Wireless ISP Kijoma Says BT NGA Broadband Overbuild Wastes Public Money - ISPreview UK
Ordinarily the news that BT is bringing fibre optic broadband (FTTC/P) cables to your area would be welcome. But its not always so and sometimes the use of public money to help upgrade the smallest of UK rural areas, especially when a superfast (24Mbps+) capable provider is already serving local customers, can raise concerns.
At present the Governments Broadband Delivery UK programme is throwing around £1.7bn of public money, primarily in BTs direction, in order to ensure that fixed line superfast broadband speeds reach 95% of the county by 2017/18. So far the progress has been good but it hasnt always been without controversy, particularly with regards to overbuilding.
In fact there have been a number of incidents where the deployment programme has been accused of wasting money by allowing BT to roll-out into areas that are already covered or in the process of being covered by other Next Generation Access (NGA) providers, such as part of B4RNs network in Lancashire (example) or Gigaclear in Wiltshire (example).
Europes State Aid Rules are designed to prevent such problems from occurring (though some overbuild around the edges is considered acceptable), although the implementation can be very bureaucratic and more than a few councils could be accused of having turned a blind eye to the good work that some alternative network operators are doing (note: often without any recourse to public funding).
A more complicated example is that of Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) providers, such a VFast, Kijoma, Relish and many more. Some of these ISPs are able to provide flexible data allowances, better than superfast speeds and low latency connections for affordable prices over wide areas, but theyve also been largely shunned by a number of local authorities.
Take for example the situation that Kijoma currently claims to be experiencing in West Sussex (England), where they note that BT have been building fibre optic cables towards Hooksway, a remote hamlet of 4 properties. Elsewhere BTs fibre also appears to be running from East Marden village all the way down the single track road, about 1.5 miles, towards Stoughton. Various other surrounding areas may also benefit from BTs mix of up to 80Mbps FTTC and some patches with 330Mbps FTTP.
Another area is Sutton Parish in Sussex, where BTs deployment is predicted to involve 1 FTTC street cabinet and the rest FTTP for perhaps 3 hamlets + 1 other village and those beyond the reach of the cab.
The problem here is that Kijoma already covers many of these areas with wireless broadband speeds of up to 30-40Mbps (e.g. Sutton, Bignor, Barlavington, East/North/Up Marden, Chilgrove etc.) and they have a number of live customers, with take-up in some of their locations reaching as high as 96%.
The cost of digging pure fibre optic cables into the ground or slinging them over telegraph poles is far from cheap, especially when it comes to the arduous task of having to connect up individual properties, and as such its important to ensure that the public money goes towards those who need it the most. Clearly this may not always be happening.
Part of the problem stems from those state aid rules, which initially allowed BDUK to effectively exclude wireless providers from being considered as true NGA operators unless they agreed a commitment to replace non-wired connections with fibre at a later stage (here). The position, which Lewis calls stupid and unworkable, wasnt popular with FWA ISPs and meant that some councils simply marked areas that had been covered by related providers as not spots, even though they werent.
The problem is well demonstrated by a comment that was made to Lewis in response to a Q&A session with the WSCC during 2010, which formed part of a question the leader event and reveals the local authoritys early and rather unusual approach towards defining not spots.
Admittedly very few FWA providers offer a truly open access network, which is a requirement for securing state aid funding, and this has hindered the ability of some smaller rivals to gain funding.
But most fixed wireless operators run off a commercial model and so this particular aspect is arguably not nearly as much of a problem as the prior rejection of NGA status, which effectively allows BT to overbuild because the councils dont recognise anybody else as being present.
Conversely some anecdotal evidence from residents in the affected areas suggests that the council, at the same time as ignoring Kijomas existence on its maps, may still be using the wireless ISP as an excuse for not investing.
Lewis claims that several people who enquired with WSCC about the possibility of bringing fibre broadband to their area were allegedly told that they could not have fibre under BDUK because there is another service available (i.e. in this case implying that Kijoma operated in their area).
The situation is not a million miles from the stance that B4RN took after Lancashire County Council seemed unwilling to de-scope their planned coverage from the BDUK based contract with BT. In that case B4RN was even deploying a pure fibre optic network, which is what was being recommended for future upgrades.
Since then B4RN and other altnet providers have found it increasingly counter-productive to engage with local authorities and instead prefer to simply focus on beating BT at its own game, by delivering a superior service. In B4RNs case the community-built nature of their network encourages strong uptake, but other providers will remain vulnerable.
The good news is that BDUKs future Phase 3 roll-out, which should focus on improving connectivity to the final 5%, looks likely to be even more accepting of fixed wireless ISPs (several of the preliminary pilots are wireless-based solutions) and this may make such operators harder to ignore; assuming any future Government doesnt do a U-turn. But that will do little to help Kijoma and similar ISPs because by the time BDUK enters its third deployment phase the damage may have already been done.
One upside to all of this is that consumers will benefit from a greater choice of ISP, although its difficult to know how long that will last unless the use of public funding starts to be managed more constructively. In an ideal world the public funding would be better used serving similar areas where no NGA suppliers of any sort exist.
It should be said that BT arent strictly to blame here, theyre a big commercial company that will understandably use any opportunity to grow. As such it comes down to the local authority and Government to ensure that their rules are effective enough to tackle such problems without allowing the overbuild of viable private competitors.
In the course of writing this article we did contact WSCC for a comment, but so far they have yet to furnish us with a response and we will update once one arrives.
Quote:
Ordinarily the news that BT is bringing fibre optic broadband (FTTC/P) cables to your area would be welcome. But its not always so and sometimes the use of public money to help upgrade the smallest of UK rural areas, especially when a superfast (24Mbps+) capable provider is already serving local customers, can raise concerns.
At present the Governments Broadband Delivery UK programme is throwing around £1.7bn of public money, primarily in BTs direction, in order to ensure that fixed line superfast broadband speeds reach 95% of the county by 2017/18. So far the progress has been good but it hasnt always been without controversy, particularly with regards to overbuilding.
In fact there have been a number of incidents where the deployment programme has been accused of wasting money by allowing BT to roll-out into areas that are already covered or in the process of being covered by other Next Generation Access (NGA) providers, such as part of B4RNs network in Lancashire (example) or Gigaclear in Wiltshire (example).
Europes State Aid Rules are designed to prevent such problems from occurring (though some overbuild around the edges is considered acceptable), although the implementation can be very bureaucratic and more than a few councils could be accused of having turned a blind eye to the good work that some alternative network operators are doing (note: often without any recourse to public funding).
A more complicated example is that of Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) providers, such a VFast, Kijoma, Relish and many more. Some of these ISPs are able to provide flexible data allowances, better than superfast speeds and low latency connections for affordable prices over wide areas, but theyve also been largely shunned by a number of local authorities.
Take for example the situation that Kijoma currently claims to be experiencing in West Sussex (England), where they note that BT have been building fibre optic cables towards Hooksway, a remote hamlet of 4 properties. Elsewhere BTs fibre also appears to be running from East Marden village all the way down the single track road, about 1.5 miles, towards Stoughton. Various other surrounding areas may also benefit from BTs mix of up to 80Mbps FTTC and some patches with 330Mbps FTTP.
Another area is Sutton Parish in Sussex, where BTs deployment is predicted to involve 1 FTTC street cabinet and the rest FTTP for perhaps 3 hamlets + 1 other village and those beyond the reach of the cab.
The problem here is that Kijoma already covers many of these areas with wireless broadband speeds of up to 30-40Mbps (e.g. Sutton, Bignor, Barlavington, East/North/Up Marden, Chilgrove etc.) and they have a number of live customers, with take-up in some of their locations reaching as high as 96%.
Quote:
Bill Lewis, MD of Kijoma, told ISPreview.co.uk:
I am not looking to be seen as the whiny competitor trying to preserve their revenues. Instead I feel the public need to see for themselves that significant parts of West Sussex in particular have gone without, mainly areas where the residents/businesses have no choice of Kijoma, ADSL at anything approaching 2Mbps or even 3G/4G etc.
The evidence is very strong that the money has been used predominately to overbuild Kijomas coverage and customer base. I.e. people and businesses with existing superfast connections, the majority of which have declared strongly that they do not want to change ISP, many of which use VoIP and have no desire to go back to Line rental and restrictive services either.
If you had Broadband at £17.99 and didnt have to pay ~£16.99 line rental then I expect you would be reluctant to change too as it basically makes your Broadband £1 a month compared to BT , let alone the lack of minimum call charges, entirely free voip to voip calls and the mass of other features VoIP provides.
These areas also involve the most construction work and will have to be predominately FTTP in nature due to a lack of cabinets and a sprawled out population. BT flatly refused to fit ADSL to two exchanges in these areas on the basis of viability.
I am not looking to be seen as the whiny competitor trying to preserve their revenues. Instead I feel the public need to see for themselves that significant parts of West Sussex in particular have gone without, mainly areas where the residents/businesses have no choice of Kijoma, ADSL at anything approaching 2Mbps or even 3G/4G etc.
The evidence is very strong that the money has been used predominately to overbuild Kijomas coverage and customer base. I.e. people and businesses with existing superfast connections, the majority of which have declared strongly that they do not want to change ISP, many of which use VoIP and have no desire to go back to Line rental and restrictive services either.
If you had Broadband at £17.99 and didnt have to pay ~£16.99 line rental then I expect you would be reluctant to change too as it basically makes your Broadband £1 a month compared to BT , let alone the lack of minimum call charges, entirely free voip to voip calls and the mass of other features VoIP provides.
These areas also involve the most construction work and will have to be predominately FTTP in nature due to a lack of cabinets and a sprawled out population. BT flatly refused to fit ADSL to two exchanges in these areas on the basis of viability.
Part of the problem stems from those state aid rules, which initially allowed BDUK to effectively exclude wireless providers from being considered as true NGA operators unless they agreed a commitment to replace non-wired connections with fibre at a later stage (here). The position, which Lewis calls stupid and unworkable, wasnt popular with FWA ISPs and meant that some councils simply marked areas that had been covered by related providers as not spots, even though they werent.
The problem is well demonstrated by a comment that was made to Lewis in response to a Q&A session with the WSCC during 2010, which formed part of a question the leader event and reveals the local authoritys early and rather unusual approach towards defining not spots.
Quote:
Mike Hicks, WSCCs IT, Economic and Communities Boss (2010), said:
My view of not-spot is that strictly speaking there is nowhere in the UK (or for that matter Western Europe) that has no coverage for broadband. It is possible (although potentially very expensive) to access a broadband service by satellite, wireless or Ethernet absolutely everywhere. In my interpretation, I have taken that a not-spot is any location where there is no open access, reasonably priced service provided.
Broadband speeds of less than 2Mbps should probably be included in the definition but I have created the phrase not-a-lot spots for those areas. In the case of the non-ADSL exchanges, I accept that Kijoma has coverage in those areas and that the prices are appropriate. However, a closed access service does make these locations, in my view, not-spots by the definition I am using.
My view of not-spot is that strictly speaking there is nowhere in the UK (or for that matter Western Europe) that has no coverage for broadband. It is possible (although potentially very expensive) to access a broadband service by satellite, wireless or Ethernet absolutely everywhere. In my interpretation, I have taken that a not-spot is any location where there is no open access, reasonably priced service provided.
Broadband speeds of less than 2Mbps should probably be included in the definition but I have created the phrase not-a-lot spots for those areas. In the case of the non-ADSL exchanges, I accept that Kijoma has coverage in those areas and that the prices are appropriate. However, a closed access service does make these locations, in my view, not-spots by the definition I am using.
But most fixed wireless operators run off a commercial model and so this particular aspect is arguably not nearly as much of a problem as the prior rejection of NGA status, which effectively allows BT to overbuild because the councils dont recognise anybody else as being present.
Conversely some anecdotal evidence from residents in the affected areas suggests that the council, at the same time as ignoring Kijomas existence on its maps, may still be using the wireless ISP as an excuse for not investing.
Lewis claims that several people who enquired with WSCC about the possibility of bringing fibre broadband to their area were allegedly told that they could not have fibre under BDUK because there is another service available (i.e. in this case implying that Kijoma operated in their area).
Quote:
Bill Lewis continued:
If you speak to WSCC they will mumble about the lack of post code information from us at the last [Open Market Review (OMR)], what they will not say is that during the previous OMRs we provided our coverage and when it came to them publishing the results of the OMR, the maps had none of our coverage shown on it, not even for basic broadband.
We had to raise this with them, they then took the maps down and never replaced them. We refused to provide some information at the last OMR due to the backdrop of clear overbuild from the earlier OMR data and a refusal to register Kijomas existence in the county with BDUK.
If you speak to WSCC they will mumble about the lack of post code information from us at the last [Open Market Review (OMR)], what they will not say is that during the previous OMRs we provided our coverage and when it came to them publishing the results of the OMR, the maps had none of our coverage shown on it, not even for basic broadband.
We had to raise this with them, they then took the maps down and never replaced them. We refused to provide some information at the last OMR due to the backdrop of clear overbuild from the earlier OMR data and a refusal to register Kijomas existence in the county with BDUK.
Since then B4RN and other altnet providers have found it increasingly counter-productive to engage with local authorities and instead prefer to simply focus on beating BT at its own game, by delivering a superior service. In B4RNs case the community-built nature of their network encourages strong uptake, but other providers will remain vulnerable.
The good news is that BDUKs future Phase 3 roll-out, which should focus on improving connectivity to the final 5%, looks likely to be even more accepting of fixed wireless ISPs (several of the preliminary pilots are wireless-based solutions) and this may make such operators harder to ignore; assuming any future Government doesnt do a U-turn. But that will do little to help Kijoma and similar ISPs because by the time BDUK enters its third deployment phase the damage may have already been done.
One upside to all of this is that consumers will benefit from a greater choice of ISP, although its difficult to know how long that will last unless the use of public funding starts to be managed more constructively. In an ideal world the public funding would be better used serving similar areas where no NGA suppliers of any sort exist.
It should be said that BT arent strictly to blame here, theyre a big commercial company that will understandably use any opportunity to grow. As such it comes down to the local authority and Government to ensure that their rules are effective enough to tackle such problems without allowing the overbuild of viable private competitors.
In the course of writing this article we did contact WSCC for a comment, but so far they have yet to furnish us with a response and we will update once one arrives.