1. Tove Valley Communities Superfast Broadband
A project led by Abthorpe Broadband Association Limited on behalf of the rural area of the upper Tove valley
Phil Berry – Communications Director
Tove Valley Broadband – 19 September 2013 1

2. Welcome Agenda Registration and email addresses
Introduction – History of ABbA and background to the TVB project
NCC and SNC – Where they stand in relation to TVB project
TVB project – more detail of the project, achievements, costings, the future
Q&A
Registration and addresses 2

3. Getting Started It all began in 2003 with dial-up at a snail’s pace
No prospect of ADSL connection to Abthorpe
The conception of ABbA
Our own Satellite Broadband for Abthorpe and Slapton at just £5 a month – 1.5 Mbps
2006 ADSL – BT came to town
Our customers need a better service!
BT have just announced that dial up internet is now dead
That was the only prospect we had in Abthorpe back in 2003 – BT had no plans to improve our service with an ADSL connection – we were too far from Silverstone exchange
A visionary group of villagers devised a plan. A satellite link to the village from a service provider in Belgium. At first we even got Google in French. The service operated at 1.5Mbps download (meteoric speeds in those days) and was distributed by wireless to homes in Abthorpe and Slapton, and one house in Wappenham too.
ABbA was born. The service proved popular and was quickly expanded to 60 or so houses (over 40% penetration). And all for just £5 a month.
BT enabled ADSL on Silverstone exchange in 2006 and advantage was taken of that to replace the satellite feed with three separate ADSL lines. It provided a boost to capacity as the demand from users was growing. But ABbA was no longer the only show in town; a number of households just took the BT service direct, albeit at about 3 times the cost
This configuration has operated successfully ever since. However, the service now provides speeds well below those required to sustain the expectations demanded of broadband services. 3

4. Tove Valley Broadband – 19 September 2013
Bonjour Bruxelles
Tove Valley Broadband – 19 September 2013 4

5. Getting Started It all began in 2003 with dial-up at a snail’s pace
No prospect of ADSL connection to Abthorpe
The conception of ABbA
Our own Satellite Broadband for Abthorpe and Slapton at just £5 a month – 1.5 Mbps
2006 ADSL – BT came to town
Our customers need a better service! 5

6. The Demand for SFBB 2 Mbps is no longer enough
iPlayer, ITV player and other on demand TV applications, Netflix, Love Film, YouTube, on-line gaming
For now it appears to be an urban revolution
Not a commercial economic prospect for many rural areas
Nothing for Abthorpe and Slapton in the foreseeable future
For ABbA it was change or die
The demand for ever increasing BB speeds has continued to grow, and our 2Mbps is now out gunned by the speeds available in many urban communities. ISPs and the providers of web based services are locked in a vicious circle of driving for greater speeds and capacities.
iPlayer, ITV player and other on demand TV applications, Netflix, Love Film, YouTube, on-line gaming; all need Superfast Broadband to operate effectively
Commercial ISPs, the likes of BT, Virgin and others are “falling over” each other to get in on the act – there is a lot of money to be made
Unfortunately, it is our urban cousins who are benefitting from this revolution. The economics of providing SFBB to many rural communities just do not stack up at the moment, and without state funding, will not do so for the foreseeable future
So what do we do about it. We could sit back and bemoan the fact that we can’t watch iPlayer without it buffering every minute or wait for 2 or 3 hours to download a movie to watch
But the same visionary group that gave Abthorpe broadband in 2003, has come up with a plan to deliver SFBB in 2013 6

7. Could we make a case for SFBB
Much more complex economics and infrastructure would demand more revenue
Bigger area
More customers
Wi-Fi should work but much more complex geography
The communities of Abthorpe, Slapton, Wappenham, Weston and Lois Weedon fitted together.
The economics are very different this time round.
The fibre back haul is a lot more expensive than ADSL
We need to put in lot more connectivity and more and pricier equipment
We needed more customers and we would have to charge more
We would need to expand our area of coverage to get more members
Initially we would be using Wi-Fi, so we needed to work out who could see who. Line of site is essential for making things work
We need to check the topography. Where is a good central hub
The most obvious high point was Wappenham, particularly Wappenham Church tower. It had direct line of site to Lois Weedon, Weston, Abthorpe and Slapton 7

8. Tove Valley Broadband – 19 September 2013
This coverage area has been created by travelling around the area and observing from the ground, sometimes checking through people’s bedrooms, etc.
Trees are a big problem – you must survey in summer when leaves are on to check line-of-sight
Check with County that the area you can reach is in last 10% if you have any plans to seek public money (State Aid) grants.
If financing from the community – competition is all!!
Tove Valley Broadband – 19 September 2013 8

9. Building Commitment 450 premises; 280 are businesses or homeworkers
Generating commitment
Leaflets and flyers
Village meetings and local events
Website and registration
MP endorsement
Local publicity, local radio, About my Area
200 households and businesses signed up
It was a “Go”!!
The Tove Valley area gives us the potential of 450 premises of which 280 are known to be businesses or homeworkers, one is a primary school and one business employs 80+ people.
ABbA experience told us we could hope for around 40% penetration
Next step was to promote our plan and to ask people to register their interest
We distributed flyers and leaflets
Spoke about our plans at village meetings and events
Set up a website and asked people to register
We approached Andrea Leadsom, our MP who lives in Slapton, and she has championed our cause, even raising a question in parliament for the Secretary of State for Media and Culture. Andrea has nominated Eric for the Talk Talk Digital Heroes Awards
Eric spoke on Radio Northampton and promoted the plan through “About my Area”
Over 40% of the accessible properties indicated their intention to take up the service and 63% of those were businesses and homeworkers.
With 200 or so expressing a strong interest, at a charge of just £10 per month, we felt we had a viable proposition. There was a need for some pump priming finance, but more of that later, along with how we have tried to exploit the grant money that has been available for rural broadband 9

10. Modernisation – think to the future and what people will expect of a broadband service – mobile phones, in areas of no reception, can use the broadband connection by default.

11. Tove Valley Communities Superfast Broadband
A project led by Abthorpe Broadband Association Limited on behalf of the rural area of the upper Tove valley
Eric Malcomson - Chairman
Tove Valley Broadband – 19 September 2013 11

12. Organisation Salient Facts
Abthorpe Broadband Association Limited
Not-for-profit
Captures the attention of the communinties.
limited by guarantee
Members are liable to pay £1 each in the event of the Company failing.
Run by volunteers
No employees, PAYE, VAT – simple accounts.
Get support
Community, District, County, DEFRA, DCMS
Organisation is paramount if only to show to the commercial and local relationships you will need to demonstrate the seriousness of your scheme. As you get deeper into the scheme you will realise the importance of this. So do it straight away – there is minimum outlay in creating the Company’s articles and registering with Companies House.
Limited by guarantee affords protection for the Directors and Members – however you must accept that most banks will not lend to such a company.
Marshal your volunteers – choose carefully your immediate partners-in-crime.
Absolutely get the Parish, District and County Council people on board with your proposals – referring to these “partners” or “associations” in your future negotiations will help a lot.
Before you start work – GET INSURANCE. We have a community member who is an insurance broker – just one demonstration of encompassing help throughout the target area.

13. Expertise The Ring-leader The Geek The Quidnunc Aspiring Millionaire
This is self explanatory AND I would stress you need at least these SEPARATE people to get things off the ground.
Beware of the control freaks and those that think they can do everything/anything.

14. Pre-survey your take-up
Set up a website survey – DIY or SurveyMonkey
Letterbox drop leaflets
Get invited to Parish meetings and other community meetings
Gate-crash coffee mornings, etc.
Make sure your service is wanted……..

15. TVB Project Achievements
100/100Mbps backhaul
Better than superfast (24Mbps+) using WiFi radios (5GHz)
Over 400 premises could be served
Since 01 June members (16/09/13)
The minimum bandwidth you should aim to install from the start is 100/100Mbps – this nomenclature means you can download AND upload at 100Mbps and fibre lines are usually quoted as symetrical in this way.
If you are using EU sourced State Aid (public grants) you will need to deliver 30Mbps or better to your members. Our aim is to do this once we have laid fibres between our villages.
Where the fibre comes in, our measured speed is 95Mbps+; on the first WiFi access point, members get over 70Mbps; 5km away and three radio “hops” still get better than 30Mbps; 7km and 4 hops get better than 15Mbps

16. Basic costings (incl. VAT)
100/100Mbps backhaul
£ 18,000/year
Revenue costs : 200 users
= £10/month
Point-to-point radio links
8 units = £2,500
Access points (back2back)
34 units + = £5,000
Switches, Routers, etc.
£3,000
Misc. wire, plugs, tools,etc.
£3,500
Total capital
£14,000 for 200 users
Capital costs : 200 users
£100 membership fee
Client premises equipment
£75 to cover costs
Get several quotations from ISPs – at least BT, Virgin Media, TalkTalk – we asked 12 ISPs, shortlisted 5 and horse-traded with 2. Our ISP is 6Degrees.
Choose your PoP – Point of Presence – carefully to future-proof expansion
Do roof-top surveys in communities to determine the best position for access points
For those hosting an access point, we discount the Client premises equipment cost – we have a short agreement with the host to the effect that whilst we are a not-for-profit organisation, they will supply electricity and endeavour to keep a 24/7 service; the agreement is null and void if the organisation goes commercial in any way.
We buy Ubiquity equipment from a local supplier at a good trade discount, Ubiquity screen Cat5 from same, plugs from china (direct – 1/3rd price), poles, brackets, etc. from Screwfix/B&Q/Toolsataion.

17. Where is the TVB Project going?
500/500Mbps backhaul
Already we are seeing sustained peaks of usage of over 50Mbps. This will cost us £35,000/year
Fibre between villages
Which will deliver full bandwidth to village access points by replacing point-to-point radio links
Fibre to premises
The bee’s knees – almost totally future-proof
TVCSB has been awarded £118,000 grant to do the next phases – fibre between the villages then starting to roll out fibre to premises (FTTP).
The process to get this grant is not yet over and takes some courage and a lot of commercial and contract savvy. We estimate that about 400 man-hours have been spent on research, filling forms and petitioning BDUK.
It is still unclear as to whether we will use the grant or not, mostly because the conditions the EU and DCMS place on the grant and the pressure from BT to ditch our scheme. As far as the latter is concerned, we can afford to put fibres between the villages ourselves now, using generated finance and local loans and the independence this gives is very valuable.

18. Extended costings Fibre between villages Fibre to the premises
£100,000 (about £5/m plus kit plus “civils”)
Fibre to the premises
£100,000 (£20,000 per village)
RCBF grant
£100,000
Community funding
£70,000 from loans – paid off by 2017
£30,000 from members fees and subscriptions

19. Telephone Services BT voice call plan, broadband, line rental
£35-45/month
Cost of cancelling (broadband)
£30.00
Open VOIP account (Vonage)
£20.00
Call plan
£6/month
Transfer existing telephone number
Free
Telephone and Broadband from TVB
£16/month
Remember, always keep a mobile phone charged in case you need to make emergency calls

21. LINKS
ToveValley website
Fibretest.kc.kcom.com
Coverage area
Original survey page
Wappenham church panorama