[LINK] UK broadband behind schedule

Fri Jul 5 18:52:51 AEST 2013

Thanks for that - I just quoted you on Twitter ;)

--
rachel polanskis 
<r.polanskis at uws.edu.au> 
<grove at zeta.org.au>

On 05/07/2013, at 17:26, Jan Whitaker <jwhit at janwhitaker.com> wrote:

> [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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