Op-Ed: Big Society vision assists the Final Third.

With the UK’s PM announcing his vision for the Big Society is the government aware of the Final Third and how will it plan to guarantee everyone has 2Mpbs speeds by 2012

With this week’s announcement from PM David Cameron outlined his vision for a ‘Big Society’. A huge culture change, the plan would be to devolve some of central government’s power, giving local groups the opportunity to run post offices, libraries, transport services and shape housing projects. Community projects in four parts of the country (Liverpool, Eden Valley in Cumbria, Windsor and Maidenhead in Berkshire and the London Borough of Sutton) are to be given state support. Each will get dedicated civil servants to guarantee initiatives will get off the ground. The Prime Minister has called the Big Society scheme "the biggest, most dramatic redistribution of power." One of the major initiatives is improving the provision of broadband. Cumbria’s Tory MP for Penrith and the Borders, Rory Stewart, is already onboard and hopes that this initiative will see broadband for the masses. When fast-internet – broadband - was first introduced in the UK 10 years ago by NTL (Now Virgin) it was still being tested behind the scenes and not many people were fully aware of how it could transform their lives. It wasn’t long till the major internet providers got on the broadband band-wagon and today the telecommunication market is the most competitive. But, when broadband was being rolled-out there was no constancy and in 2003, Bill Thompson of the BBC commented, “Nobody seems willing to argue for a proper, publicly-funded, rollout of broadband service across the country, preferring instead to leave it to the commercial partners to do what they choose.” The situation is no different 7 years later; the large organisations have set the costs, the packages, which areas they cover and the internet speed. Gordon Brown wanted to ensure poorer families had broadband with £300m of investment to make it achievable. The move, in January of this year, was designed to back up the government's guarantee that all parents will be able to access school reports by 2012. The Labour government did not get the opportunity to see this through, but if they had they would surely have come against the most obvious problem of all; not everywhere in the UK can get broadband. The reason that broadband is only in selective areas is purely down to fibre rates, cost and time. South Shropshire understands this more than most as after 10 years with QI Comm they will be disconnected for economic reasons. The community has to look at alternative solutions, including running the service themselves or spending a hefty amount on dongles and mobile broadband. South Shropshire may have had a taste of broadband, but there are thousands who live too far away from the broadband exchange; these people are the Final Third. March 2010 saw a number of organisations join the Final Third Campaign to lobby the government on behalf of those living in these broadband-free areas. The government supports the idea of a UK-wide next generation broadband services, in fact, the Department of Business, Innovation & Skills established Broadband Delivery UK, which would be responsible to deliver at least 2Mbps speed to everyone in the UK by 2012. (Universal Service Commitment) Surely a dream situation? However, there is one provider who is willing to try and make it possible; Vtesse Broadband. Using fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) technology with sub-loop unbundling enabled Vtesse to use the existing copper phone line to connect to the end users. Users in Birch Green and Hertingfordbury in Hertfordshire, where the first to have Vtesse broadband and now are able to access broadband at speeds of up to 40Mbps. Vtesse are already looking toward the future and plan to implement a fibre overlay network which would offer fibre-to-the-home (FTTH), offering even faster speeds. The Big Society proposition has once again pushed UK broadband coverage back into the headlines. The government is determined to make its initiatives happen and will no doubt be encouraging more private companies to lay fibre and for BT to lower the cost of fibre rates; so that costs to implement the plan won’t outweigh the need.