Rural broadband body admits leaving wireless off maps
The maps that Broadband Delivery UK gives to local authorities to help them plan super-fast broadband procurement do not include any details of fixed wireless providers, a Freedom of Information request has revealed.
Journalist Ian Grant asked BDUK, which is doling out funds from a £530m pot, whether the maps include wireless coverage and, if not, why not.
"BDUK does not hold postcode level data on local fixed wireless broadband," the body said in its reply." "The [geographical information] files provided to local authorities have an empty column which they can use for their own purposes to indicate areas where there is wireless availability from other providers. Completing this depends on local knowledge."
According to BDUK, the maps are used by "local partnerships… as a source of information to help inform their planning and procurement, and as a baseline for consultation in determining the eligible project intervention areas in accordance with the EU State Aid approval process."
When the government announced its intention to subsidise rural broadband at the end of 2010, it said it would do so on a technologically neutral basis. This would entail connectivity coming through fibre, wireless or satellite.
However, the omission of wireless availability from the BDUK maps effectively means local authorities are getting official data that points only to wired broadband.
Pointing out that omitting wireless technologies such as fixed WiMax and Wi-Fi distorts the market, Grant also noted on his blog that, "in addition, procurement rules set up [by] BDUK on the advice of consultants like Pinsent Masons and KPMG excluded operators with less than £20m-per-year turnover".
"This made all the UK's wireless broadband operators and many mid-sized fixed network operators officially invisible," Grant added.
BDUK said in its reply that its sources for geographical information included the Ordnance Survey, published BT fibre exchange upgrade announcements, "commercially confidential information from BT Openreach such as postcodes served by different cabinets" and further information from KCOM and Virgin Media.
Commenting on Grant's post, a representative of a resident-driven broadband initiative in Cambridgeshire also claimed that BT Openreach's data "contained glaring errors" and was not always available in detail.
"So how on earth is any other bidder in all these rural [super-fast broadband] areas which are going out to tender under the BDUK funding initiative able to make an accurate estimate for their bid — except BT Openreach?" Mel Bryan of Alconbury Telecom wrote. "As a bidder I would consider the risks too high and, if you won the bid, you would be dependent on BT providing you with accurate data."
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), which is responsible for BDUK, told ZDNet UK that "it has always been the case that local authorities would need to use their local knowledge to update and supplement [its] data".
"This will include wireless network coverage," the DCMS said. "The data we have collected concerns existing infrastructure and does not in any way determine the technical solutions to extend coverage further."