It’s worth noting that the SCC deployment is being done seperately from the BDUK umbrella, and it’s been revealed BT were bidding against two other independant contractors, as opposed to their usual BDUK bidding rivals Fujitsu.

If you fancy being the person who manages the BT deployment in Surrey, they are currently seeking a Programme Director to run the show. I’m not sure what happened to the last occupant of the role, if there was one?

Of course, one advantage of going with BT for this deployment is that assuming BT in the main use their existing FTTC/FTTP service models, it shouldn’t be a problem for any ISP to deliver “superfast” service to homes and businesses on the Surrey deployment. It will be done using the same interconnects and some provisioning.

Compare that to more “bespoke” superfast networks such as Digital Region, which had been viewed as unattractive to work with because of the additional overheads for a consumer ISP of dealing with their processess and provisioning systems, in addition to the “defacto” wholesale broadband providers such as Be/O2 and the ubiquitous BT.

So, while I was at the IX Leeds meeting last week, I was interested to hear of a new service from Fluidata, which aims to solve the problems commonly associated with delivering service over multiple local access wholesalers, which they are calling “Stop@Nothing”.

Their plan is to offer a wholesale “middleman” service, interconnecting to various local access networks, both national (such as BT and O2) and regional (such as Digital Region), among others, and being able to deliver these over an inter-regional backhaul network to the ISP on a common pipe (or pipes), and provide a common API to the ISP for provisioning, regardless of which last mile network is delivering service to the customer premises.

I can see this helping the ISPs in two ways – potentially doing away with the time and cost implications of integrating a new wholesale broadband provider platform into your own provisioning processes and systems, and in giving ISPs who don’t have any local presence cheaper access to regional projects (such as Digital Region), without the risk of building into the area – maybe this becomes something can be done later if volume warrants it. It potentally also gets around issues such as minimum order commitments from individual ISPs, as these are aggregated behind the Fluidata service.

I haven’t got a clue how cost effective Fluidata’s product will be, as I’ve not seen any pricing for it. I can only assume that it’s competitive or they wouldn’t be doing it.

Meanwhile, the group of determined farmers and country-dwelling folk behind B4RN in the North West continue doing their own thing, their own way, and have recently been digging into a local church hall in Abbeystead:

There’s a whole series of videos on their YouTube channel about how they are progressing and details on the physical elements of their infrastructure such as digs and fibre installs.

It’s way down the list of priorities for a lot of companies who simply can’t see the benefit of superfast broadband. But more and more ‘ordinary’ firms are making the switch – only to find it transforms the way they work.

Thanks to Digital Region and others, South Yorkshire is blessed with a superfast network that is streets ahead of the rest of the country.

Phil Coley, a director of Rotherham-based DuoCall Communications, believes a very quiet IT revolution is taking place. He said “Businesses are placing greater demands on their IT infrastructure with high-speed internet access forming an essential part of their day-to-day running. It offers genuine competitive advantage. Those embracing the service are seeing it transform the way they do business, but there are many others unable to take advantage due to contracts signed a few years ago to provide services that don’t reflect the needs of the business.”

Cloud based systems – where information is stored remotely – are increasingly popular because information can be accessed quickly from the office, home or mobile.

Phil Coley believes that one of the reasons preventing further uptake in South Yorkshire is the misunderstanding of what’s on offer and how it can benefit their business. He added: “local businesses now have the chance to work on a level playing field with larger and national competition, Improved upload speed is needed if a business has decided to embrace internet phone calls, or employees working from home need to upload large files to their main office server. It’s highly likely in the next few years that cloud-based servers will overtake the traditional physical server because they offer improvements in reliability and speed, while reducing IT costs. Those choosing to ignore the impact of high-speed connections are placing themselves at a considerable disadvantage.”

Business Monthly spoke to some of our customers to see what difference our Superfast connection had made to their business

Law firm’s identical levels of performance

WHY would a law firm need super-fast broadband? Doncaster-based Atteys Solicitors has several offices across South Yorkshire which had different types of internet connections that were costly and unreliable. The company decided to install a new web-based IT system which meant a superfast link was vital. The high speeds available through fibre connections have meant that even though the firm’s leased line is in Doncaster, all of its South Yorkshire offices are also able to receive almost identical levels of performance via a web-based management system.

Business output 50 times greater

When it takes all day to send a single email a business has to act – or die. Bosses at Access Credit Management admit that their creaking system was having a “catastrophic” effect on trading opportunities. The debt collectors based at Europa Business Park, has clients all over the world.

Commercial director John Cardwell said “The vast majority of our working day is spent supporting businesses from many different parts of the world and email is a vital communication tool. Running a business was becoming almost impossible.”

Now it has a fibre web connection from DuoCall. He added: “Productivity has improved by more that 10 percent and actual output from the business is nearly 50 times greater than before. “Until we changed suppliers and saw the difference myself, I would never have believed a company’s internet connection would have such a dramatic effect on the performance of the company.”

Fast and reliable robust system

More and more companies take orders over the net – but employees sit staring at a spinning disk. Gripes about slow running systems are the background noise in many offices these days.

Progressive Safety, the Sheffield based distributor of safetywear, was no different. Managing director Howard Topham, said: “We have a 65 strong workforce and noticed that there were certain times during the day our systems would run extremely slowly – to the point that they became almost unworkable.”

“We increasingly receive a lot of orders through the company’s website and it is vital for the growth of the business to process them quickly.”
Dave Coleshill of the company’s IT consultants, Star IT, said: “Resolving the company’s problems in being able to access emails was
the starting point. After contacting Digital Region and realising that we could access the high-speed network, we looked for a supplier who could
undertake the work for us. DuoCall helped us to develop a robust system which meant the business could replace some of its back office operations with web-based systems – impossible to do without a fast and reliable internet connection.”

to read the virtual online article CLICK HERE

to speak to our specialists about transforming your business connectivity call 0845 676 1000

printed in STAR BUSINESS MONTHLY – Wednesday, July 4th, 2012 [CITY EDITION] / SHEFFIELD

It seems that matters have not improved since then: a Sheffield-based hosting company, KDA, has written an Open Letter to Digital Region, which pretty much confirms that everything which was true several months ago is still true today, and goes on to suggest that there’s enough experience and skill in the tech community in South Yorkshire to turn this around, if only those in charge were willing (able?) to change tack and allow the community to steer the organisation.

It’s also alluded that a cut-price disposal of the network assets, which should rightly be the South Yorkshire taxpayer’s, for a cut-price may already be in hand, and that a failure of DR will be associated generally with the South Yorkshire tech industry, tarring it’s (generally good) reputation.

DR shouldn’t be the way it is – DR should be more agile than the large telcos, and find it easier to be more focused on the needs of the local userbase, but it isn’t. It seems to be strangled by inflexibility and bureaucratic behaviour, which needs to change if it’s to survive, and deliver the promise that the local authorities set out to achieve. But, at the moment, I’m doubtful that this will happen. The peppercorn sell-off probably feels like an easy way out, however much it’s short-changing South Yorks residents and business in the process.

You can read the full text of the Open Letter here.

The Yorkshire Post article goes on to explain another £4m of public funds have been ringfenced as a “security”, and that the four participating councils, already under budget pressure from Central Government austerity, may need to as much as £500k per year to secure the operations of Digital Region if the loan can’t be repaid. Is that throwing good money after bad, or is the situation redeemable?

This highlights my belief that these large centrally funded uber-projects contain a more significant risk of failure, and not of delivering the right product. The larger organisations that are able to bid and win such projects can come with higher overheads compared to the smaller community projects such as those serving areas with poor existing broadband service, who have a relatively captive and supportive market, and benefit from a tighter focus – for instance Rutland Telecom’s pioneering FTTC with unbundled sub-loop in Lyddington, which is using the same basic FTTC tech as DR is using, but on a smaller scale and in relative isolation.

The larger scale of the Digital Region deployment obviously needed a much bigger income to support the aggressive build and provisioning costs, along with what looks like a complex structure, and now that revenue hasn’t been realised. As can be seen on the DR website, and highlighted on the ThinkBroadband article, very few ISPs use the DR infrastructure to deliver service and is maybe one of the reasons they aren’t making their targets.

You have to ask yourself why this is?

So far the following reasons have been put forward:

• High setup and operating costs associated with the wholesale product.
  • The consumer-grade broadband mass market is price sensitive, the high initial outlay to setup service likely doesn’t sit well.
  • The higher ongoing costs make it more difficult to sell a competitively priced product delivered via DR’s wholesale service with a reasonable margin.
• A lack of choice of ISPs for the consumer to choose from – only a small number of local ISPs deliver service via DR.
  • Currently not got large players on the DR network, mostly local “niche” players, maybe partly because of good existing LLU coverage by the main LLU providers (O2, TalkTalk, Sky) in the population centres in the DR service area?
• A lack of awareness among consumers about the products offered and how it can support local business.
  • The circumstantial evidence supports the argument that there’s very little marketing about the superfast services, while those who use service provided over the DR platform say they are happy with the service they get.
• Alledged relationship management issues with BT have been hinted at.
  • Remember, BT Openreach still need to deliver the copper pair between street pillar and the customer.
• The network design back in 2009 assumed the problem (poor Broadband in the regions towns and cities) wouldn’t addressed by others during the build period.
  • This means the DR service is concurrent with BT’s FTTC coverage as well as otherwise acceptable (and already unbundled) standard ADSL coverage from Sky, et al, which benefits from mass-market leverage, and misses out on local support.
  • The project also continues to miss out the real local notspots which have no local LLU, long tail circuits, and seem set to remain that way.
• Existing broadband players improving their product, including BT and Virgin Media, since the DR project and scope was conceived, changing the local wholesale broadband playing field since the network was designed.
  • One could argue that if just the existance of Digital Region has made the other infrastructure-based providers accelerate their own upgrades and FTTC deployments in the area, it’s served it’s purpose, just in an expensive and rather sick sort of way, at a huge cost to the taxpayer.

Other possible reasons could be:

• Management difficulties.
  • The organisation has already been through two CEOs and is seeking it’s third.
• Excessive stakeholder indirection – remember we’ve got politics behind the money here.
  • The Public entities behind DR may not have sufficient technical awareness to provide consistent strategy and steering?
  • Is this causing a situation of moving goalposts and changing vision, no good for maintaining growth and direction?
• Artificially high cost structure.
  • Possibly due to layers of outsourcing – often found in uber-projects like this – for instance, the design/build/operate stakeholder, Thales, contracted the infrastructure build work to Kcom, Hull’s telecoms company. Everyone along the way will want to scrape their cut off the top if they are private companies who exist to deliver value to their shareholders.
  • This is a serious risk for publicly funded projects, because of the relatively small number of organisations who are capable and eligible to submit a compliant bid for the work.
• Unattractive and/or uncompetitive wholesale products and pricing.
  • I don’t know this for sure, though the lack of an affordable “entry level” service has been eluded to in the comments on ThinkBroadband, and apparently the DR wholesale service is more expensive than the BT equivalent.
• DR being difficult to deal with, either commercially or operationally.
  • Might this explain why other operators are not delivering service over the DR platform?

I’m not on the inside, so I can only surmise that these may be part of the woes.

I think one of the worst things that can happen in this case is that the project’s debts are written off but the network sold on to the highest bidder, debt free, as a “distressed assset”, as happened to so many failed startups in the dotcom era. Why? Because that’s going to allow a private enterprise (and it’s shareholders) avoid startup and build costs while reaping benefit from the infrastructure built with our taxes.

Such a product, so dependent on public money, needs to create a virtuous effect for it’s community.

There needs to be a re-investment in the region of the cash injected, not a net outflow. Supporting the local ISPs to deliver service is one thing, but it seems this needs to be much more far reaching. Given the main stakeholders are the Councils, it needs to continue to insource connectvity for council premises, schools, etc., getting them moved onto the network as soon as possible, for instance.

How can DR win wholesale FTTC business from ISPs who currently deliver product over BT? It’s actually relatively simple for an ISP already servicing ADSL customers via BT’s 21CN to provision FTTC – it’s all done with the same tools, traffic passed over the same interconnects.

The move to using the DR infrastructure has to some how offset the additional costs the ISP will have when interconnecting with DR, and setting up provisioning with their OSS, in addition to using BT’s. Other ISPs do use multiple wholesale providers to deliver service, such as A&A, so it can be done, and is obviously worth their while, but there must be a price point which makes it work.

DR need to be quicker and altogether more easier to deal with to win this particular battle, competing on cost alone may not be acceptable or simply unsustainable in the long term.

A turnaround for Digital Region needs to take into account the fact that, by design or by accident, it’s built itself a competitive marketplace where one didn’t previously exist and now needs to act as such, while the new CEO (when they arrive on the scene) needs to be able to fully engage and empathise with the ISP community, especially those with Yorkshire-based infrastructure to help contain interconnect costs, as these providers make up the prime growth market.

Sources: ThinkBroadband and Yorkshire Post

Here are this month’s additions to the list of Sheffield people and organisations of interest on Twitter. The full directory can be found on the Sheffield Twitter users page.

We’re now into our second Twitter list of people and organisations in Sheffield in Twitter. There is also the first Sheffield Twitter list, which contains the first 500 accounts.

Luke Avery photographer, creator of the Sheffield 365 project
@lukeaveryphoto

Wonderland tea parties
@WTeaParties

Tea box – online tea shop
@teaboxonline

Walkley community centre
@7afirstreet

Now then magazine
@nowthenmag

Neil Grant – manager of Ferndale garden centre
@NeilGGardens

Sheffield cathedral
@sheffcath

Sheffield speakers – toastmaster club
@Sheff_Speakers

Totley deli
@TotleyDeli

Dore and Totley
@dore_totley

The Fat cat pub
@sheffield3

APG works – formerly known as the Archipelago gallery
@APGworks

Steven Croft, bishop of Sheffield
@Steven_Croft

Digital region broadband
@DigitalRegion

Environment room environmental communications
@Nattered

Sheffield uprising Sheffield live breakfast show
@sheffieldup

SEO maintenance
@SEOMaintenance

Sheffield university rock society
@ShefUniRockSoc

The Bowery bar
@TheBoweryLIVE

Kirstan Bromley – GB skeleton racer
@kristanbromley

James Vincent – BBC Sheffield political reporter
@BBCJamesVincent

Aston hotel
@AstonSheffield

St Mary’s conference venue
@StMarysS2

Broadsword – print managment and display print providers
@BroadswordUKLtd

Hallam FC – second oldest footballl club, playing at the oldest football ground in the world
@hallam1860

Made in Sheffield
@MadeInSheffield

Jessops photograpy Sheffield
@jessops_sheff

Sulfur code – mobile and cloud-based apps
@sulfurcode

Mellor ware – illustrated home wares company
@mellorware

Appy feet fish spa
@appyfeet

Students rooms – property
@students_rooms

Claire Taylor – individual therapy and corporate transition coach
@claireonthewww

Names not numbers charity
@namesnotnumbers

Gleeson homes
@GleesonHomes

epiGenesys – a University of Sheffield company
@epiGenesys

UKP training
@ukptraining

Ogle films
@Oglefilms

Sheffield academy of young leaders in sport
@sayls_org_uk

Creative action network, organisers of Sharrow lantern festival
@sharrowlanterns

Rutland hotel
@rutlandhotel

Creative something graphic design
@CreativeSmthing

Footysphere football blog
@footysphere

Chasing Arizona band
@ChasingArizona

2 deluxe promotions
@twodeluxe

Art in the park environmental arts organisation
@artinthepark1

South Yorkshire police band
@police_band

Fusion youth theatre
@FusionYTheatre

Square hole comedy club at the Red deer
@square_hole

Wapenmap – designers the stainless steel contoured map sculpture
@Wapenmap

Mercury newspaper
@MercurySheff

Milestone wines shop
@milestonewines

Manor and Arbourthorne safer neighbourhood team PCSO/cycle officer
@ManorArbourPCSO

KF designs
@kfdesigns_co_uk

Mosborough
@Mosborough_Shef

Hazel’s catering
@hazelscatering

Social media training
@socialmedtrain

Sheffield gossip
@shefgossip

Tenenos education
@Temenosonline

You may have read coverage of the Digital economy bill that is currently working its way through the house of Lords. It is a response to the Digital Britain report and looks like it will do more to cripple our digital economy than support its growth.

One aim of the bill is to deal with internet piracy and to do this several draconian measures have been proposed that could have a big affect on people in Sheffield.

The major point of contention is that fines and disconnections can be enforced on the internet connection subscriber – i.e. the person whose name the connection is in – if someone uses their network for an activity like illegal file sharing.

Individuals, businesses and groups will choose not to take this risk and this could spell the end of free wifi and open internet connections in libraries, universities, schools, cafes, council buildings and community groups.

Obviously this isn’t just an issue that affects Sheffield; it will impact the whole country. But it seems particularly ironic that in south Yorkshire where the Digital region project will soon be providing us with super-fast broadband, many of the businesses and organisations that would be able to pass on the benefits of this to the public will not feel able to do so if the proposed legislation goes through.

Further detail regarding the bill and how best to object to it is outlined in the north west Sheffield news online blog post.

If you care about your online freedom and our local and national digital economy then take the time to write to or visit your MP to object.