Today is St Georges Day, and any number of politicians are currently trying to use that to leverage some sort of political capital for themselves.

I cannot really blame them, politicians are having a hard time of it right now.  Nobody believes a word most of them say, mostly because they tend to be caught in falsehoods.

Ed Vaizey is not one of those who seems to be in the Press with any particular references today, but boy has he made some claims yesterday.

Ian Grant's br0kent3l3ph0n3 blog quotes Vaizey as saying:

...BT is a great British company doing a great job for Britain...

Maria Miller (head of BDUK as the Culture Secretary) has been reported as claiming that the Gov WILL meet their target for SuperFast Broadband by 2015.

Meanwhile in Wales, the Superfast Cymru plan seems to be quietly doing little, while the Welsh Government’s Director of Governance and Head of Internal Audit investigates the potential for "real or perceived conflicts of interest" between Beynon (BT's Wales Director) and the Welsh Government.

BT had a meeting with Welsh ISPs last month, and the Government representative and the BT representative could not come to any agreement with regard to whether 98% of the population would see the declared benefits by 2015.

No one can bid for BDUK money, other than BT.

Mike Kiely (formerly BDUK, but sacked when he suggested BT were inflating prices), appears to have been vindicated in his concerns over BT pricing.

BT are being suggested as having exaggerated their coverage in Cambridgeshire.

BT lashed out at the SuperFarce Cymru website, a parody of 'their' (they do not own the URL lease) SuperFast Cymru website.

and on and on...

The long and short of all of this, is that the whole process that was supposed to energise the broadband market, and deliver something extraordinary has become another example of what happens when the Government (regardless of flavour) get involved with buying something that they simply do not understand.

1. Value for money goes out of the window 
2. Corruption is perceived whether it exists or not
3. 'Big business' sees it as free money, and makes sure they get the bulk of it
4. Little or no benefit trickles to those who are actually paying for it (us)

Don't look behind the flag please, we don't want you to know just how bad it is. Everything is fine.

Nothing to see here.

The post Don’t pay any attention to the man behind the (broadband) flag appeared first on wispa.

Recently the B4RN (Broadband for Rural North) project has had a ton of Press (thanks in no small part to one @ruskin147).  Their website had around 35k visits on the day that a short item was shown on BBC Breakfast TV, and they have been inundated with emails from well wishers and others who want help delivering something similar in their area.

• They have received no tangible Gov support.
• The investors they have are local residents.
• They need another £1.5m on top of the £0.5m they have already ploughed (literally) into the project.

This - despite the fact that one of the group is on first name terms with EU Head of the Digital Agenda, Neelie Crowes.  This despite the fact that a  renowned academic is on the Board. This despite the huge amount of Press that the project has received.

Over the last few days Trevor Baylis OBE (serial inventor of 'wind up radio' fame) admitted that he needed to sell or re-mortgage his home as he was broke.  Countless 'near copies' of his designs have left him without the royalties that would normally come from such widespread sales.  There cannot be a more famous modern day inventor, and yet he has received no help at all in protecting his work.  He's a lone 'shed' inventor, his expertise is the idea - not the protection or monetization of the idea.

ALLc was created to draw together the best of the best in the broadband industry, to support the Government's plan, and the subscribers desire, not to be left behind in the Data Revolution. DCMS, via BDUK is obligated by the EU to create a centre of excellence for broadband in the UK. Maria Miller MP is not interested in ALLc helping, preferring to use American consultants.

Horse meat found it's way into the foodchain via overseas producers.  Supermarkets in the UK preferring to drag product from overseas than look to their local producers.

A Welsh charity that provides safe refuge, support and counselling for victims (male and female) of domestic abuse receives countless referrals from local (and often national) social services - but receives no Gov funding and relies upon charitable donations only.

County Councils spend the majority of their consulting budgets outside of the county, and many are reported to have local spend as low as 10% as a total calculation of non-salary budgets.

HS2 - the £11.5Bn high speed rail project is reputedly unlikely to build the required rolling stock in the UK.  Ex-Pop Mogul Pete Waterman has already started to take the Government to task, receiving little in the way of reassurance.

Seems the UK has decided upon a culture of sending it's Premiers overseas (David Cameron to India and Carwyn Jones to San Francisco for example), rather than looking to protect, nurture and support it's homegrown talent.

Overseas trade missions are important. Overseas trade is critical. 

We just need something to trade, and that means supporting our homegrown talent first.

The post Local? On, your own? Small group? No thanks. appeared first on wispa.

The Welsh Government have committed to spending £205m of public funds in a secret contract with BT.

This Prezi takes a closer look:

The post Next Generation Broadband for Wales appeared first on wispa.

This man is the First Minister for Wales.

He allowed the employment of a BT senior employee as a Government representative in Brussels to try and solicit ERDF monies for the Welsh Government.

BT will receive in the region of £80m of ERDF monies as part of the Next Generation Broadband for Wales project.

The video allows you to make your own conclusions.

The post You are supposed to be the First Minister for Wales appeared first on wispa.

The post Broadband in Wales – Your digital future appeared first on wispa.

So, Chris Huhne has resigned after pleading guilty to 'perverting the course of justice' by getting his wife to take his points for a driving offence a decade ago.

Obviously the crux of that particular case, isn't that he offloaded the responsibility of doing something wrong to another, more that he lied about it (and very publicly) for a considerable period of time.

Today, we have a First Minister in Wales who has chosen to promote a BT employee extensively and without shame throughout his Government's affairs.  

• he presided over awards being handed to her
• her appointment to a position representing the Welsh Government in Brussels to secure ERDF funding (BT was later a recipient of some £80m in ERDF funding)
• has done a deal with BT to hand over £205m in public funding, but wont approve the release of the contract to Assembly Ministers - those that are charged with oversight of the Government
• ensured that the first tranche of areas to 'benefit' from the contract with BT were 'friendly' electorate areas
• allowed the first tranche of BT's 'new installations' to include areas that are already extensively covered by the Fibrespeed project - a project that received commitment of £30m in public funding and still has over a decade of contract term to run
• cynically manipulated the data sent to the EU to exclude almost 100Km of fibre that is already in the ground (and in the case of Anglesey actively being used)
• made sure that Anglesey was in the first tranche of BT 'improvements' despite (because of?) the Chairman of the Anglesey Tourism Association running a hotel on the island that is benefiting from Fibrespeed network with speeds in excess of Government targets

Jones has yet to profess his innocence, but this has yet to be forwarded to the Police for investigation.

Let's hope that it doesn't take a decade.

The post Chris Huhne today – Carwyn Jones Tomorrow? appeared first on wispa.

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The post Genesis Technical Systems Launches Superfast DSL Rings® to North American and Rural Markets appeared first on wispa.

This time last year the internet was awash with reports that Pwllheli in N.West Wales was going to receive £10m in funding from the Government to deliver superfast broadband.

[All links open in a new tab]

• The Register
• The BBC
• CFO World
• Computer World
• Public technology.net
• The Welsh Office
• PC Advisor

The list includes all the usual suspects that simply reprint the Government Press Releases.

A year on and a quick 'Sam Knows' check results in the following:

ADSL:
SDSL:
LLU services:
Cable:
Wireless:

Now, we all know sam doesn't always know about some of the more obscure providers, but £10m of investment would have shown up so it clearly didn't happen (we know it didn't...)

More recently the Next Generation Broadband for Wales 'Superfast Cymru' website, lists Pwllheli as being in the first tranche to receive fibre broadband under the new agreement with BT.

If it happens, it is great - it would prove a real boost to the economy to the 4000 or so residents.

The reality?

Journalists keep printing the press releases without fact checking or reference to previous news.

No one notices, so they keep on doing it.

[Note - for those not familiar with Pwllheli, visit http://www.pwllheli.org.uk for more info, it's a nice place to go]

The post Pwllheli, Pwllheli, so easy to con, they’ve done it twice appeared first on wispa.

Some of you may be familiar with the 'Little engine that could'.

An apocryphal tale describing how, despite it's diminutive size, the loco managed to exceed everybody's expectations.

The Welsh Government seem determined to make sure that the £30m investment that was made with public funding into the Fibrespeed network in North Wales utterly fails to ape this particular tale - in fact they seem determined to ignore the existence and potential benefit of the investment.

Below is the image that Fibrespeed used in their evidence to the House of Commons Welsh Affairs Committee [Click on the image to open a larger version in a separate tab] 

This is significant when we compare it to the Next Generation for Wales first rollout locations, which are stated as:

• Bangor (Already served by Fibrespeed)
• Caernarfon (Already served by Fibrespeed)
• Dolgellau (Within reach of Fibrespeed)
• Ebbw Vale
• Menai Bridge (Already served by Fibrespeed)
• Porthmadog (Within reach of Fibrespeed)
• Pwllheli (Already served by Fibrespeed)
• Tredegar

So, of the locations selected by the Welsh Government as the initial eight locations in Wales that will be served by the Next Generation Broadband for Wales project, 50% are already immediately served by Fibrespeed, and a further 25% are within easy reach of existing Fibrespeed infrastructure.

That is 75% that could (should?) have been delivered by Fibrespeed without the requirement to sign a new contract with BT.

Begs the question as to how this areas could possibly be considered as intervention areas.

The Government has already intervened.

With your money.

They are just stopping the little engine that could at the buffers.

The post Fibrespeed – the little engine that couldn’t appeared first on wispa.

In April of 2011, the Welsh Government began collecting information that they would use to inform their Next Generation Broadband for Wales project. The information collecting exercise included a document entitled:

Information Collation Exercise
Next Generation Broadband For Wales

Which stated aims were summarised as:

The purpose of this Information Collation Exercise
which is issued on 21 April 2011 is to help the Welsh
Assembly Government (“Assembly Government”)
shape the delivery schedule and roll-out of the Next
Generation Broadband for Wales (“NGBW”) network.

In order to help 'regional stakeholders' to 'influence the deployment schedule' the Welsh Government helpfully defined the objectives for the project:

1.1 Next Generation Broadband for Wales Objectives

The Next Generation Broadband for Wales objectives of the Assembly Government are aligned with the recently published Digital Agenda for Europe by the European Commission (EC) with two key target dates as detailed below:
By June 2016
all businesses and public sector organisations will have access to at least 30Mbit/s
By End of 2020
 All citizens will have access to at least 30Mbit/s
50% of all citizens, businesses and public sector organisations will have access to at least 100Mbit/s

The subsequent deal with BT (we are told - we are not allowed to see the contract) is:

• By the end of 2015 96% of people in Wales will have access to superfast speeds (24Mbps +)

As there are (according to the Welsh Gov in THIS document) around 600k premises that will not get superfast speeds then that requires around 26100 new fibre connected (or available to connect) customers to be added PER WEEK until the end of 2015.

We shouldn't be surprised that this project is already failing before the first fibre has been laid, the original schedule in the pre bid document anticipated that the commencement of the project would be March 2012.

Additionally, the 'Key actions' statement includes the following paragraph:

Implement the Next Generation Broadband for Wales project to ensure that all residential premises and all businesses in Wales will have access to high speed broadband by 2015, with the ambition that 50 per cent or more have access to 100Mbps roll-out schedule.

Which reads like 100% not 96%...

What the Government is setting out to do is:

• Critical to the success of Wales
• Highly complex
• Utterly misunderstood by the Welsh Government

Failure is always a viable option in politics.

The post Welsh Government – Failure is acceptable appeared first on wispa.