He is quoting Cisco research on the expected growth of broadband demand and the need for high capacity links.

He says that in spite of national doom and gloom on the economic front he says that in Milton Keynes they are experiencing rapid growth and much of that is critically based on the digital infrastructure.

The Benefits of Fit-For-Purpose Broadband

Crister highlights a distinction between the former incumber telco’s and new communications providers – the latter often locally based. 200 out of 297 municipalities are building their own networks and majority owned by the public sector – and making money – a process which keeps local taxes down! He also cites the plentiful availability of dark fibre – enabling businesses to create their own private networks. He has just commented on the ‘uncultured values’ that justify the investment and help develop new models for investment for high-speed access. The new services that did not exist before are an indication of the boost to innovation and inward investment to rural and less-favoured areas. He describes a virtuous circle of investment engendering new growth and improvements in the quality of life. he cites savings made by city of Stockholm – savings that have lowered taxes and, at the same time, improved the quality of life and public services delivery.

Delivering Next Generation Broadband to Accelerate Growth

The failure, she says, was that we neglected investment in the infrastructure and we now need to play ‘catch-up’ to accelerate growth.

Fibre To The Home from Start to Finish

Adam Ashenden of Prysmian

Adam then focused on the cables and ducts and the civil engineering challenges. In some areas duct networks existed and could be re-used but in other areas they worked with other utilities – including the sewer networks.

The city fibre ring needed to allow for extension to the airport but it also needed to link the three distinct areas. Part of the Prysmian solution benefited from their experience in Paris where they developed smaller cables with great capacity. They also developed a micro-ducting system to allow rapid deployment with air-blown systems – blown fibres are likely to last at least 25 years – vastly better than cables that are strained by pulling them in.

It is the experience and development capability of Prysmian and their ability to work with other agencies that contributes to these successful FTTH deployments.

His final point was that customer engagement was massively beneficial – many customers are happy to assist with the cable dig for the last few metres – reducing cost and gaining customer commitment.

Further, faster & affordable – the latest from BT

Brendan Dick Managing Director BT Scotland & Managing Director BT Regions

Brendan first point – ‘Faster’ – was that from next year that businesses will be able to order fibre connectivity on demand. He also mentioned to predominance of businesses operated from home.
This would, he said, transform the way we live and work and will be a fundamentally key component of economic growth.

For Milton Keynes Brendan highlighted some local initiatives – ‘75% (more than 85,000 premises) have access to super fast broadband’. This is primarily ‘fibre to the cabinet’.

BT has apparently been surprised that take-up has been higher than the 35% they expected.

Brendan says that BT is engaged in future-proofing the UK’s telecoms network. They are now trialling faster speeds over combined fibre/copper networks. BY may believe in the utopia (of FTTH) but are rooted in the practical challenges of today – using mixes of technology to deliver basic broadband to 100% of the country.

QUESTIONS FROM FLOOR

BT seems not to be providing FTTC to Milton Keynes to business parks – does this mean that BT expects businesses to buy more-expensive provisions.

Brendan responded by highlighting the priorities (from the BDUK programme) to fill the most needy gaps.

A question about rural areas produced response that it was a matter of market priorities – looking for the most likely take-up areas first – but all of this must fit with the BDUK programme.

The role of Broadband Delivery UK (“BDUK”)

Robert Ling

He expressed some satisfaction that their process was on schedule and the responses from Local Authorities had been very encouraging. The process had been greatly benefited from clarification of the State Aid issues and an umbrella agreement agreed with the European Commission.

The 2nd round for bids opened on the 10th May and will close on 6th July. The first round (January) resulted in 16 applications out of 39 being approved.

A further programme for Mobile investment – details on the DCMS website.

Major issue – Demand Stimulation – DCMS working with GO ON UK ( a ‘reincarnation of RACE Online 2012) – is a key part of the strategy. Robert is keen to see a strong business focus and a collaborative culture that brings together many organisations such as FSB.

Fibre To The Home Council Europe

Nadia Babaali

FTTH Council was formalised in 2004 and is now a major industry organisation – with a vision for a sustainable future.

The FTTH Council Europe’s 10th anniversary conference (Feb 2013) will be held in London – the first time that it has been in England.

In line with the other FTTH Councils around the world the council’s league tables only count those homes and buildings that are actually connected by fibre.

Europe and CIS countries in total have more FTTH connections than the USA.

Take-up rates appear to be higher in CIS countries.

In the global rankings of countries with more than 200,000 households and more than 1% connected by FTTH. The Aisian countries (e.g. South Korea) are in the lead and Lithuania is the highest European entry.

In Europe there are 20 countries with more than 1% penetration and this table is lead by Nordic and Eastern European countries. Growth rates in Eastern Europe are now leading the market.

The Council have analysed projects by ‘type of player’ – Municipalities, Alternative Operators and European Incumbents. The first two categories have been important in driving Incumbents towards a more innovative approach.

In the ‘Race to Fibre Maturity’ (when 20% penetration is expected) the UK is not expected to achieve this until some time after 2022 – and long other most others. This prediction suggests that the UK may not achieve the EU’s broadband targets for 2020.

There are continental case studies available on the FTT Council website. NextGen is assisting the Council in finding additional case studies from the UK.

Local case studies

Fredi Nonyelu – MK Business Broadband Survey

Objectives to understand the state of play in the Mk area and find recommendations for the city.

16% of businesses involved directly in ICT and the responses reflected a stronger response from this sector.

The results showed many areas are effectively rural with very low broadband speeds – but this was also apparent in the city centre.

32% rated reliability as poor. 86% had upload speeds of less than 2mbps.

The slides are detailed and will be available on the NextGen site as soon as possible.

On affordability the willingness to pay seemed to be limited to less than £30 – regardless of performance.

Several examples from local enterprises were reviewed in detail.

In summary
BDUK has awarded only £140k -to Milton Keynes – but MK council has allocation £2.4M and this is expected to be match-funded by operators.

Competition is seen as key – and whilst they welcome the work with BY they see the need to have a local dimension and get away from a ‘1 size fits all’ approach.

Fredi then finished by reviewing the challenges and opportunities – and the need for the infrastructure to match the future vision for the city.

The Brooklands Development

Graeme Scott Technical Account Manager IFNL

This means no street furniture – the entire infrastructure is underground.

Telecoms is the same as any other utility.

TV requires 15Mbps per channel. Graeme highlights multiple concurrent applications.

Standard Service is 50Mbps down and 25Mbps upload speed. This is the fastest service in Milton Keynes.

This presentation highlights the value of a local operator – and further extensions from the scheme are being developed.

Milton Keynes Smart City

Prof Keith Straughan Interim Dean University College Milton Keynes

The evolution of city services – understanding the spiral of developments – requires a view of convergence of several human factors. Keith views that the technology focus of many models is mistaken – agriculture, education, water production – just three of the perspectives that are missing from government understanding.

Smart Cities demand increasing ‘knowledge sharing’. Keith cites Ofgem work on understand electricity demands.

Keith shows a new view of Smart Cities – but the hardest part is not technology but people factors – but it cannot move forward without an infrastructure that allows behaviours to change and evolve.

Time, Einstein and Everything Cool about NextGen Technology

Magnet provides an IPTV service and Sky services as well a open open access network.

They have developed special service for gamers – and much of the benefits are being felt in the Financial Services world of high-frequency trading.

Beware the JCB – Mark cites the customer who refused the offer of a back-up link – and lost 4 days work because of a digger!

Acceleration – more capacity is always taken up – so why do people still ask why they would need 100mbps? Once they have experienced it they will never let it go.

Latency is a vital quality issue for business users.

Aertv is live and social – 29% of viewers comment on social media – and 29% of TV viewers are viewing it in the bathroom!