As Tonight’s cabinet meeting starts, we publish this Open letter that we sent to each of the Cabinet members this afternoon.
I know this evening’s Cabinet meeting will be considering signing off the BT Isle of Wight Rural Broadband agreement for the Island, so I wanted to write to you giving you our take, as keen outside observers.
I hope you take this email with the helpful intentions it’s written in. I hope to raise points for you to consider, rather than absolutes.
We’re considering publishing it as an open letter via OnTheWight, but wanted to give it to you in advance of that happening.
Fast broadband is good
Quick background – I’ve been involved with the rollout of Broadband in the UK since the earliest trials in the UK and was in the past editor of a technology publication that focused on the revolution that broadband was to, and did bring to the UK.
We’re big supporters of the Island getting strong high-speed broadband access across the Island – in fact, we think it’s vital to the economic future of the Island.
It’s that desire for the best solution that’s driven me to write to you, as there are a number of things that don’t sit well with the council’s current approach to the BT proposal.
I understand you’re being put under pressure to get this moving, under the fear that Government funding will be lost, but as I am sure you know well enough, taking decisions at a pressured time is rarely when the best decisions are made.
BT’s proposal won’t be fast enough
One of the things I find most disturbing about the Island plan is that, as we understand from Wightfibre, BT is only committing to raise our average rural broadband speeds to 16Mbit/s.
If Island tax payers are being asked to give BT £3m, for a once-off project of bringing broadband to rural areas of the Island, it would seem to be reasonable to expect it to give future-proof capability.
16Mbit/s really isn’t ‘super fast’ broadband by any definition – underlined by the recent Ofcom report showing that the UK already has an average broadband speed of 14.7Mbit/s.
(Source)
For the council to commit a very large amount of money to a project without assurances of a proper speeds could well be regretted in the medium and long term.
The Island appears to be getting a bad deal
The Wightfibre briefing document, that I’m sure you’ve all seen, raises that ‘BT’s ‘matching’ funds are just £1.56M, i.e. 24%. Normal matching funds are 100% and the lowest I have seen before is 50%’
I’m aware that you’ve inherited this, but it can’t be right that the Island, once again, gets the short end of the stick.
Before this gets passed by Cabinet/Full Council, IWC are in a strong position to negotiate with BT. Once it’s a done deal, BT have no incentive to negotiate.
The best advice?
The two people at IWC who were managing the broadband rollout having serially departed without completing the job at what was described by officers as ‘a crucial time’ – the second one vanishing half way through a fixed-term contract which we were told at the time was ‘essential’ to be completed.
Are the Cabinet members sure the advice that they are receiving from officers is the best available? Are you sure that the Officers that are advising you are getting the best advice – given there is no one in the required technically-skilled management role?
Questions being raised Nationally
Below you’ll find a great overview piece by Newsnight. Other people are raising the same question marks over this. For example, just yesterday, The Guardian also ran a piece called ‘BT’s great broadband scam‘ (Subtitled – The former public utility is gambling with your money, but doesn’t think you should know where it’s going).
Worth reading, but I’ll bring this particular paragraph to your attention:-
And in the negotiations, BT’s lawyers have run rings around town hall staff and Whitehall civil servants. Like a cowboy builder, the company has quoted prices that public officials have found difficult to verify and has been conveniently vague on how it arrives at its sums. Last month, the National Audit Office recorded BT had overcharged by £3m in one region alone. It also found that BT was withholding contractual details from the Department for Culture, claiming they were commercially sensitive. Auditors noted: “This makes it difficult for the department and for local bodies to gain transparency over the level of costs included in BT’s local bids.”
Worth watching
Newsnight had an excellent ~ten minutes segment in their programme last week on Rural Broadband, that I heartily recommend watching.
(Update 14.Aug.13 – If that’s expired, someone has put it up on YouTube.
Way forward
It strikes me that it would be wise for the Cabinet to commission a reputable consultant to independently review the current position and report this directly to the Cabinet without the filter of passing past the Officers.
Image: jepoirrier under a CC BY-SA 2.0 license
