BB unavailable to how many?

We see reports on the news that broadband Britain is getting faster, but for many, many people there is still no broadband Britain.

ABC's Notspot survey has so far received over 1500 responses from around the country. What is most worrying is that many of the respondents represent whole streets, villages, housing estates and business parks, numbering from just a few people or organisations to, in one case, over 800 houses unable to get broadband, and one business park with over 100 businesses. Many, many respondents are representing more than 25 households or properties in single locations unable to connect. More surprising still, is the number of cases in the South of England and in towns and urbanisations, such as Peterborough, Milton Keynes, Guildford, and even central London. The problem is not just in rural areas.

Additionally, there are many who have waited for months, and even in some cases, more than a year, to be told that they cannot have broadband, despite paying for the service since the date of order. The impact on the UK economy of this disconnectivity is unestimable but cannot be ignored.

The main problems in failing to provide a connection are : line length, quality of the line (eg degraded copper), exchange capacity, presence of fibre optics, lack of engineers to respond to the growing number of callouts, and furthermore, poor customer service once a problem has been established on the line.

Although the BBC News and others have covered the problems of customer service, very few are addressing the issue of the failure of the copper wire technology to support the services being marketed to consumers, nor the fact that a customer has to order and pay for the service before even knowing whether it can be delivered by the provider. There is surely no other industry where this would be permissible in such staggering numbers without intervention from an industry watchdog?

(UPDATE: March 14th 2007, BBC Radio 4 You & yours tackles precisely this issue.)

It also highlights the failure of the competitive marketplace to replace the redundant  (and interim) technology that is ADSL, with the communications infrastructure required by UK Plc and citizens in 2007 and beyond. And already in use in so many other countries. One small market town in Holland  (Nuenen) has more high-capacity domestic fibre optic connections to its residents and businesses than the WHOLE of the UK.

One solution would be to sell off the copper first mile network that so obviously cannot deliver the services required by Netizens in 2007 when connected from the exchange rather than the shorter distances from the street cabinets, and replace it with fibre optics and wireless technology with higher capacity and bandwidth availability.  The copper is valuable, either on the open market as a raw commodity, or sold to those who do wish to provide a first mile network to the million or more customers that ABC estimates are currently disconnected.

Unbundling this sub-local loop network is also an option but still leaves too much power within the incumbent's hands to dictate the services and prices to the end consumer. Particularly as that network was paid for with public money. So, the answer surely is to move forwards and sell off the first mile, with a proportion of the monies going back to the rate payers, and a proportion going to the telcos to improve the core network, and to invest in FTTH should they so wish to compete with local community groups and small ISPs offerings.

Unless a move such as FTTH (or FTTVillage/MarketTown etc) is made soon, and ubiquitously across the whole country, then this country is falling behind other nations, and we see the digital divide widening between the UK and others.

ABC believes that the economics of Fibre To The Home or  Curb are now such that it would be a wise investment rather than a risk, and hence has launched the Fiver To The Home Campaign.

We also support the recently announced, but as yet unconfirmed, statement that BT and other ISPs are to stop the practice of selling broadband products in areas where they cannot provide the service. We believe that this will have the effect of knocking broadband coverage statistics down to a more believable 70-80% of the UK, thereby giving the Government, industry and consumers an opportunity to address the problems of this lack of connectivity. The broadband availability checker needs to be updated so it gives honest and accurate data, where known, from engineers and consumers.

The broadband job is not done. Further intervention is required, and this time the Broadband fund should not be spent on enabling exchanges, as in the past, but on looking at the real issues, long term solutions, and how to capitalise on the existing resource to open up a truly competitive marketplace which primarily serves the needs of the end users and consumers, rather than focussing purely on shareholder profits and ticking bureaucratic boxes.