The Danger of Fluffy Definitions

Disturbing reading re Broadband Britain, definitions of NGA and concerns over the use of Taxpayers Money to undermine the Open Market are emerging from the South West:

NGA – Next Generation Access – all very fluffy and singularly lacking in any quantitative or qualitative definitions of service delivery on offer.

Now, VOA amongst others have clearly defined NGA as being a service that exceeds 20Mbps.

To quote from the above blog post:

The bid was about delivering a number of NGA pilots – which simply put, means you have to deliver broadband speeds of 20 Mbps into a number of areas. The Council officers explained, their NGA pilots would be to supply an NGA compliant 5 Mbps. Again the County bid has failed to meet the requirements of the bid, but this time they had changed the requirements to map onto – what appears to be a specific vendors solution. The only vendor we are aware of, that fits this, is BT.

If NGA Compliant = 5Mbps then who exactly made this determination and on what authority?

The residents and businesses of Devon and Somerset are at very real risk of being short-changed for NGA – the simple reality is that each community will have one bite at the cherry for any Public Funding Assistance in the current economic climate.

It is hard to find fault with SWI’s analysis of the situation and it is imperative that there is an urgent review of deliverables against best value for Taxpayers Money before there can be any thought of the project proceeding in its present form if at all.

Also posted on www.fibrestream.co.uk