{"id":276,"date":"2010-11-11T20:22:47","date_gmt":"2010-11-11T19:22:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lornemitchell.com\/blog\/?p=276"},"modified":"2010-11-11T20:37:58","modified_gmt":"2010-11-11T19:37:58","slug":"on-the-dcms-business-plan-for-the-delivery-of-uk-broadband","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?p=276","title":{"rendered":"Comment on the DCMS Business Plan for the Delivery of UK Broadband"},"content":{"rendered":"
I have posted on the DCMS website, commenting on their recently published Business Plan for Broadband<\/a>. \u00a0Interesting to see if they actually publish it. \u00a0In any case, they cannot vet what I put on my own blog – so here is what I wrote:<\/div>\n
“A perfection of means and confusion of ends seems to characterise our age” as Einstein so rightly said.<\/span><\/div>\n
These milestones are mere inch-pebbles…..<\/div>\n
Jeremy Hunt’s ambition of only five months ago that: “within this Parliament we want Britain to have the best superfast broadband network in Europe” has been diluted to a set of muddled objectives and easily-achievable short-term meetings, studies, consultations and (yet-to-start) round tables. \u00a0And the heading of “super-fast” has been subtly changed to “universal” which is muddling the Universal Service Obligation with what the best superfast broadband network in Europe should really be…<\/div>\n
Meanwhile, BT has gone public on a very effective campaign which is designed to create a very un-level paying field for Next Generation Access. \u00a0BT, Virgin Media and the other so-called ISPs will continue to compete in the same (urban and semi-urban) areas that they have on the current LLU regime. \u00a0A “completed” milestone of examined barriers has clouded the fact that the recently announced business rates regime has put more barriers in place for new networks – not removed them. \u00a0We can examine barriers until the cows come home. \u00a0We need the barriers removed, not examined!<\/div>\n
Ambitions for open access infrastructure (ducts and poles) are riddled with practical issues that will mean BT will continue to play a waiting game.<\/div>\n
Openreach is not “open’, yet we continue to use the word “open” without defining any new structures required for the fibre revolution and relying on old structures that were created for copper networks – simply because it is easier.<\/div>\n
And the market testing community-led pilots are out-of-phase with the infrastructure sharing milestone – such that BT is far more likely to be able to give a compelling bid for each scheme and wipe the slate clean than if the infrastructure was truly open. \u00a0Well constructed plans need to understand that certain milestones will have dependencies on others. \u00a0The project plan needs to be laid-out rather than created as a list, so that these dependencies can be understood and the milestones phased accordingly.<\/div>\n
We MUST get our purpose, objectives and milestones better aligned in this critical programme! \u00a0This is a matter of national survival on the increasingly competitive landscape of the global internet economy – and we have very little time (perhaps six months to a year) to get our act together.<\/div>\n
These milestones are very unlikely to achieve what we need by when we need it.<\/div>\n
However, not to be over-critical, there has been some good work. \u00a0The recently published Digital Scotland report for a far more ambitious and coherent plan with some great ideas on how to connect Broadband to Big Society and provide speeds much closer to what “the best superfast broadband network in Europe” might look like. \u00a0But it is not clear that Westminster can hear Edinburgh down the communication lines of two countries with different political parties in leadership positions and with Scotland coming up to \u00a0Elections and the rest of the UK trying to work out what they actually voted for!<\/div>\n
It is time to wash-away these inch-pebbles and create a national debate and a coherent joined-up plan on this important subject with real, competitive milestones that will create a national, shared, fibre infrastructure (such as has recently been announced by Italy) as well as to bridge both the geographic and social digital divides with real connections and real training and participation rather than the political verbiage that we have become used to over the past few years.<\/div>\n
We will be challenging the current thinking at the\u00a0NextGen ’10 conference<\/a> in Birmingham on 22-23rd November.<\/div>\n
If Big Society is to happen (and be supported by the necessary digital infrastructure required), then this part of the Business Plan needs re-thinking – particularly if we are really going to deliver on the excellent ambition set out by Jeremy Hunt in June.<\/div>\n
Thank you for being open enough to allow me to comment and please take the comments as a constructive contribution to what is a truly vital part of the government’s business plan.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have posted on the DCMS website, commenting on their recently published Business Plan for Broadband. \u00a0Interesting to see if they actually publish it. \u00a0In any case, they cannot vet what I put on my own blog – so here is what I wrote: “A perfection of means and confusion of ends seems to characterise … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Comment on the DCMS Business Plan for the Delivery of UK Broadband”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[42,7,41,26,5,40,28,32,31,36,38,22,8],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DQGK-4s","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1029,"url":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?p=1029","url_meta":{"origin":276,"position":0},"title":"Goons, Flying Circuses and UK Comms","author":"Lorne Mitchell","date":"14\/07\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"At the end of a very busy few weeks, I managed to miss the announcement that OfCom, the UK Communications Regulator had published its annual review of the UK Communications Market. \u00a0Just under \u00a330 in paper format, it is free to download online . 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Thanks to other Palindromes\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Broadband"","block_context":{"text":"Broadband","link":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":306,"url":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?p=306","url_meta":{"origin":276,"position":3},"title":"Working Through the Big Freeze","author":"Lorne Mitchell","date":"03\/12\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I had a commute-from-hell to get home on Tuesday night with a train being broken down in front of mine and my train taking the side-track via a suburban frozen waste. \u00a0Not fun. \u00a0I decided to stop commuting for the rest of the week. For the past two days I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Ideas"","block_context":{"text":"Big Ideas","link":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?cat=42"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":456,"url":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?p=456","url_meta":{"origin":276,"position":4},"title":"What is “Best”?","author":"Lorne Mitchell","date":"04\/03\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"With the debate about what \"best\" looks like as in \"The UK will have the best broadband in Europe by 2015\", I looked up some famous quotations on \"best\": \"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. 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