Scotland has Broadband Reach thanks to Avanti

1 June, 2009 - 08:30

SUMMARY

Despite significant investment in network infrastructure Scotland still had many rural areas where broadband access remained impossible.

The Scottish Government sponsored a project to deliver broadband services to the most remote parts of the country. A capital budget of £3.3m was made available to support the project.

Following an international tender Avanti was chosen as the primary supplier of a satellite based broadband solution and over 2000 installations were completed bringing broadband to parts of rural Scotland for the very first time. 

BEST PRACTICE – KEY POINTS

  • No one solution fits everywhere
  • Standalone satellite for remote locations
  • Small wireless clusters with satellite backhaul can be very cost effective where fixed line broadband is non-existent or of poor quality
  • Bandwidth choice is valued.  With ADSL / cable, the maximum bandwidth is determined by locality and is very low for rural populations.
  • The Scottish Government ensured project success by effective marketing to its constituents – this provided a platform of customers to attract industry interest.
  • Central procurement offered better scale than community grants.
  • The Scottish Government tender was technology neutral – this ensured that all potential technologies could be considered and ensured value-for-money for the people of Scotland.
  • Avanti delivered.

 

INTRODUCTION

In August 2001 - Scottish broadband coverage, as a result of the private sector's commercial investment, was just 43% - compared to 63% in the UK. The Scottish Executive's Broadband Strategy was launched; its aim was for pervasive and affordable broadband in Scotland.
Initial action was to stimulate the market through awareness raising and encouraging consumer and business take-up.  By creating the market demand for broadband, BT and others responded to the commercial opportunity and improved their roll-out of broadband infrastructure to cover around 97% of the Country.  
 

RURAL BROADBAND BECOMES THE CHALLENGE

In June 2004, a target of affordable broadband to every community by the end of 2005 was set; reflecting the need to deliver to rural and remote areas where broadband was still unavailable. This was achieved by a supply-side intervention – the Broadband for Scotland project.
The first phase of the project was to encourage further expansion in fixed line broadband infrastructure (ADSL).  Following an open procurement, a contract was awarded to BT to upgrade 378 Scottish telephone exchange areas that were not commercially viable for broadband.  However, a substantial number of homes and businesses across Scotland remained beyond the reach of the extended broadband network – fixed-line technology simply could not deliver service to them.  
Scotland Broadband Not-Spots – November 2007 (Source: Scottish Government)
These “Not-Spots” were not restricted to the Highlands and Islands, communities across the whole of Scotland were affected by the digital divide.  The Scottish Government built up a database of 1600 individuals and businesses that could not access broadband; this was subsequently used to encourage telecommunications providers to recognise the commercial opportunity that Not Spots provided.
An additional £3.3 million was made available for further activity to deliver broadband to those areas without coverage. An industry event was held in May 2007, with over 30 potential suppliers and other interested bodies at the meeting. The options around the delivery of alternative broadband solutions (e.g. small wireless networks) were explored in detail, given that there was no BT solution to the Broadband Reach problem.
 

THE CHOICE OF THE BEST FUNDING MODEL

The Scottish Government considered two funding models and decided that:

  • A community grant scheme would not produce the scale necessary to create a workable solution across the Country, particularly for smaller communities.
  • The procurement approach represented the best mechanism to achieve its objective of delivering an affordable and sustainable broadband solution to all of its Not Spots.
  • The Government wanted to create a solution that was sustainable without further investment of public funds in the future.  Funding was therefore capital only; no on-going support of end user pricing was available to the bidders.

 

MARKETING TO THE PEOPLE

The project’s success depended on reaching as many potential customers as possible.  
The Scottish Government launched a national marketing campaign using press (see right), radio, internet and direct advertising aimed at narrow band internet users who could not access broadband.  
This generated a large number of enquiries which led in turn to the trebling of the number of households and businesses expressing serious interest in buying broadband. At the time of the contract the total number of registrants was nearly 4000. 

PROCURING THE BEST SOLUTION

An OJEU procurement began in October 2007 and attracted 20 companies who expressed an early interest.  From a final short list of 4 companies, Avanti was awarded the contract in June 2008.   

AVANTI’S WINNING SOLUTION

Avanti’s solution was based on:

  • Satellite broadband to individual homes and businesses.
  • Linking properties in larger communities through WiFi and providing a single high bandwidth satellite connection to the Internet.

 

Avanti also provides ISP services including e-mail and web-hosting.  
Satellite is the solution for rural broadband.

Over 2100 customers ordered Avanti broadband – a near 50% take-up rate of those that expressed an interest.  The result puts rural broadband on a level par with the Scotland wide broadband penetration of 53% (Jan 2009), demonstrating that satellite is the solution for rural populations. 

ABOUT AVANTI COMMUNICATIONS

Avanti is the UK’s only licensed fixed service satellite operator and is listed on the London Stock Exchange (AIM: AVN).
 
Avanti is launching its first satellite, HYLAS, in the second quarter of 2010. HYLAS will be the first predominantly Ka-band satellite covering Europe and is optimised to deliver two-way high-speed internet services. HYLAS will deliver much higher bandwidth to end-users (typically 10Mbps download by 2Mbps upload) at a much lower cost than current satellite based services.