[LINK] UK broadband behind schedule

[Jan Whitaker]

[the next time someone criticises the NBN, point 
them to this delay under a *Tory* government in a country the size of Victoria]


Rural fibre broadband scheme two years behind schedule, say auditors
Less than a quarter of projects will be ready by 
2015 target date and scheme will cost taxpayers an extra £207m

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jul/05/rural-fibre-broadband-behind-schedule

Much-trumpeted plans to introduce superfast 
broadband to rural areas will be delivered nearly 
two years late, with taxpayers footing a greater 
proportion of the £1.2bn bill, the government's official auditors have said.

Fewer than a quarter of the projects will be 
ready by May 2015, the expected delivery date, 
and the scheme will cost the public purse an 
extra £207m, according to a report from the National Audit Office.

The government has already announced that 
superfast broadband will reach 95% of the 
population by 2017, two years after the original date for reaching that target.

Just nine out of 44 local projects are expected 
to reach the original target of 2015, according 
to the report, with the delay partly attributed 
to the EU state aid process taking six months longer than expected.

Auditors also said competition among suppliers 
had been limited, leaving BT as the only active 
participant. It is expected to win all 44 local projects.

The worst affected areas include Merseyside, 
Oxfordshire and Derbyshire, which are among those 
councils that have yet to sign a contract with 
BT. Residents in these areas have no idea when 
their broadband will be upgraded.

The findings will make uncomfortable reading for 
David Cameron, who in 2011 announced the latest 
stage of the scheme and said it would be 
"absolutely vital in driving the creation of the 
small businesses and growing businesses that will 
be so important to keep the growth of employment in our country".

Helen Goodman, the shadow media minister, said 
many in the countryside were being left without 
access to the internet at a time when the 
government was shifting essential services online.

"We are not a 'one nation' country with this 
digital divide, and that divide is being deepened 
by [the culture secretary] Maria Miller," she said.

The report has been seized upon by Tory opponents 
of the HS2 rail scheme as proof that the 
government has got its priorities wrong. The 
former cabinet minister Cheryl Gillan said: "This 
is disappointing and an example of how putting 
more resources into this type of operation would 
yield more immediate benefits to the wider 
economy rather than spending money on HS2."

Superfast broadband will be accessible to nearly 
two-thirds of the UK by next spring. Government 
support is needed to supply the final third in 
difficult-to-reach areas where telecoms operators 
will struggle to make a profit on their investment.

Significantly, the auditors said the government 
had "secured only limited transparency" over the 
costs in BT's bids. For reasons of commercial 
confidentiality, BT has told councils they cannot 
share information with each other to ensure they 
are getting a fair deal. Last year a 
whistleblower was dismissed by Broadband Delivery 
UK, the national broadband funding programme, 
after drawing up a spreadsheet to help councils share information.

His research suggested big disparities between 
contracts, and auditors have now confirmed this. 
Their checks showed the cost of connecting fibre 
to BT's green street cabinets, which link homes 
to telephone exchanges, varied between £19,600 
and £51,000. The cost of cabinets is a major 
element in contracts, accounting for more than a third of costs.

Some areas, where cabinets are a long way from 
the nearest exchange or fibre trunk route, are 
clearly more expensive to connect than others. 
But the average cost in England is 12% higher 
than in Northern Ireland, where BT has already completed its work.

Checks made by civil servants have already 
identified over-charging. In one area BT was 
found to have inflated project management costs 
by £3m. BT refused to let civil servants inspect 
its books to confirm that the costs it charges to 
the public purse were the same as on its own 
commercial projects, the report said.

Margaret Hodge, chair of the public accounts 
committee, said she remained concerned about 
whether BT was being transparent enough to allow 
parliament to follow the public pound. "Opaque 
data and limited benchmarks for comparison mean 
the [DCMS] has no idea if BT is being reasonable 
or adding in big mark ups," she said.

A BT spokesman said: "We have been very 
transparent from the outset and have invested 
hundreds of millions of pounds when others decided to ignore rural Britain."



Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com

Our truest response to the irrationality of the 
world is to paint or sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
~Madeline L'Engle, writer

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