Shinness Broadband Investigation

What Next?

Now that our request has been turned down, as I see it there are two options remaining to us …

1. Follow the path of least resistance, accept the decision, attempt nothing to help ourselves, and wait for either the UK (HMG) &/or the Scottish Governments (SG) to provide funding to give us something better, most likely via the latter's current policy for reaching the final 5% by 2021.  That is certainly the simplest option.  However, a concern is that we don't know how the plans of either government will meet their publicly declared targets for better broadband to those communities like us who will not be covered by current schemes  -  Community Broadband Scotland (CBS) exists to encourage community self-help schemes, most of which are based on wireless technology, and is also scoping the work for the SG's last 5% policy, this being led locally by Magda Macdonald, yet recent communications from them have mentioned improved mobile coverage in hopeful terms, while apparently there is talk within the SG of not widening existing infrastructure, but merely giving last 5% households vouchers to subsidise their broadband connections via satellite.  However, our own investigations show that these last two technologies are pro rata by far and away the most expensive way to obtain broadband!  Further, we already know that any substantive improvement via the SG's policy is very unlikely to happen before 2018 at the very earliest, and in actual fact may not be very much before the end of 2021 at the latest, and both those dates assume that policies won't change meanwhile  -  if a political landslide changes the political landscape, or if Brexit hits the economy hard, it must be expected that all such current policies must then be subject to budgetary review, especially as I have some reason to believe that currently much or all of the relevant funding originates from the European Union (EU).
2. The other alternative is to "take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them!".  We could investigate alternatives for ourselves.  However, from the outset we need to be clear about two things.  The first is that we would have to think about the wider community around Lairg, because we are the biggest single identifiable 'group' within it, and we would not wish to obtain a solution that just helped ourselves without considering how that same solution could be extended to help others in the same situation as us.  The second is that it would almost certainly involve finding some cash on our part, either from the generosity of local businesses or individuals, &/or by would-be subscribers paying lump sum connection fees or yearly payments well in advance to fund the installation of the necessary infrastructure.  To do this openly and transparently, we would probably have to form some sort of legal entity.  The amount of cash we'd need to find would depend on what technology we decided upon  -  the two main contenders being wireless, the cheapest option, and optical fibre, the most expensive.  In order to help the community come to a decision about whether and how to proceed further, I include below some links to existing community self-help schemes that I've come across while researching our difficulties, some or all of which we might wish to use as a model or just as a source of inspiration.

Whether the first and simplest option is also the cheapest in the long term, only individual businesses and householders can decide  -  businesses already paying out large ongoing sums of money for a supposedly 'business', but actually much poorer, level of service, and even householders paying for a satellite broadband service on top of their existing landline telephone service, may well think it a worthwhile investment to fund some form of alternative solution, while others, particularly those without much interest in the internet or those with little cash to spare, may prefer to sit on their hands and wait, however long it may take.

Appended are the promised links to example schemes, just three of the five or more schemes that I've already contacted for information and help  -  there are many more throughout the UK  -  and a table comparing those schemes for which I have meaningful figures.  First however, Prof Gordon Hughes of High-Speed Universal Broadband for Scotland (HUBS) has been kind enough to give me permission to quote from his email to me:

• Heriot Community Broadband (HCB)  -  a Community Interest Company (CIC) based 16 miles outside of Edinburgh.  I have been in contact with John Williams, their chairman, and I quote with his permission from some of his emails to me:

  "Although Heriot is only 16 miles from Edinburgh, we too have the same wish here.  We are promised that BT will carry out an upgrade sometime next year, but of course we cannot discover who will be connected, nor the method (FTTC or FTTP), both are vaguely talked about.
  
  In fact Heriot has not waited for this to happen, and three years ago we set up our own high speed network using microwave links.  We set this up on the same basis as the Tegola Project on the West Coast, HUBS And Tegola, and we have had tremendous help from the people who drove that project forward."

  "You could try to get CBS interested, but we know from direct experience that they are terribly bureaucratic and inclined to endless delays.  They have funded a community near here (Humbie) with an extremely generous subsidy, and that scheme has been allocated to a commercial provider, Lothian Broadband, which is a community venture that has gone commercial.  We work with them to some degree as we are quite close to Humbie.  There are rumours that SG may well revamp the CBS structure as they are dissatisfied with the lack of progress CBS has made.
  
  HCB has received no public subsidies, but we have been funded by wind farm community benefit grants and also local estates.  This has given us complete flexibility, and we have been able to grow organically, rather than drawing up a detailed plan with all the endless work that involves.  You should think about alternative routes for finance.  There are signs that some bodies such as Scottish Enterprise may be prepared to get involved  -  HUBS is talking to them."

  "We may not be the typical project!
  
  Having spent quite some time talking to professional operators of community schemes and trying to draw up a 'plan' we grew very disillusioned as the costs seemed huge and the detail ever expanding.
  
  At that point we teamed up with Professor Peter Buneman at Edinburgh University (responsible for the Tegola project and HUBS).  He told us we would never get off the ground going that route, and that the best route was simply to make a start, build a mast and connect people.
  
  So we started with a £10,000 wind farm grant which was for exploration of possibilities and within that sum we built our first very low key mast and connected about 10 houses.  This phase took about six months but most of it was spent in fruitless talks with the contractors.  Actually deciding to go ahead and get people connected took about 6 weeks.  We are lucky in that we have direct line of sight from hill tops to Edinburgh and can connect by microwave links to equipment there.  You will need access to backhaul at some point where fibre is available I assume, and then transmit from there to a suitable hilltop for onward distribution.
  
  Having demonstrated that we could make the scheme work, we then made another grant application for £30,000 which was awarded in summer 2013.  Over the next year we built 3 more major relay masts, and a number of smaller local ones for retail connections.  The grant paid for everything including the kit for individual connections.  Other schemes quite often have to charge residents for this (about £250 per house roughly).  We always use professional contractors for this which pushed up the cost, but insurance problems are insuperable for volunteers and anyway outside most people's skill levels!
  
  We made a subsequent grant application in early 2015 for about £33,000 which has funded a further dramatic increase in our coverage.  We also at this point decided to put out construction of our masts to the small firm that runs our network support and maintenance as although volunteer labour can work wonders, it is very difficult to organise and maintain.
  
  We have received no public sector support at all  -  quite deliberately once we discovered how bureaucratic this is.  CBS are pretty much a nightmare  -  Gordon Hughes did get a grant out of them for Stobo & Dawyck, but we have not applied to them.  Local estates have given further support  -  often through self interest in the sense that shooting lodges are really keen to have broadband for their guests, but also in a purely altruistic spirit as they can see how beneficial high speed broadband can be for remote areas.
  
  We now cover about 80 properties in Heriot (out of about 170  -  some near the exchange get a decent service via BT) which is still growing.  We have also connected several large nearby estates, all bar one outside our community.  We have also connected a large wind farm (BT could not connect them).  I know on the West Coast there are some salmon farms which are supplied a service via HUBS members.  We are starting to connect residents in neighbouring communities on an ad hoc basis, by that I mean we are not making a pitch to the communities, but we are responding to requests for help.
  
  Although Stobo & Dawyck are some distance from Heriot, they also need to relay their service from Edinburgh.  We therefore have ensured that there are direct interlinks between the two systems, and they are now for all practical purposes just one big network.  Between us we now have about 35 masts in total and about 250 residential connections which expands all the time.  We therefore have a network that stretches right across the Lammermuirs and Moorfoots.  There is huge scope for our services to grow within this area, as there are many, many people whom we do not connect yet.  Obviously we will not be trying to compete directly with fibre providers in the small towns and villages who are lucky enough to get this provision, but there will be many residences left out of course, just as is happening to you."

• Loch Tay Internet  This is a project part funded by Community Broadband Scotland (CBS).  Currently they do not appear to have their own website.  I quote again with permission from correspondence with Phil Simpson:

  "Technology used:  From a backhaul in Pitlochry it comes by microwave radio in two hops to Loch Tay.  There are 4 masts, Ecopops around Loch Tay that transmit the signals back and forward.  We still have some gaps to fill in and are planning some additional Ecopops.
  
  How much funding up front:  Not much, I think 10 or 15%, from memory.
  
  Any ongoing costs covered by funding:  No, we have appointed a contractor to build and run the whole affair.  It will eventually be off my desk and the community's as the contractor, AB Internet, gets on with it.
  
  How many premises covered:  Nearly 80 at the moment with a list of about 20 waiting for the gaps to be filled.
  
  Funding per premise:  No idea, it was a price for the project.
  
  Consumer cost per premise up front:  £149.99 per installation.
  
  Consumer cost per premise per month:  Depends on the level of service they buy.  10Mbps up and down is £29.99 per month.  This includes 100GB data limit.  For an extra £5 per month they can get unlimited data."

• Broadband For The Rural North (B4RN)  -  a remarkably successful Lancastrian rural community project based on optical fibre, that is much favoured by news media whenever they cover community broadband schemes.  This is what they sent me in response to a request for information, particularly about costs and timescales, again quoted by permission:

  "We planned it for years.  We decided to do a serious plan in 2009, it took till 2010.  We couldn't get any funding whatsoever.  We went to the people on Dec 15th 2011.  We raised the money from shares from the people and dug the first sod March 2012.  We connected the first customers in July 2012.  We were able to cover costs by March 2013.  We employed first staff October 2014 so didn't rely totally on volunteers and now employ 16.  (Cost) about £800³ per premise.  Still no funding, it is all built and paid for by the people for the people.
  
  Sorry for garbled reply, too many enquiries and too little time.  It is all on the website and our facebook page, and we have showtell days if you want to come?  News section on website.  Good luck, if we can do it then you can too, many initiatives going on in Scotland."

Notes:

1. Example tariff chosen is cheapest that gives 100GB download limit.
2. Where no download limit is enforced, assumed equivalent to 100GB.
3. The discrepancy between these figures is apparently explained by the fact that the figure in the email from B4RN refers to all premises in the areas covered by their fibre, regardless of whether or not any given premises had chosen to become a B4RN customer, whereas I just divided the total expenditure by the number of customers.
4. John Williams has explained that HCB are to change the download speeds quoted on their website, as initially by deliberate policy they kept them low to avoid misleading potential customers, whereas in fact existing customers are receiving a minimum of 20Mbps.

Other considerations:

• Local geography and population density both significantly affect installation cost per premises;
• Some projects are expanding their geographical coverage, so, for these, at any one time different areas will be at different stages of deployment, and the number of premises connected will tend to lag behind expenditure that was necessary to enable them to do so;
• CBS will fund at most 89% of build costs, so all of the projects helped by CBS will have had to find at least 11% of their costs themselves.  However, not all of them were willing to discuss funding with an outsider, so the funding figures above which include CBS contributions should be viewed as an approximate guide.