NextGenUs

Post Telecoms Futures

2012-01-28T23:53:00.003Z

Every once in a while a truly evolutionary analysis is created by those able to learn from the unintended consequences of history and see the parallels in our present and future worlds.

In the Digital World, Martin Geddes is one such seer and here is his magnum opus - http://www.futureofcomms.com/blog/2012/1/27/peak-telecoms.html

Internal analysis by NextGenUs indicates that the peak of perhaps £70Billion UK telecoms fixed and mobile market annual cashflow is already passed and the next equilibrium level is in the £8-12 Billion range.

Local Access Fibre provides the digital equivalent of what C.Y.O'Connor did to reduce the cost of another utility, water, by similar orders of magnitude in Western Australia a century ago.

Put another way, that's a whole heap of musical chairs gone missing and the piper's playing is soon to finish.

Interesting times ahead indeed.

Feedback of our Services Flood In!

2011-12-13T15:50:00.002Z

Maybe not the best choice of titles considering Cumbria's current weather but at least in this weather the residents of Great Salkeld are able to work from home when they can't get to work on their new super fast connections...

"I am delighted with the broadband; to have business broadband speeds at home has been fantastic as it means that I can work from home and achieve what I want to, rather than having my work outputs restricted by the limitations of the broadband, which is a real benefit, so, so far I think it is fantastic.

I have not had any connectivity issues, the broadband does not drop out as used to be the case, neither does it freeze and waste time buffering so am delighted with that.

The installation and service provided by NextGenUs setting up both the broadband and Vonage was excellent – many thanks for sorting everything out.Certainly – to date – I have no reservations that I have made anything other than the right decision to change providers. As far as broadband speeds are compared then there is no comparison and from a phone point of view the clarity of reception on phone calls is much better – I can actually hear what people are saying when I answer the phone whereas before I was thinking I was going deaf or needing to change my phone equipment!!"

Peter P, Great Salkeld

"Firstly, I would like to thank the broadband team very much for bringing high speed broadband to our home.

The broadband is fantastic, my son has not been dropped out of any online games since we switched. The internet is also much quicker even when my family are running 2 or 3 appliances.

The customer service face to face was brilliant. Nothing was too much trouble and any questions were answered fully or investigated and resolved with regular updates as to the situations progress.

I have also transferred my phone which despite an initial glitch now works well. I am now notified of voice mails via emails which allows me to pick them up anywhere on my phone, how convenient!!

Thanks again for bringing this to our village, my family and I very much appreciate it."
Gail M, Great Salkeld

Service is now available in Great Salkeld, Milburn, Blencarn and Kings Meaburn with delivery to other areas proceeding over the coming months. See our dedicated Cumbria microsite for more information and to register your community today.

The Great Salkeld Speed Boost

2011-11-30T15:29:00.001Z

Speeding has been taking place in the village of Great Salkeld in Cumbria! The police were informed but decided not to prosecute because we are not talking the speed cars are driving through the village - we are talking how fast the village is now accessing the internet at! Below is a test from the first customer we connected :-

All achieved by simply attaching a small access device to their TV aerial. Sadly this was spoiled by the choice of mug the property owner decided to bring out our aerial fitters tea in :-

After connecting the first wave of customers in Great Salkeld, the week was followed by an event we hosted in the local pub, the Highland Drove, where we seen over 70 people from the village along with broadband champions interested in our services from other villages.

Libby Bateman, broadband campaigner and Project Officer of the Upper Eden Community Plan, commented "The event at the Highland Drove created a large amount of interest from across the whole of Eden. It was excellent to see super fast broadband in action and a new delivery solution being brought to the table for our rural parishes.".

We are now continuing our roll out that will see a large chunk of Eden covered within 6 months. Register your community on our website today!

Dark Fibre Connected in Cumbria!

2011-11-23T11:01:00.002Z

As of early this morning, I am pleased to confirm that our dark fibre link into Cumbria has now been lit up and we have a 1Gbps (1,000Mbps) connection into High Murber Farm ready for distribution to customers!

The final engineering work on our side was completed a few weeks ago...

Fibre being pulled through our chamber.

Fibre pulled into the trunk fibre chamber.

Rory Stewart MP and Eden District Council Chair Joan Raine lend a hand with fibre pulling and splicing.

John Colton from Lucid splicing the fibre cable in our building.

...and then, at 4am last Wednesday morning, the splicing engineers arrived to attach our cable to the trunk fibre...

Inside of the splicing dome.

Splicing dome ready to go back into the chamber.

The final piece of the jigsaw was the equipment to light the fibre arriving yesterday morning. I then travelled down to Manchester and back fitting equipment at the start and end along with at regeneration points along the way.

Servers and routers go in at the Manchester data centre end.

High Murber Farm end in Cumbria with test customer router.

And the result of all this work :-

We are now working on a roll out plan that will see is cover a large part of Eden over the next 6 months. Register your community today on our website to see us begin serving your village!

Spotlight on Scothern

2011-11-11T01:06:00.000Z

Another community steps up to embrace the NextGenUs community interest approach to future-proof symmetric superfast broadband (SSB).

On an extraordinary Wednesday evening, thanks to sterling efforts by local broadband pioneers and the Parish Council, an unprecedented number (estimated at 135 local residents plus West Lindsey District and Lincolnshire County Councils representatives) turned out in force at the local school for the NextGenUs Roadshow to see, hear and ask questions.

Already since a significant number of residents have stepped up and expressed their firm interest in securing for Scothern the same quality outcome as Ashby residents and businesses have enjoyed for the last year.

As usual, NextGenUs aim to deliver service in 3 to 6 months of the required local demand level being met.

A classic example of Big Society in action aka Together We Are The Network

Work Continues at High Murber Farm in Cumbria

2011-10-30T10:11:00.000Z

Over the past few weeks, work has been continuing at High Murber Farm, the 1st of many core nodes in Cumbria, in preparation for the immanent connection to fibre optic cabling. This will allow service to be delivered to the Eden Valley as well as Leith Lyvennet and other areas.

We started with work on the opposite side of the road to the farm and laid ducting over 3 fields in order to get to the nearest fibre optic chamber.

Trencher makes light work of the task once again...

The farming approach to unravelling ducting.

Ready for backfill...

Richard digs a hole for one our our chambers.

At this point we had to cross the road to connect two of our chambers. Tony and his team from TS Trenching handled this directional drilling under the road which saved digging it up and the disruption that goes with it.

8am: Team arrive ready for work.

8:15am: Graham digs at either side of the road.

9am: Directional drill goes in...

9:30am: ...Directional drill pops out.

All ducting is now in place ready for pulling the fibre cable through the duct and connection into the national trunk fibre cable over the next few weeks ready to serve the area with super fast broadband...

Core node in Cumbria

2011-08-14T13:55:00.000+01:00

Last weekend seen a team formed from NextGenUs and local community volunteers to connect our core node for the Eden Valley to fibre.

By mid day on Saturday, we had used our trencher to reach the road opposite the farm building where our mast is positioned.

Joan Raine, Chairman of Eden District Council kindly attended to lend a hand with the Herald photographer coming along to report on our activities for the this week's edition which I have attached below.

The afternoon seen us laying ducting in the trench, backfilling and bringing the ducting into the building with the help of local volunteers Simon, Nick and Hector. Thanks also to Martin at Krypton TV whom we are partnered with to provide next generation TV services over connections we deploy.

A final step seen me moving all our equipment into the newly installed cabinet. As you can see, the ducting is ready to go right into the cabinet.

Penrith and the Borders MP and broadband campaigner Rory Stewart commented "NextGenUs has been a passionate advocate for connecting remote rural communities to broadband. They are determined and ambitious and push into areas which other companies have avoided. I am delighted they are now pressing ahead in Eden and I wish them and the communities, with which they are working, all the best.".

We have been continuing to extend our trench this week and will continue next week in order for ducting to be laid and a fibre optic cable pulled through. This will then be ready to connect to trunk fibre optic cabling already in the ground which will take us to Manchester where we can 'break out' onto the internet and begin providing services to customers...

NGU FiWi leads Digital Britain

2011-08-08T18:12:00.000+01:00

A speedtest result posted by NGU customer in Hull today some 2km distant from FiWi source that offers a higher throughput, approaching 140Mbps, than available anywhere else in the UK today, all for less than £1 per day!

Whilst FTTH is certainly the objective for future-proof access to digital services, FiWi is a good intermediate step for both urban and rural areas alike.

Just for Fun

2011-08-04T01:46:00.000+01:00

Here are a couple of marketing images the team are currently playing with, just for fun :)

Work continues in Cumbria...

2011-08-01T14:40:00.001+01:00

Following on from our Cumbria private sector investment announcement, the past few weeks have seen a lot of work put into deploying networks in the Eden Valley and surrounding areas.

Milburn
The local school kindly allowed us to use their flag pole for installation of devices to act as a receive station and local distribution node as it hadn't been used since the golden jubilee of our queen! A cherry picker allowed me to easily get access to the top of the pole to attach devices. Most properties in the village have direct line of sight to this pole and will be pleased to go from an average speed of 0.3Mbps to 30Mbps+!

Cliburn
The owners of the former Golden Pheasant pub in Cliburn kindly allowed us to put up a pole on their building to receive and distribute broadband locally. It is central in the village and allows us to see about half of all properties. The remaining will be accessed by other node locations we will install in the village. While some properties such as the Golden Pheasant get 6-7Mbps, many properties struggle to get 2Mbps due to bad quality cables so will appreciate a speed boost.

Great Salkeld
Due to the village being set low down, we recognised the need for a higher location to receive signal in for local distribution. Below you can see the work completed last weekend which involved attaching a device to a tree to receive signal, digging over a garden and putting up a pole on the side of a log shed to send signals down to the village. Thanks to Richard for letting us use his garden and to Hector, Nick, Mike, Richard, Matthew, Mikie and David for helping out. Again, this is another village with varied speeds from 1 to 5Mbps.

As well as the above, we also have nodes at Blencarn and Murton. Kings Meaburn will be completed in the next week and Newby, Morland, Reagill, Crosby Ravensworth, Great Stickland, Little Strickland, Long Marton, Hilton, Kirkby Thore and Brampton are locations we aim to install in over August.

All we await now so we can begin connecting customers is an internet connection to our core node which is due to be installed shortly. More news on this over the next week...

USA leads the Way to First Mile Community FTTH

2011-07-26T20:05:00.000+01:00

http://www.muninetworks.org/communitymap presents an inspiring vision of how the UK can do the community interest 4th Utility too.

Ian Grant Classic

2011-07-21T17:48:00.000+01:00

Another A grade article by veteran industry watcher, Ian Grant over at br0kent3l3ph0n3 lays thread-bare OFCOM's latest tinkering around the edges of Digitally Deprived Britain.

Problem identified in a sentence:

" ...rural subscribers need is competition between network operators based on infrastructure, not services. By not making BT either sell dark fibre or provide access to its passive infrastructure at cost, Ofcom is perpetuating BT’s monopoly in Market 1 areas."

Solution identified in two words:

STRUCTURAL SEPARATION (of BT infrastructure and OTT services langsung cepat-cepat)

Note to OFCOM:

Sure, the shock of change is important to manage sensitively but overdoing that consideration leads only to inertia and a chaotic eventual demise here for BT in its current form in any event.

The simple reality is that the Board of BT is tween rock and hard place...

As a PLC, BT Directors have a fundamental fiduciary responsibility to maximise shareholder value at all times ergo without a convincing case for existential threat (BARN stormers approaching...) then only external Regulatory direction will protect the interests of rural communities where legacy BT copper-broadband is concerned.

Is it time for Neelie Kroes to step in and steer Broadband Britain off the rocks?

NextGenUs Community Dividend Delivered

2011-07-08T00:01:00.000+01:00

NANDS was the first NextGenUs community broadband network delivered under the social enterprise remit.

Following the completion of the first set of annual accounts a surplus was declared and duly returned according to the Community Interest Test to the Newton upon Rawcliffe and Stape Parish Council.

Pictured (left to right) receiving this community dividend cheque from NextGenUs CEO Guy Jarvis are parish councillor William Garrett, former PC Chair, Angela Hemingway and Playing Field Co-ordinator, Brian Anderson.

It is understood that the monies will be put towards improving and maintaining the children's play area pictured in the background.

NextGenUs Cumbria

2011-07-04T07:12:00.000+01:00

On a lovely sunny weekend in deepest Eden, the finishing touches to the NextGenUs Cumbria FiWi deployment are made.

This network of networks links together islands of superfast symmetrical broadband across the Eden District of Cumbria, with plans to extend county-wide in place, driven, as always, by community demand.

With the BDUK fiasco now, as anticipated, excluding innovators from PQQs, frameworks and wotnot, according to leaked documents exposed by Computer Weekly, NextGenUs is proceeding without Public Subsidy and remains hopefully that Cumbria County Council may yet disregard BDUK and opt for the proven Welsh and French Broadband Voucher approach, on a post facto Value Match basis.

Safety First

Pole at the Ready

Into Position....

Job Done.

Pictures Speak Volumes!

2011-07-01T02:27:00.000+01:00

Thanks to CyberDoyle for this classic.

BDUK is brainstorming behind the camera apparently

Gigabit 4 Gislingham

2011-06-10T00:16:00.000+01:00

Originally a Viking settlement and former Knights Templar HQ in days of yore, Gislingham is gearing up to lead East Anglia into the world of gigabit Digital Services.

Never a social enterprise to shy away from delivering 4th utility services in the UK, NextGenUs and partners AFL Telecommunications, a Fujikura business, held a very successful public meeting with the good folks of Gislingham, Suffolk earlier this week.

There is clearly a real energy in the local community to work together to JFDI a local NextGenUs Democratic Franchise FTTH and FiWi network for Gislingham and surrounding parishes that may include cross border connections with Norfolk too.

Future-proof broadband progress is certainly gathering pace rapidly in rural Suffolk, ironically the county that is home to BT's Martlesham Research Centre, and NextGenUs welcomes the recent announcement by Suffolk ACRE of FiWi and FTTH projects now moving forwards in Suffolk Coastal and Parham:

Roger Turkington talks to Mark Murphy about Suffolk ACREs grant to provide highspeed broadband to rural suffolk:

Listen!

NextGenUs Selects Cogent for IP Transit

2011-06-09T23:42:00.000+01:00

As a key stage in the preparation for lighting its nationwide dark fibre deployment, NextGenUs has signed a supply contract with Cogent Communications, a global leader for IP Transit services.

NextGenUs chose Cogent as IP Transit partner as is its business philosophy forms a perfect nexus with the Stupid Networks paradigm, first proposed by David S Isenberg in the late 1990's, that drives the NextGenUs approach to FTTH and FiWi.

Cogent was founded on the premise that bandwidth can be treated like a commodity

Faster Internet in the Pipeline for Hull

2011-06-08T09:17:00.000+01:00

An article from the Hull Daily Mail over the weekend :-

High Speed Wireless Deployments Begin in Cumbria

2011-06-05T14:30:00.000+01:00

Work has begun in Cumbria to bring high speed wireless internet access to villages suffering from poor service currently.

Wireless services we offer are quick to deploy and can generally deliver speeds of 30Mbps symmetric. Through Community Interest Company (CIC) reinvestment, we aim to replace wireless networks with fibre networks where possible.

Photos below show us deploying a 'node' in a soon-to-be-announced location in Cumbria. Thanks go to the property owner for allowing us to utilise his building as a host location. The pole was manufactured for us by a local company, Campbells Fabrications and Repairs in Great Asby. The company owner, Matthew, and a member of his staff kindly came along to assist in putting it up. We plan to deploy an additional 10 of these in the next 1-3 months around Cumbria.

Residents wishing to subscribe to services simply require a small device to be fitted to the outside of their property pointed at the node location.

We are now just waiting on our internet feed into Cumbria to be turned on to begin offering services to customers. We expect this to happen around the middle of next month.

NextGenUs Announces £10Million Investment for “Big Society Broadband”

2011-05-09T00:06:00.000+01:00

Community Broadband Operator, NextGenUs UK CIC, today announces the launch of its Beyond Infinity programme to drive broadband delivery forward in the UK.

In partnership with Industry, led by AFL Telecommunications, a Fujikura business, NextGenUs has secured a further £10Million of private investment to enable dynamic local communities.

This private incentive is in direct challenge to the BT “race to infinity” media stunt, to truly deliver future-proof FTTH (Fibre to the Home) for the UK.

NextGenUs has reservations over the Government's Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) which has selected several rural counties as a testing ground as this process has become bogged down with bureaucracy and red tape.

NextGenUs UK CIC has extensive experience of deploying high speed internet connections into remote communities, including the villages of Newton on Rawcliffe and Stape near Pickering in North Yorkshire and the UK’s first rural FTTH network at 1000Mbps capacity.

Said Guy Jarvis, CEO:

“The NextGenUs Beyond Infinity competition is now open and up to 10,000 households and businesses will benefit from this £10Million investment phase alone.

“This is real money on the table, unlike the kind of “Race to Infinity” marketing exercise promoted by BT.”

“NextGenUs will invest in those communities who demonstrate demand and their determination for change.”

Simon Davison, Technical Director:

“NextGenUs aims to quadruple BT’s meagre performance and looks to deliver 24 communities with truly future proof telecommunications ready for the next century.”

“NextGenus does not recognise the sticking plaster solutions to NGA services delivered over copper infrastructure being touted by BT.”

We understand that to be European leaders in broadband delivery the UK must throw off the legacy copper networks to deliver the UK knowledge economy”.

Beyond Infinity is a community and private sector initiative that does not depend upon Public Subsidy handouts. For further information please see www.nextgenus.net

In contrast, both BT and Fujitsu, backed by Virgin Media, have asked the UK government for handouts because of the alleged lack of a business case to deliver rural FTTH.

For further information and to register your interest - click here

DEFRA to Rescue Rural Broadband

2011-05-08T00:35:00.000+01:00

As reported by Ian Grant at CW, the recent announcement by SoS DEFRA Caroline Spelman MP of broadband funding for remote and disadvantaged upland rural communities may well prove to be the breakthrough required to end the seemingly interminable delivery hold-ups and market distortion introduced by the increasingly-ironically named BDUK.

On a superficial level, BDUK is fast becoming a laughing stock and national embarrassment.

The real problem with BDUK is not actually its failure to deliver though.

No, the emerging scandal of BDUK is that its mere existence has already delayed future-proof Final Third FttH/FiWi deployment by 6 months and counting.

Whenever there is the uncertain possibility of free money to pay for installation then it is understandable that local communities will naturally hesitate to commit to contributing towards.

NextGenUs has disturbing and growing evidence of direct meddling by certain BDUK personnel and political advisers that has clearly undermined projects put forwards by NextGenUs that do not require any public subsidy to deliver.

Now let's be crystal clear here - from an industry perspective, from a community perspective, from a

public sector perspective, we all want to see the Government's broadband policy objective delivered and help BDUK where this is helpful to the national interest do so.

What is disturbing about the behaviour of BDUK to date is the unwillingness shown to properly engage in a manner that builds confidence, an aroma of ignorance bordering on arrogance.

NextGenUs, for example, has been:

Repeatedly quizzed about specific deployment technologies employed, drilling down all the way to component level, costs and suppliers;

Subject to requests bordering on the dictatorial regarding commercially-sensitive financial and business case data with no explanation, therefore unknown whether reasonable or unreasonable, as to what that data might be used for, whom it might be shared with and for what purposes.

In any event, why would any business want to share its hard-won knowledge of how to actually deliver

future-proof FttH broadband into the so-called Final Third markets where by its own admission, the

incumbent BT is incapable of finding a successful investment formula?

Cui Bono?

Who benefits from broadband distraction UK?

So much for problem identification, what is the solution?

Let's go back to basics:

We are only considering state intervention due to perceived market failure and that failure is being defined (on a dubious premise) as incumbent unwillingness to invest in better Digital Services for a third of the UK population.

Some 20 million people!

And where do most of these folks live?

In rural areas.

It is now 9 months since the SoS DCMS Jeremy Hunt MP launched BDUK at the July 15 2010 Industry Day with the bold mission of helping secure the best superfast t'interweb for the UK by 2015.

After the passing of this human scale gestation period, let us consider what community benefit has actually been delivered by BDUK.

Diddly squat that's what :(

Lots of theoretical exercises and roundtables and industry days.

Endless waffle waffle waffle and of course every day, money set aside from our BBC licence payers fees draining away on salaries and expenses for a team at BDUK to seemingly gaze intently at their respective navels.

Let us contrast the non-delivery of BDUK with actual delivery by another Government Department, DEFRA, of RDPE funded superfast broadband activities in the same time frame.

In the same time period as BDUK has existed and delivered nothing, RDPE has supported at least one rural broadband project from Expression of Interest to procured, designed, delivered, paid for - end to end, job done, service delivered, local community benefits.

If nothing else, having DEFRA as a reference for successful delivery can only help BDUK step up to the mark and start delivering.

The key question is whether BDUK is in fact actually capable of working with the market to do what it should be doing i.e. deepening and quicken the broadband policy objectives of Government.

Here are two cheap and easy to administer catalytic steps that will make all the difference:

1 - Big Society - Broadband Vouchers that offer best value for public money by rewarding outcomes not paperwork and by empowering individual households and businesses to consider the alternative supply options available then make informed choices as future bill-payers for Digital Services

2 - Digital Penny Post - Community Interest Dark Fibre as a mandatory explicit line-item deliverable

from all future PSN procurements to enable distance-independent backhaul for Digital Village Pumps

Perhaps it is time for Government to conclude an inconvenient truth that BDUK is not simply fit for purpose and put the task of broadband delivery UK into the safe hands of those who have shown they can do successfully, DEFRA?

Twicket Live from Wray

2011-04-25T14:29:00.001+01:00

http://bambuser.com/channel/FibreGuy/broadcast

Couldn't ask for better weather :)

Behind the scenes AquilaTV interviews commentator and Pimms lover Brenda

Breakdancing meet tug'o'war - it's all happening Wray way!

And for the #twicket hattrick - the inimitable organiser and originator of this world's first broadcast, John Popham!!!

BDUK Quackers

2011-04-24T14:20:00.000+01:00

On the Broadbandcumbria blog, Louis Mosley, political advisor to Rory Stewart MP, made some revealing comments that surely confirm the Government's BDUK intervention in First Mile broadband is both ill-conceived, unfit for purpose beyond redemption and in need of decisive rectification.

Here follows the NextGenUs reply:

Louis,

2013 is rather more serious than "a bit of a wait" and the real concern is your presumably informed observation that "it may take just as long to see the first benefits of BDUK’s £530m investment in fixed line broadband."

Decent broadband for Cumbrian communities is being delayed right now by the total lack of delivery by BDUK on the one hand and the uncertainty of where and how any invention by BDUK might take place on the other hand.

Who benefits from this delay Louis?

Certainly not the residents and businesses of Cumbria that's for sure!

No, the only beneficiaries of delay are those who have most to lose from communities getting affordable future-proof access to Digital Services.

BT is an obvious candidate, with its obsolete access network of legacy copper wires.

The copper club goes wider than BT of course and includes others whose business models all depend on the same cosy commercial ecosystem that xDSL offers - creating unequal scarcity from actual abundance and profiting from perpetuating this situation.

NextGenUs has now been informed from reliable sources that even the proposed pilots are unlikely to result in beginning to deliver before 2012 and that means over a year since Rory's Rheged broadband conference got folks fired up to JFDI.

So much for Big Society delivery beyond empty rhetoric.

Prior to that conference and the subsequent announcement of BDUK market testing in Cumbria, NextGenUs put forward clear proposals to build FttH and FiWi networks WITHOUT PUBLIC SUBSIDY for any community ready to step up.

The existence of BDUK has prevented this from progressing and seriously damaged the business of NextGenUs and its partners in the process.

The reality of the funding mooted as being on offer, rumoured to be a paltry £400k, has served as a shiny bauble to disrupt the market and prevent progress for rural communities across the UK.

This situation is an emerging national scandal and a matter that ministers can no longer credibly blame on the previous Labour administration as we approach the first anniversary of the last General Election.

With Fujitsu's recent announcement regarding £multi-billion market-led investment in rural FttH, it is time for Jeremy Hunt as the responsible minister to step up, admit his mistake in prematurely intervening in the market and accept that the advice he was given and rejected as "unproven" last summer was accurate after all.

How much more proof is required than the stalled process we see today in Cumbria?

It is time for an end to BDUK activities in the First Mile.

BDUK, to have any case to justify any of its expenditure of OUR money, must curb the no-doubt well-meaning enthusiasm of its staff, particularly Mike Kiely, for meddling with the market and refocus on delivering something useful for a change:

e.g. steering county council PSN procurements towards including Dark Fibre to provide distance-independent affordable Fat Pipe backhaul for Digital Village Pumps.

Even here, the effect is akin to using scaffolding to build a house - once the building is done the scaffolding can be removed and dispensed with, similarly PSN has a 2-5 year usefulness to provide backhaul for First Mile Islands of Fibre until such time as those grow and directly interconnect.

Otherwise BDUK must be consigned to the recycling bin of history without further ado, as Lindsey Annison helped to promote last month

Access to Digital Services is too important for the UK as a whole to be left in the hands of those who have neither the experience nor wits to deliver.

Wray aims for Parish Wide NGA

2011-04-08T22:47:00.000+01:00

An essential element of any complete local broadband plan is providing affordable access to Digital Services to the real outliers.

The folks living on upland farms for example, beyond the theoretical benefits of Copper the Home (FttC).

Rather than putting up with sub USC speeds delivered by unfit for purpose ADSL, and with no prospect of getting anything better in the next decade, Wennet CIC, a small community Fi:Wi network, with a little help from NextGenus UK CIC, have tapped into a flowing digital village pump in Lancashire and started to spread those bits parish-wide and beyond.

Although some of the subscribers are in Cumbria and Yorkshire, with none of them able get any ADSL at all, only dial up, real internet access has no boundaries.

A great example of JFDI in action and a major step forwards in rural Lancashire that shows how through community action we can find better ways to deliver broadband.

Cumbria Thingstead UDI

2011-04-03T20:00:00.000+01:00

With the advent of Spring, thoughts turn to growth, regeneration, vigour and NextGenUs is ready for a 90 Day NextGen Challenge:

From community meeting to Next Generation service delivery in 90 days

The timing is right for a certain Cumbrian community to hold an extraordinary Thing and choose to find a better way to get future-proof Digital Services, gigabit FttH the destination, FiWi and VSAT the stepping stones for Ubiquitous Digital Inclusion.

More news on the Thingstead location to follow...