emPSN Enabling Community Broadband

The issue to be tested “Most of the properties in my village are 4.5 km or more from the exchange. At my home I can often only get 0.5 Mbps download, which isn’t brilliant for things like iPlayer. There are at least two businesses in the village that describe broadband speed as ‘business critical’. “Our frustration comes from the fact that running in to the village is a fibre optic pipe put in as a dedicated line to the Primary School. It’s frustrating that the infrastructure is there but cannot be used for the wider population.” from a local parish councillor

BDUK Guidance Where appropriate, local bodies should describe how they intend to use their existing investments in public sector networks (and) partnerships with the wider public sector … to leverage the best superfast Broadband upgrades for their community. as part of the solution Where the use of public sector networks is not deemed appropriate, this should be stated explicitly in the Local Broadband Plan

embc Runs the regional educational network – owned by the local authorities in the region and providing connectivity and services to over 1,200 sites. Procuring a regional network (emPSN), to extend this by adding in corporate sites, initially for local authorities, but potentially also for health, police and so on

Obvious opportunities!

Copper fibre mix for Leicestershire

Aims within the procurement of emPSN 1.To ensure that there are no unnecessary technical, commercial or contractual barriers to the re-use of PSN to help deliver community broadband 2.To ensure that there is a clear, usable and costed emPSN product for community broadband so that: – It will be easy to assess whether or not it is appropriate – It will be easy to implement, if appropriate

The model: The building has a fibre link

The model: Broadband enabling product 1.Costs for installing and maintaining a broadband community hub, including costs per metre of linking to the emPSN network 2.Possibly costs for linking to a point-to-point wireless antenna to support a broadband community hub in a neighbouring settlement 3.Middle mile transit costs to use the emPSN network 4.Costs to connect the emPSN network with a supplier’s POP 5.Plus associated QoS, SLAs etc.

In preparation for this, embc is looking for around 10 villages with poor broadband, where the school has a fibre link Embc would work with the school, the local community, the existing embc provider and a number of potential service providers interested in delivering broadband to homes and businesses The aim would be to scope out all the issues and understand how far the use of connectivity to public sector buildings could facilitate broadband provision to the local community 10 potential pilots

How it will work We would hope to identify the pilots over the summer and start the scoping work in the autumn There are no guarantees of finding a solution – though we certainly hope to do so for at least some of the pilots However, at the very least, each community would have a much better sense of the options facing them

We need your help If you know of a community that might match the bill.. If you know of a company that could provide a broadband service using emPSN backhaul … Contact: Michael Mulquin on Or Peter Thewlis on