Broadband in ScotlandBill Buchan

Buchan Consultancy Services Ltd

Agenda

• What is the state of broadband in Scotland

• Major issues facing broadband

• What can be done to improve it

Who am I?

• Bill Buchan - bill@billbuchan.com

• Independent technology consultant

• Ex-oil industry

• focused on collaboration technology

• Lives in rural Scotland

• Fighting for rural internet access for 10 years

Why?

• Internet is no longer a luxury

• Many services - both commercial and government - strongly encourage internet access

• Areas with poor internet access will become less attractive for housing

• ‘Haves and Have Nots’

Remember

• Information workers can work from home or work in flexible patterns

• Thus reducing the requirement for major investment in other infrastructure

• This has a real impact on major budgets

• Information workers earn more, and therefore contribute more to taxes

What is ADSL

• ADSL stands for Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line

• Speed is dependant on line length: The longer the line, the slower the speed

• Rural communities have longer phone lines...

ADSL

• ADSL comes in three flavours

• ADSL - Maximum 2mb line speed

• ADSL MAX - 8mb

• ADSL2 - 22mb line speed

ADSL

• Most rural exchanges are ADSL MAXMost urban exchanges are ADSL2

• Other providers can install equipment in exchanges (LLU)

• Only 176 / 1070 exchanges in Scotland.

• Rural areas - BT are monopoly

• BT not treating rural areas as a priority

Other Broadband Tech?

• WiMax - wireless.

• Satellite - routing via Satellite

• Powerline - routing over power lines

• Fibre to the house - BT Infinity

• Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC)

• Cable TV

• 4G

WiMax

• Internet access over wireless

• All internet connections share the same total bandwidth - more subscribers, less shared bandwidth

• Line of sight, range issues & needs dense subscriber base

• Bad fit for Rural Scotland

Satellite ADSL

• Bounce a signal off a geostationary satellite

• The signal takes 1,000ms - a whole second - to make the trip - unsuitable for real-time or near-time applications

• Limited bandwidth on the satellite - expense to upgrade

• Eye-wateringly expensive

Powerline ADSL

• Routes a signal over the existing power delivery infrastructure

• Equipment required at substation and consumer premises

• Trial ran by Scottish Power in Stonehaven in 2003/4. Little heard of since.

• Sank without trace?

Fibre to the Premises

• BT Infinity - Fibre to the Premises (FTTP)

• Nearly unlimited bandwidth possible (1tb?)

• Very expensive to fit

• Not available in rural areas

• BT currently cherry-picking urban areas

Fibre to the Cabinet

• Fibre ran from exchange to cabinet near houses (FTTC)

• Perfect for villages where exchanges are remote (such as Marykirk - 4km)

• Delivers perfect ADSL to consumer due to short line length from cabinet

• BT currently cherry picking urban areas

Cable TV

• Cable providers (such as Virgin) can run broadband over their infrastructure

• Achieve up to 120mb speeds

• Easy, simple installation

• Cable companies cherry picking urban areas - no plans to expand coverage

4G - Mobile Data

• If you think Rural ADSL provision is bad, consider Rural 3g coverage

• No 3g coverage in Rural areas in Scotland

• O2 have confirmed that my rural area (Marykirk) will NEVER get 3g

• 4g will probably follow same coverage model, despite OFCOM recommendations

Urban/Rural Example• Dundee Broughty Ferry

• Choice of BT, Virgin cable, Sky, O2

• Speeds of up to 40mb/s

• Prices <£20/month

• 3G mobile coverage

• link

• Marykirk

• Only BT

• Speed of 2.5mb/s

• Around £25/month

• No 3G mobile

• link

Urban/Rural Summary

• Urban Broadband is subject to market forces

• Plenty choice, competition

• Rural Broadband is a BT monopoly

• Not treating rural as a priority

• Not convinced?

Source: http://maps.ofcom.org.uk/broadband/

Broadband Speed

• Is 2mb enough? I argue that it is not.

• Not fast enough to sustain HD video over a typical consumer ADSL circuit

• Urban areas can easily get speeds in excess of 15mb

• Is this what the bar should be set to?

Source: http://maps.thinkbroadband.com/

Broadband Speed

• The UK is rated 27th out of 201 countries

• Average Speed 3.8mb/s

• Source: BBC/Akamai

• Simple test. Does your BBC iPlayer work without stuttering? Can you watch High Definition programs or listen to streamed radio? Reliably?

• If it does, you are in an urban area

Voters?

• The internet-using population can now be categorised as ‘your constituents’

• They really care about internet speed

• Fix it and they will be on your side

• Stand in the way, and they will remember

Source: http://www.cumberlandnews.co.uk/news/cumbrian-mp-rory-stewart-wins-battle-for-rural-broadband-coverage-1.914826?referrerPath=news

Fix rural broadband by..

• All new housing estates to be provided with fibre to the cabinet, Cable TV or fast internet

• Mandate that all government buildings should have fast internet:

• Either fibre to the cabinet or ASDL2 with at least 6mb/s access speed

How will this help?

• This will force BT to upgrade all exchanges to the latest standards

• Thus eliminating the major bottleneck

• Though I understand this has been proposed before...

Or the stick...

• Fast internet access should be enshrined in law as access to phone lines are.

• BT should charge less for badly-performing ADSL lines

• BT should provide dual-line and equipment to bond those lines together when less than 6mb is available - at no charge

• BT should put free fast internet wifi hotspots on all rural telephone boxes

Do we want...

• To force information workers (consultants, etc) to give up rural life and move to urban areas merely to get decent internet?

• To force rural dwellers to suffer a second-class internet?

I would hope the answer is no...

Remember

• ADSL has been around since the nineties

• Internet access is no longer a luxury

• BT are a monopoly in rural Scotland

References

• AskSam: Exchange, Region and Countrywide ADSL information:http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/ESNRW

• OFCOM: Broadband map of the UK http://maps.ofcom.org.uk/broadband/

• ThinkBroadband: ADSL speed maphttp://maps.thinkbroadband.com/

• The Scottish Government: ‘A study into Broadband Reach in Scotland’http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2006/12/20130045/5

• BBC: Snapshot of global internet speeds revealedhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10786874