What do the Welsh Government have to hide on Rural Broadband?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) August 4, 2011 -- You’ll no doubt be aware that Wispa Limited were due to hold a public meeting on Thursday to allow the Head of the Welsh Government’s ICT Team (Chris Johnson) to answer 10 pre-prepared questions and then participate in 30mins of questions from attendees.

Well – it will probably come as no surprise to any of you that Chris has said that he is ‘unable to attend’ and despite our request there has been no offer of an alternate to take his place.
The original Press Pack is here:

http://issuu.com/richardbrown0/docs/press-pack

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What do the Welsh Government have to hide on Rural Broadband?

Welcome visit Our WebSite:

http://wispa.me

It may not be obvious to everyone, what our intention is when asking these questions, and as we are not going to get an opportunity to address them to Chris Johnson, it is worth us being clear about those intentions:

1. We live in Wales and have our businesses in Wales.
2. RIBS (Regional innovative Broadband Scheme) may not have been the success that we have been led to believe and we need to make sure that BSS (broadband support scheme) is a success
3. The £30m invested in the Fibrespeed project is being stifled by the ICT department and is not enjoying the success that it should – we want to find out why
4. The BSS is failing and we want to avoid this continuing and make sure the money is actually enabling progress, not simply acting as window dressing

5. The Welsh Government is about to spend (estimated) hundreds of millions with a company to deliver universal fast broadband for all – we don’t believe that universality will happen and are determined to make sure it does

This is our digital future, and at the moment it is a bleak one. The original questions are in the Press Pack (which you can download above) but by way of example of this bleak future, here is a piece of ludicrous implementation of the BSS. The question we posed was:

The BSS has recently had the threshold for qualification raised from 512Kbps to 2Mbps (something providers suggested at the scheme inception). Threshold for payment is just 512Kbps once installation of the service is complete. This implies that the Welsh Government believe 512Kbps is an acceptable level of broadband – please expand on this.

There are two significant points to make about this.

The rural broadband industry (and notably our COO Richard Brown) made it clear that the qualifying threshold should have been 2Mbps from day one (around 13months ago). This was because the Welsh Government had declared an aspiration to achieve 2Mbps access for all – so why set the bar lower? 13months later it is announced to great fanfare by Edwina Hart that the threshold was being increased from 512Kbps to 2Mbps - BUT

In order for the BSS to actually pay the promised support to the subscriber, the new supplier only needs to deliver 512Kbps (as measured by the subscriber). This means that the Welsh Government (via the ICT team and Chris Johnson) believe that an acceptable speed to be achieved for up to £1000 per subscriber is 512Kbps and in some cases this could be less than the subscriber had in the first place if they were close to the 2Mbps threshold…

It is simply pitiful to think that our Nation’s aspirations are so low, and extremely limited funds are potentially being squandered.

Worse than that – our Government is determined to stop us challenging this. They want us to talk to their Communications & Marketing team, rather than those actually making the decisions. Here is the email received from the Head of that Department yesterday:

Dear Mr Brown

I am responding to your recent enquiry on behalf of my colleague Chris Johnson as it is understood you are intending to use our response as part of a forthcoming event you are organising for the media.

As you are aware, Mr Johnson has been unable to accept your invitation to attend the event. In fact it is not usual or appropriate for any Welsh Government official to be asked to address the media directly, as you have intended.

I hope the following information is useful to you, but would request that in future any enquiries or interview bids intended for media purposes are directed via the Welsh Government Press Office on 0292******/ 02929***** or via email to Senior Press Officer Kate******@wales.gsi.gov.uk.

The Welsh Government currently has three projects which aim to improve the availability of broadband services in Wales:

Broadband Support Scheme;
FibreSpeed and;
Next Generation Broadband for Wales.

1) The Broadband Support Scheme replaced the Regional Innovative Broadband Scheme, which closed at the end of March 2011 having benefitted around 9,000 premises.

The Broadband Support Scheme enables individuals, businesses and communities to access grant funding to address broadband availability issues. The Scheme removes a key financial barrier by contributing to the capital cost of accessing or improving a broadband service, while at the same time allowing participants’ freedom and autonomy in choice of supplier, technology and preferred monthly subscription package.

Eligibility to participate in the scheme has been raised from 512Kbps to 2Mbps, while participants are encouraged to shop around for the best deal to meet their requirements. The scheme supports individuals seeking to improve their existing broadband service and encourages communities to work together to leverage economies of scale in order secure the best possible solution.

Applicants are required to provide two quotations to show they have taken reasonable steps to select value for money options available to them. In cases where applicants express preference to the more expensive of the two quotes, their preference will be scrutinised and challenged as necessary by the Welsh Government to ensure that value for money is considered throughout the process.

2) FibreSpeed is aimed at ensuring very high speed symmetrical broadband services are available to businesses located on or around strategic business park locations in north Wales at prices that are comparable to the most competitive parts of the UK; namely London & the South East of England. FibreSpeed also supports affordable backhaul services to retail service providers who are delivering a range of broadband services to businesses and communities outside the business parks.

3) The Next Generation Broadband for Wales project will pursue the ambitions of the Welsh Government by ensuring the availability of next generation broadband where the market will not deliver by 2015. The OJEU notice was published on 25 February 2011 and dialogue is ongoing with four bidders:

A Balfour Beatty-led consortium with Alcatel-Lucent and Cable & Wireless Worldwide
BT
Fujitsu
Geo Networks Limited

All bidders recognise the challenges of reaching rural parts of Wales and are proposing a range of technologies that will meet the Welsh Government’s ambition and requirements to transform the communications infrastructure of Wales and underpin the actions outlined in the Digital Wales Delivery Plan.

Kind regards

Andrew Mathias

Head of Communications and Marketing
Business, Enterprise, Technology and Science
Welsh Government
02920*****
andrew******@wales.gsi.gov.uk

So – according to Andrew – it is ‘inappropriate’ for our Government Officials to answer questions to the public. A public that pays for them to be there; and we hope, to act appropriately for our nation.

Richard did write a response:

Dear Andrew

I appreciate you writing to me, however I do take issue with some of the points that you have raised.

Whilst the event had media attending – it was a public scrutiny of the BSS and Digital Wales projects. The public are entitled to scrutinise these as part of understanding the failures or successes of public spending and (much more importantly) the digital future of our nation. The questions were addressed to the person who has been my contact for all such activity in the past, and indeed was responsible for awarding the contract to Fibrespeed. I am confused as to how you believe that someone in communications would be better placed to answer the questions asked?

The information that you have provided – with the notable exception of the remaining bidders in the Next Generation Broadband for Wales tender is all in the public domain and goes nowhere to answering the questions asked. Indeed, whilst Chris did offer written answers for those questions, it is notable that your email today is absent such information.

By way of using repetition to make the point – I asked the person that, in my opinion, was best placed to answer those questions, and it would be my intention to do precisely that in the future.

Whilst I appreciate your attention, I am uncertain as to what your intention is by this email. I am sure you will clarify in due course.

Regards,

So there you have it. Broadband policies that are failing, and a Government that does not want you to ask questions.

Therefore there is one more question that needs to be asked:
What are we going to do about it?

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We’ve created a twitter hashtag for this issue, please add #WGBB (Welsh Government BroadBand) to your tweets so that everyone can find your comments.

More information can be found online at http://wispa.me

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