FAQs - Next Generation Broadband to rural areas

Can Rutland Telecom help communities suffereing from poor broadband speeds?
We will help if we can. We are a small company currently inundated with requests from other areas of the UK following publicity of our subloop unbundling Fibre To The Cabinet (FTTC) project in Lyddington, Rutland. We don't just talk about rural NGA - we have actually delivered it! Lyddington now has the fastest broadband in the UK via copper phone lines for any rural village. The results speak for themselves: Before deployment of FTTC, the average speed in the village was 0.5Mbps. BBC iPlayer and YouTube did not work. Large files could not be uploaded. The average sync speed is now 32Mbps (10-40Mbps range) and residents are watching streaming HD TV via their broadband.

So we are now confident we can provide Next Generation Broadband to any rural community in the UK. If there is sufficient interest in an area we may install equipment at our cost. Alternatively we would ask for a contribution to our capital costs. If there are businesses in your community they may be willing to contribute to the installation since fast broadband might bring them significant benefits. Do not be put off by costs - whilst there is unlikely to be any public money in the near future, we have had approaches from investors interested in funding viable deployments. We have recently costed several FTTC projects in rural areas where end users simply pay a small connection fee and a monthly rental of just £30-£40. These communities typically have download speeds around 300kbps and our solution will deliver speeds up to 40Mbps from street cabinets with 10Mbps upload speeds possible.

How come Rutland Telecom can help and BT cannot?
We specialise in rural broadband solutions using a combination of exchange unbundling, subloop unbundling, fibre-optic and wireless backhaul. More importantly, we are willing to work closely with the local community. A typical situation would be a presentation from us in a village hall and then working together with village activists to develop a viable solution.

BT are a huge organisation with no local management structure. It is not economically viable for them to focus on small communities, and we understand they would not be able to adopt local pricing meaning the ongoing viability of supplying rural premises might not be profitable. BT PLC have chosen to use BT Openreach to put street cabinets in the network. Openreach has effectively become a wholesale ISP of sorts - by placing DSLAMs in street cabinets like Rutland Telecom. However they do not control internet access and cannot sell services to end users: they rely on other ISPs (like BT Retail, TalkTalk and Sky) selling the service they install. This means the low population density of small communities is not commercially viable for Openreach to deploy a solution in - they cannot be sure of getting a certain percentage threshold of subscribers to justify the capital investment. We can.

Investment

There is also now little sign that public money is available to subsidise rural infrastructure projects like Lyddington FTTC. The proposed 50p line tax generating funds to roll out rural broadband has been shelved. We are working with other communities and have private investors willing to fund our next deployments. After all, in Lyddington the private investors are enjoying 10% returns on their investment which is more than they can receive from a bank. The banks would also not lend money to us. We also feel it is important to have investors as customers so they are closely involved in the installation and operation of our network.

We have created a new class of shares for our community deployments offering a fixed 5% dividend plus a discretionary bonus dividend depending on the overall profitability of the company. These are redeemable shares with a 3 year term for return of capital.

Flexibility

Rutland Telecom also has greater flexibility over the service offering via DSLAMs - we can adapt to change more quickly. For example we are curretnly researching bonding in VDSL2 and deployment of EFM/SHDSL in street cabinets. We were the first UK provider to use MPF (full metallic path) in FTTC. The whole copper pair from the cabinet to the premises is under our control and there is no remote access to it by BT Openreach.

Rutland Telecom has the same access rights to the national network that BT Wholesale and BT Retail have - at the same price. One major difference is that Rutland Telecom is willing to deliver a solution to a rural community because it is in our business interests to do so. We are evangelical when it comes to rural broadband. We have unique experience of street cabinet technology and long-range wireless as applied in a rural location.

How quickly can Rutland Telecom deliver a solution?
If it is just a case of unbundling your local exchange, then about 3 months. If your community is still too far from an exchange, even when it is equipped with NGA technology, and we need to install a street cabinet to boost speeds to 40Mbps, then the timescales will depend on surveys and local planning applications. We would estimate 3-6 months as being typical.

What are the indicative costs?
We would aim to deliver a 40Mbps single-cabinet solution to a community for between £25,000 & £50,000. For a community of 500 premises that is just £100 each! A far cry from the Digital Britain report which quoted up to £1750 per rural home for NGA. Again, in the right situation, we can fund these capital costs leaving end users with a small connection fee and a low monthly rental.

Delivery of a solution is typically viable for us, providing we get 50-100 customers per cabinet, at £30/month including line rental, fast broadband, free calls and local service & support. The solution must be viable which is why we insist on a minimum number of registrations before proceeding.

What do I need to do to get Rutland Telecom to help?
In the first instance you should contact us with a summary of your situation and we will give a free no-obligation initial response to say if we believe we can help. We specifically need the following information:

1. The location and population size of the community interested in a fast broadband solution
2. 1 phone number and post code of a property in the community
3. A screen shot from www.speedtest.net showing your current broadband speed and ISP
4. Details of any businesses in your community which might benefit from fast broadband - or halp cover the capital costs of deploument
5. Any information about what has been tried so far e.g. is there a local activist group who are already working together to lobby BT etc?
6. Any local investors or community fund which could help cover the cost of putting the network in - in Lyddington private investors are getting a healthy rate of return (10% dividend/interest) and their money back after 3 years. Our new class of shares is mentioned above.

We would stress that the key to success is working together as a community. This can be exciting and rewarding. Like Lyddington, you will have a sense of achievement that a solution has been reached against the odds (BT won't deliver a solution, Lord Carter's Digital Britain says it is not economically viable to unbundle rural areas, the Regional Development Agencies are forever prevaricating as to how to spend public money on broadband etc.).

Thankyou for your interest, Rutland Telecom Directors David Lewis, Mark Melluish and James Brooksby

The above information does not constitute an offer or any guarantee that Rutland Telecom can or will deliver broadband and telephone services to a specific community. The information is provided for guidance only and should be taken in the spirit it is given - to give an indication that fast broadband services are a possibility in UK rural communities.