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18th September 2007, Commonwealth Club, London

Stephen Timms addressed the members of the Broadband Stakeholder Group on the challenges facing the UK as we move towards the next generation broadband.

During his speech, he highlighted the work CBN is embarking on in Manchester and Walsall, and underlined the important role that that Community Broadband made in the development of first generation broadband.

The Minister for Competitiveness went on to say that he plans to chair a high level summit later this year to consider Next Generation broadband access.

For the full text:

 Stephen Timms speech 18 Sept 2007 BSG 

The oracle of broadband information, Samknows, has teamed up with CBN to produce models of the UK's broadband landscape, current and future. Combining Samknows unrivalled data on today's broadband services with CBN's models is providing a unique and powerful insight into the current and future broadband able to answer some of the big questions:

• What broadband speeds are available and where?
• Who is likely to fall below the proposed 2Mbps universal service commitment?
• What is the level of competition?
• Which areas are likely to be priorities for Next Generation investments?

This first map estimates where Next Generation broadband is least likely to reach.

CBN has been engaged by the communities living among the glens of Angus in Scotland, to help them find a solution to their lack of broadband. This is a rural area with the population dispersed across the countryside. While the population is connected to one of several BT telephone exchanges in the area, they are too far away or the infrastructure too poorly maintained to provide most of the community with a broadband service of any kind.

After spending a few days in this beautiful part of the country researching their predicament, Adrian Wooster spoke to a very well attended public meeting. This is a community used to being self-sufficient, who are clearly keen to find their own solutions to their broadband dilemma rather than expecting others to solve the issue for them. However, the complexity of the geography means that its not immediately obvious what the solutions might be. In the coming days, CBN will be presenting a report to the community which will lay out the options, and the work will begin to make broadband in the glens a reality.

The community's report of the public meeting can be found here. 

With the debate about next generation broadband beginning to heat up, this community is a timely reminder that there remain some areas of the UK with no access to the first generation.  While the solutions may become less obvious, CBN believes they exist and with the right balance of stakeholders, an intelligent approach, and a strong community there is no reason why these communities can't lead the way to the next generation.

CBN has published its initial views on what is needed for a next generation fibre network to be considered open and contestable. With Ofcom's consultation underway, we hope this piece adds to the public debate before fibre deployment begins in earnest in the UK.

The full text can be found here. 

Over the past 12-months, CBN has been applying its skills and methods to international development projects in Africa. This exciting part of our work is now maturing and, today (11 Dec 2007) UN Habitat have approved a collaboration partnership with CBN to work together on projects in Africa. In a letter to CBN, S Ananthakrishnan, Chief of Partner & Youth at UN Habitat, said "I am confident that the collaboration we may entering into will . . . contribute to changing the lives of slum dwellers to the better" 

To mark this new direction, and to share some of our experiences and methods, we have added a new section to the website: ICT & Development