Transcript Overview Of B4GAL Community Broadband

Overview of B4GAL Community Broadband
Superfast Broadband for Glencaple and Lowther
Pronounced “bagel”
Amanda Burgauer, Community Broadband Scotland, Aviemore 24/4/2013
Project Beginnings
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Lack of connectivity identified in 2010 as
an issue by local community, but
considered out of our control (Glencaple
and Lowther Local Community Led Plan)
Brought forward again as top priority at
community consultation in April 2012
(Elvanfoot Residents Association)
Broadband project initiated June 2012
B4GAL Community Broadband
established Oct 2012 - working group of
Glencaple & Lowther Development Group
Remote Rural Southern Scotland
Nearest Town > 10,000 pop is Hamilton, about 45-60 minutes away
Our Area – Glencaple and Lowther
 Nine villages: Abington,
Crawford, Crawfordjohn,
Elvanfoot, Lamington,
Leadhills, Roberton,
Wanlockhead, Wiston
 Moorland with settlements
along the River Clyde and
hilltops, mostly remote rural
 Population around 2000
 About 700 houses
 Most work outside the area
Our Connectivity
 4 local BT exchanges serve 9 villages:
Crawford, Crawfordjohn, Elvanfoot and
Lamington
 Varies even within the same village
 Elvanfoot Activate Exchange max 512 kbps
download
 Crawford and Leadhills exchanges max 8
Mbps but only a few can get it
 Many isolated homes with NO connectivity
 More than 6 km spread around each
exchange
Community Engagement
 Questionnaire
 Posters and door to
door
 Public Meetings
average one per month
for past 12 months
 Mapping names &
addresses
 Events
Technology Choices
 Evaluation of technologies
 Superfast, next generation
 Sustainable
 Future proof
 Optic Fibre Consultant hired
to create network map
 Backhaul identified
 Costings complete
The Offering
 Superfast broadband
 Internet access
 IP Telephony
 IPTV
 Security cameras
 In future:
 Training, Telemedicine, Education
The Business
 Application for charitable
status – OSCR has accepted
charitable purposes
 Company limited by guarantee
with Board of Directors
 All profits to be spent within
the Community
 Business Plan created showing
sustainability
 Funding applications started
Next Steps
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Fundraising: £1.47 million
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Request for Proposals from
civil engineering contractors
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Procurement with community
benefit, i.e. training
opportunities
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Digging in the optic fibre
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Creation of pilot studies with
NHS and UWS
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Monitoring of social and
economic benefit
Broadband and community resilience:
Measuring impact
Fiona Heesen ([email protected])
Pioneering Communities Seminar, April 24, 2013
Outline
 Background
 Resilience
 Community broadband and resilience
 Impact
 Evaluating broadband
Background
Economics
Geography
Rural
resilience
Digital
services
Community
led
broadband
research
Rural
Planning
Past
Present
Future
Resilience
 What is resilience?
 The ability for a community, group or individual to adapt to
change
Fig 1: Transitional ruptures, readjustment and recovery
From Wilson, 2012, p. 57
Community broadband
 Two key stages to community-led broadband
1. Designing and developing the network
2. Implementation of technology
 Relationship with resilience?
1. Use of Internet
2. Process-based capacity building
What is ‘impact’ and how do we measure it?
 Impact can be broadly defined as:
 ‘the demonstrable contribution that a process or innovation
makes to society and the economy’
 Measuring?
 Understanding impact metrics
Evaluation I
 Understanding ‘real’ impact
 Process
 Developing your outcome areas
 Taking control of your research agenda and your story
Evaluation II
Community Scale
Social
Economic
Individual Scale
Social
Economic
Research Process
• Using secondary data, understand context (may involve surveys and so on)
Background
Context Setting
• Users
• Identify a community’s expectations of both the organisation and the inclusion of superfast broadband
infrastructure
Pre-connectivity • Governance
Interviews
• Identify skills needed, used, gained throughout the pre-connectivity process as a broadband initiative
• Users
• Analyse the potential resilience attributed to the inclusion of superfast broadband
• Governance
• Identify characteristics from the process of implementing superfast services that influence resilience of that
Post-connectivity
community
Interviews
Heesen, F. 2013
Community Broadband
Scotland
 Evaluating the CBS
programme
 Importance of playmakers
Questions?
Uses and Options
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Anything is technically possible.
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If you can afford it…….
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Elementary……
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People tend to think of fibre like this…..
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You can add it yourself
 1Gbps relatively cheap (per port)
 10Gbps not so cheap
 100Gps very expensive
Or you can rent the whole thing as a fibre based “product”
 10Mbps
 100Mbps
 1000Mbps “the Gig”
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It has very high capacity (it’s fast)
It is very reliable.
It is immune to electro-magnetic
interference.
It is not affected by weather.
It is future proof.
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There is not much of it about (that is usable).
It is expensive to install.
The equipment that is needed to terminate
and use the fibre is expensive.
This equipment must be housed somewhere
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It is deployed commercially where there will
be a return on that high investment.
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Core Networks (pretty much universal).
Backhaul (Except in rural/remote areas).
Access where the investment can be made.
There is a technology called PON used for
high density deployments – but we will
ignore that for now……
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Crudely speaking - the more fibre the better.
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You probably wont have a core.
It’s excellent as backhaul
 Equally good mixed with high capacity
wireless
Wonderful for access
 If you can afford it
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Assume you have a wireless access network
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Adding fibre backhaul will make it fly.
So where can I get some?
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Dig in you own?
◦ From your network to where?
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Or rent from a communications provider?
◦ BT?
◦ From your network to where?
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Share with someone else?
◦ A current CBS challenge
◦ Where !?!!!
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A commercial operators Point of Presence
(PoP)
A local business who might want to share?
◦ They could share the cost of install and rental.
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A public sector site?
 A work in progress! There’s lots to do here.
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They have all the Broadband Ingredients
◦ But no Cake.
◦ The ingredient you want is Ethernet Access Direct
◦ 10, 100Mb – 25KM radial distance.
◦ 1000Mb - 35KM radial distance
◦ But you’ll have to find the other ingredients…..
Go to
http://www.openreach.co.uk/pls/or_qq_owner
/or_qq_frames.drawframe
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◦ Enter the products you want and the postcodes of
the a end and b end.
◦ The Installation price is subject to survey.
◦ But the rental is the key element with respect to
sustainability.
www
8Km
Community
www
VPN
MPLS Cloud
Business
VPN
Business
Internet
Host Building
100 Mbps
fibre
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A rare (but beautiful) form of community
project….
Is relatively future proof
Has a more challenging business case….
But is generally viewed as “Future Proof”
A good example is B4RN in Lancashire
Or the developing B4GAL project in South
Lanarkshire