Post on 30-Dec-2015
Overview of B4GAL Community Broadband
Superfast Broadband for Glencaple and Lowther
Pronounced “bagel”
Amanda Burgauer, Community Broadband Scotland, Aviemore 24/4/2013
Project Beginnings
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
Fundraising: £1.47 million
Request for Proposals from civil engineering contractors
Procurement with community benefit, i.e. training opportunities
Digging in the optic fibre
Creation of pilot studies with NHS and UWS
Monitoring of social and economic benefit
Broadband and community resilience: Measuring impact
Fiona Heesen (fiona.heesen@abdn.ac.uk)
Pioneering Communities Seminar, April 24, 2013
Outline
Background
Resilience
Community broadband and resilience
Impact
Evaluating broadband
Background
Present Future
Rural resilience
Digital
services
EconomicsGeographyRural Planning
Community led
broadband
research
Past
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 IICommunity Scale
Social Economic
Individual Scale
Social Economic
Research Process
• Users• Identify a community’s expectations of both the organisation and the inclusion of superfast broadband
infrastructure• Governance
• Identify skills needed, used, gained throughout the pre-connectivity process as a broadband initiativePre-connectivity
Interviews
Post-connectivity Interviews
• 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
community
Background Context Setting
• Using secondary data, understand context (may involve surveys and so on)
Heesen, F. 2013
Community BroadbandScotland
Evaluating the CBS
programme
Importance of playmakers
Questions?
Optical Fibre in Community projects
Uses and Options
Anything is technically possible.
If you can afford it…….
Elementary……
To keep in mind………
This session is about Fibre
It’s good for you, but not too technical !
People tend to think of fibre like this…..
What is Fibre ?
But it’s not much use unless there is some equipment at each end.
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”
What we like about fibre….
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.
What we don’t like about fibre…. 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
Which Means ….
It is deployed commercially where there will be a return on that high investment.
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……
So how does it work for communities? Crudely speaking - the more fibre the
better.
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
Assume you have a wireless access network
Adding fibre backhaul will make it fly.
So where can I get some?
Backhaul
Dig in you own? ◦ From your network to where?
Or rent from a communications provider?◦ BT?◦ From your network to where?
Share with someone else?◦ A current CBS challenge◦ Where !?!!!
What can you afford?
A commercial operators Point of Presence (PoP)
A local business who might want to share?◦ They could share the cost of install and rental.
A public sector site? A work in progress! There’s lots to do here.
Where from is the question…
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…..
Getting a price from BTOR
Go to http://www.openreach.co.uk/pls/or_qq_owner/or_qq_frames.drawframe
◦ 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.
Getting a price from BTOR
Sharing a fibre
MPLS Cloud
www
VPN
Business VPN
Business Internet
www
100 Mbps fibre
Community8Km
Host Building
Fibre self dig
Practical Access by fibre
Covering off the access element.. 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
Any Questions