Campaigning for better Connectivity and Universal Broadband Access!

 

 

Copper tails - since 1988 research has accelerated on how best to deliver additional signals on copper infrastructure.  Much of the challenge is how best to stop the signals interfering with one another.  Prof. John Cioffi has pioneered many of the new techniques of Dynamic Spectrum management which means the FTTC VDSL2 technology will eventually deliver the 100Mbps on our old copper pairs service provided we are within a 1000metres of an upgraded fibre fed green cabinet.

 

Fibre - From 10Mbps to 1Gbps will be available in new builds and anywhere an operator is willing to provide an upgarde, a remarkable resource.

 

Cable - (a mix of fibre and co-axial cable) Virgin Media is upgrading its network to support Docsis 3. The potential capacity to be shared by those on the ring is 445Mbps downsteam and 122Mbps upstream.

 

Licensed Radio - This is the most difficult area to get a provide an accurate picture.  HSPA+ or 4G (LTE) with the apporpiate spectrum can create cells of 100+Mbps,  but the actual service delivered depends on the number of active radios, the distance from the mast, the backhaul and local evironmental issues. It also depends on whether the release of sub 900Mhtz means someone is smart enough to use our TV arials as a receiver connected to a Wifi router.

 

 

The growth of unlicensed Wifi (802.11 series) and indeed bluetooth has had a remarkable impact on how we percieve communications.  We are used to having 50Mbps free data transport in our homes.  Connecting is easy, and begs the question as to why users cannot expand and connection these pools of connectivity to form community connectivity.

 

The important factor to note is the potential and the real issue for policy makers is how to convert that potential into connectivity. 

 

BBBritain made a submission to the BIS consultation on spectrum modernisation (Digital Dividend) suggestion additional spectrum is made available for home cells,  so we use our broadband connectivity to make sure our Mobile service works properly.

 

 

Time sensitive applications need no more that .1% packet loss,  while non real time applications can quite happily function with 1-3% packet loss. Predictable service is possible of we are informed of the limits of the system and keep within those limits.

 

 

 

 

The fiinal Digital Britain report June 09 indicated a desire for a universal 2Mb service.  The report needed an achievable speed keeping in mind the notion of affordability, universality and minimal public infrastructure investment.  

 

 

The services table shows how this amount of bandwidth and the all important quality would be consumed.  Step 1 in the USO discussion is  to state what mix of applications should be supported at any one time,  and an expectation as to how they would work.  The headline speed is just a place of convenience from which to start. Would a person who was happily home working using 30fps video telephony and browsing on a 256/512kbps link be considered digitally excluded?  Probably not,  but it would mean all iPlayer activity would be downloaded and not streamed.  However a mobile broadband user with a headline of 7Mbps but with usable performance of 50Kbps might have a working email and newsfeed service,  but would struggle to complete their tax return as the connection is not sufficiently stable.

 

Defining the minimum service set will have a profound effect on the costs of achieving universal high speed quality connectivity. 

 

 

Under the section on NGA (fibre) I have argued in the interest of collective sanity that NGA and USO are kept separate.

 

There are at least two major costs to declaring a Broadband USO.  Achieving network coverage and having an industry scheme capable of supporting those who have a desperate need but not the means to pay.

 

The case is easy to make on several levels.  The simple one is extending independent living for elderly people. If the connectivity allows an elderly person to live independently for an extra year you got a very solid ground to build upon,  when care costs are £800 a person per week.

 

A design for the workings of a USO was submitted to the Digital Britain team,  and is down loadable from here - USO for Broadband scheme workings .  The notion of a 50p levy was highlighted in the submission and may have contributed to the proposed tax.  This has been supplemented with a submission in Jan 2010 on how the Next Generation Fund should be used.