted power for equipment operating in unlicensed bands in rural areas. This would also go a long way towards helping with deployment over large distances.

For a more radical US viewpoint on opening up spectrum see 'Breaking the Chains: Unlicensed Spectrum as a Last-Mile Broadband Solution' and 'Open Spectrum' by the New America Foundation. The first challenges assumptions about how wireless could be scaled to deliver broadband. The second challenges the contention that spectrum is a scarce resource.

MPs Demand Action

Ministers need to urgently tackle the broadband digital divide according to The House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. On 15th July the Committee published its report into Rural Broadband. This concludes that "the Government should now commit itself to a new target, of ensuring that broadband is available to all areas of the United Kingdom within a defined timetable; and that it should commit resources adequate to support the new policy." Amongst the recommendations are proposals that:

* The Government, RDAs and other public sector agencies support local broadband campaigns

* Open up more radio spectrum to wireless operators and to set the price of licensed bands at a level that actively encourages wireless broadband.

* Develop imaginative means by which consumers can 'piggy-back' on public sector infrastructure.

* Intervention to ensure broadband is available in the most remote areas - where provision cannot be left to the marketplace.

* Clarification of state aid rules relating to public sector support for broadband.

Networking - ruralnet|uk

Community broadband groups will have another opportunity to come together to discuss common problems and issues at the ruralnet|uk Conference on 15-16th October. Ruralnet|uk is highly regarded for its ICT programmes and support services. At the conference Stephen Timms will explore opportunities for providing rural broadband through social enterprise.

Meanwhile ruralnet|uk and the Phone Coop are working together to raise funds to support better information sharing between community networks, access to expertise and joint project development.

Malcolm Corbett is a social enterprise and Internet consultant. The views expressed in this newsletter are entirely his own. Please feel free to forward this newsletter, or copy anything you find useful with a suitable acknowledgement.

Contact: M.Corbett@cooptel.net, Tel: +44 (0)20 8852 4608 or +44 (0)7770 896534 - Website coming soon.