Essex County Council pushes for super-fast broadband

Essex County Council wants super-fast broadband (24Mbps) to at least 90% of properties (both business and residential) in the county and at least 8Mbps to the remainder. The Council is currently undergoing a lengthy procurement process to award a contract to a supplier to lead on delivering the necessary infrastructure upgrades.

If you agree, lobby for it by registering at the Rural Broadband Partnership's website.

Here is the full report:

Next generation Access (NGA) and Superfast Broadband (SFB) in Greater Essex

Background
Government's ambition is for the UK to have the best broadband connectivity in Europe by 2015 with 90% of the population being able to access Superfast Broadband# and the remainder having access to substantially improved broadband at no less than speeds of 2Mbps.

Most domestic customers and nearly all business customers currently rely on and prefer fixed line internet access ie. you go on-line using your phone line. This is changing over time as affordable mobile, satellite and point to point radio wireless technology develops but the underlying telecoms network relies heavily on fixed line technology.

The quality, or speed, of your internet service relies heavily on what your phone-line is made of (aluminium, copper or fibre optic cable) and how far you live from your street cabinet and telephone exchange. In many parts of rural Essex, due to a combination of materials used and distance from the exchange, internet service levels fall way below what you'd get in urban areas.

Market Failure
The cost of upgrading the network in these harder to reach areas is unattractive to telecoms companies as the return on investment is spread over too long a period. In many rural exchanges a situation exists where there is only one historically incumbent commercial supplier (BT Openreach), offering wholesale services. Whilst the domestic or business customer may have a choice of internet service provider, they are all ultimately buying their connection to the internet from one wholesaler.
This situation is known by the World Trade Organisation and the EU as "Market Failure" which means that public money can be used to assist the private sector in delivering the desired market outcome.

As part of a process driven by the European Union and national government, in Essex £13 million of public money has been identified which will be unlocked by a further £13 million from the private sector to upgrade the network.

Identifying delivery partners
Essex County Council is currently undergoing a lengthy procurement process to award a contract to a supplier to lead on the delivery of the necessary infrastructure upgrades. We will be challenging any potential partner to deliver 24Mbps to at least 90% of properties (both business and residential) in the county and at least 8Mbps to the remainder in the hardest to reach areas.

This is an ambitious target and finding a supplier/consortium of suppliers to achieve this will not be easy. The process is lengthy and the contract is unlikely to be awarded until the first half of 2013 and will run for 7 years. Once a lead supplier has been identified, Essex County Council will work with them to phase and monitor the work to upgrade the infrastructure.

It is acknowledged that many suppliers already have their own plans to upgrade infrastructure and that significant progress has already been made. To that end we have to be careful not to cut across these investment plans and work with suppliers to best allocate public subsidy in the most appropriate and effective way.

What to do in the short term

Demand Stimulation and Registration
In order to guide us on where improved internet connections are needed, it is important that residents and businesses "vote" for better broadband. There will be a number of ways of doing this but currently it is recommended that people go to the Rural Broadband Partnership's website and register there. This website also offers advice on how to set up community based schemes. There have been several national schemes to encourage people to get "on-line" championed by Martha Lane-Fox and there will be further schemes in the coming months. You could also email philip.wilson@essex.gov.uk who is collating case studies and evidence to show potential suppliers.

Alternative technologies
Government require infrastructure to be upgraded by May 2015. Whilst it is achievable to make superfast and much improved broadband available to most people, there will be instances where this deadline is not met and that people may have to wait for several months after the deadline for their service to improve.

Where people want faster broadband immediately, or where the 2015 deadline is unlikely to be met, there are a number of other ways in which people can get better broadband including radio wireless and satellite. These offer affordable alternatives either as short term transitional provision or as longer term resilience and business continuity measures.

The Essex Association of Local Councils, the Rural Community Council of Essex and Essex County Council are all able to assist in guiding residents and businesses to an alternative broadband provider.