News came through today that the Pakistan Telecoms Authority is to take the lead in a newly formed Broadband Stakeholder Group in Pakistan. The group have identified a range of issues that, on the surface, appear very similar to those that the BSG were tasked with addressing back in 2001.

Pakistan are not alone in examining the BSG model. There is already a Broadband Stakeholders Group in the Lebanon (which has produced a Broadband Manifesto), and other countries such as Chile have shown an interest in the concept.

For me, these developments highlight two things. First is the acceptance of the central role and importance of widespread coverage and take-up of broadband for the economic and social wellbeing of a country and its citizens. Markets across the globe are developing at different speeds, starting from very different positions and at different times. However, the issues they are facing are similar and the conclusions reached in response are broadly aligned - certainly no-one has said that broadband is not important.

The second point is that many of these issues require a collaborative effort to be addressed. They are too big to be solely the responsibility of a competitive industry, or a government department, or a regulator. Lebanon, Pakistan and others are finding this to be true of first generation broadband; in our experience, so it is true of next generation broadband.

September has been a busy month in the world of next generation broadband. Government reviews, UK and EU regulatory consultations, not to mention our report on the cost of fibre-based next generation broadband, have certainly moved the debate on in the UK.

The month started with the BSG publishing its report ‘The costs of deploying fibre-based next generation broadband‘. This report used geographic and cost data specific to the UK, allowing us to model the cost of deployment across a variety of geotypes. The long and the short of this is that the report suggests that fibre to the cabinet will cost up to £5.1bn, and fibre to the home up to £28.8bn.

The total costs are interesting, but the purpose of the report was to breakdown the various cost components, to examine where the real costs lie. Unsurprisingly, this was in the civil infrastructure elements of the network - 42% of total costs for FTTC, and up to 80% of total costs for FTTH. Any steps that could be taken to reduce these costs would obviously help reduce this barrier to investment, and the report modelled how various actions, such as if higher duct re-use was possible, would impact the overall costs.

The report also clearly set out that there is a definite difference in the cost of deployment between urban, rural and remote areas of the UK. For fibre to the cabinet, for example, the cheapest 58% of households would cost £1.9bn to deploy to; the next 26% would cost £1.4bn, and the most expensive 16% would cost a further £1.8bn. Clearly, deploying beyond the first 60% of UK households will be a more challenging case for investors to make, which has a number of implications for government and the regulator.

This was closely followed by the launch of the final report of the Caio Review - ‘The Next Phase of Broadband UK: Action now for long term competitiveness‘. The Review suggested that, while we shouldn’t be panicking about a lack of NGA in the UK, the government could take actions to reduce the barriers to investment, and set out the need for leadership from the government and the regulator. A range of initiatives were recommended, including providing certainty for investors and reducing the costs of deployment, while increasing the competitive pressure on copper-based services, and benchmarking our performance against other countries while considering the ‘batstop’ remedies should the market fail to deliver NGA.

We welcomed these recommendations at the time, and look forward to hearing the government’s response to the Review. Certainly, our reports over the last 18 months have supported the conclusions and recommendations of the Review.

What followed was then followed by a flurry of regulatory activity. First, the European Commission set out its long-awaited draft Recommendation on the regulation of NGA. The Recommendation sets out how the Commission would like regulation to support investment and competition in next generation broadband, and makes for interesting reading for Ofcom and the operators, who will no doubt be submitting their views to the Commission before the 14 November deadline.

This was swiftly followed by Ofcom themselves publishing their latest consultation on the regulatory environment for NGA, ‘Delivering superfast broadband in the UK‘. The consultation discusses a range of issues and, although differing in depth of detail across the issues, certainly moves the debate on from its previous consultation last September. Positioning itself as a ‘framework for action’, the regulator will further progress these issues through a range of activities with stakeholders.

And, just to add to the fun, the Commission has also now begun its second periodic review of the Unviersal Service Directive, as well as launching an EU-wide broadband performance index.

Quite a lot to absorb for those of us who spend their days working on next generation broadband. So where has it left us? Well, the Caio Review has set out a number of options for government if it is serious about trying to reduce the costs of deployment. The government response will be interesting, and whether they are actually able to implement some of the suggested changes (such as to the way fibre is treated in the rating system) is up for debate. Caio’s recommendation that government and the regulator take a strong lead on NGA is one that we support, and are keen to see.

Our report has added further to the evidence base for policy making that we are committed to creating, to ensure appropriate policy is developed. It adds numbers to views that were likely already held, but also raises interesting questions, and the granularity of our figures should be of real use to those interested in local or regional broadband projects.

The Commission’s Recommendation, and Ofcom’s consultation, take us closer towards regulatory certainty than we were before, although a number of questions remain unanswered and this is unlikely to be the end of Ofcom’s process for creating the right regulatory framework. Certainly there could be a sense that every time you delve deeper into an issue, the list of questions a regulator needs to answer gets longer.

One issue worth noting is the change of view towards public sector projects. Sympathies certainly appear to have shifted within Ofcom, and possibly within BERR given the Review’s recommendations, since the DTI/Ofcom Best Practice Guide for Public Broadband Schemes was put out in 2007, and this is a welcome development.

This is one of many issues raised this month, however, and stakeholders will be watching with interest to see how these are played out in the coming months.

According to the latest UK Internet Access Report from the Office of National Statistics those students with home broadband access are likely to do better in their GCSEs.

This is not really surprising. Broadband provides students with access to a wealth of resources that previously were simply unavailable. It can aid independent learning by encouraging independent research and discovery, and increase collaboration not just within schools, but across schools, countries and continents. At its most effective, it can completely transform the learning experience.

In 2003 the BSG published a report highlighting the opportunities that broadband presented to the education sector in the UK, and the barriers against wider take-up and use within the education system. It is good to see that broadband is having an effect, and we hope that this will continue as schools and teachers continue to understand how broadband can be utilised to enhance their students’ experiences.

There is still a long way to go, however. There is a big difference between those that do make effective use of broadband, and those that don’t, and particularly between students with access and students without. Progress is continuing in the right direction, with the Home Access To Technology programme within DCSF, and it is important that all concerned continue to work towards realising the full benefits that broadband access can offer education in the UK.

Recently a colleague and I joined a UK delegation to visit a fibre to the home network built in the town of Nuenen in the Netherlands by a broadband cooperative. The network has connected almost the entire town of 8,500 households, and provides a 100mbps service. Close to 90% of the households are signed up and paying for the service. A full report on the project will soon be available on the BSG website (www.broadbanduk.org), but for now I’d like to talk about what Nuenen means for the UK.

Although it is unlikely that the Nuenen model can be replicated in the UK (as it involved a significant government subsidy and made use of the affluent, technology-literate make-up of Nuenen’s population), Nuenen could still have a significant impact in the UK as a source of inspiration to other towns and cities with similar aims.

On our visit were a delegation from Walsall, along with representatives from Wolverhampton, Ashford and Anglia. It is unlikely that any of these areas will have the same characteristics that allowed the Nuenen project to flourish. But some on the trip will have begun to think about what a fibre network could do for their community, both socially and economically. Residents and local businesses have begun to use the network in a variety of ways that begin to highlight the economic and social benefits that such an NGA network can bring. Those behind the Nuenen project demonstrate how, with strong local leadership, such a project can be possible.

Nuenen has received six such delegations to date, four of which are from the UK. According to them, they could receive a delegation a week if they had the time, such is the interest in the project. In the UK we have the Digital Region project in South Yorkshire, which is local authority led. Will we see community-led NGA projects in the UK? Time will tell, but Nuenen is certainly food for thought.

Peter Shearman, Policy Manager, BSG

Following an EU procurement process, Thales, along with bid partners Alcatel Lucent and Kingston Communication, have been chosen as the preferred bidder to deliver the Digital Region project, which will provide a next generation access network to approximately 600,000 homes across South Yorkshire.

Four local authorities in the South Yorkshire area have put the Digital Region project together. The key aim is to create an infrastructure for the region that will spur economic regeneration, offering high bandwidth broadband that will encourage knowledge-based business to the region and provide the opportunity for business located in the region to offer new services and enter new markets. The project, it is hoped, will also partially address the digital divide in the region: only around 20% of households have taken up a broadband service.

Industry, government and regional development agencies are watching this project with interest. Current debate around if, how and when the public sector should intervene in the investment in next generation access technologies has yet to provide a clear consensus amongst stakeholders. The outcome of this project will go some way to clarifying this debate, and providing experience to inform models for possible further public sector interventions elsewhere in the UK.