COMMUNICA | Issue Four
VIEWPOINT
Alternative network provision
The story behind the rise of the
Alternative Network Provider
By Rob Andrews
COMMUNICA Creative Editor
THE UK telecoms arena is a strange, ever-evolving, slightly
political animal. In the past couple of decades the UK
has embraced a new type of telecoms revolution, not just
with the rise of cellular technology but most recently, the
rising trend to deliver super (hybrid) and ultrafast (fibre)
broadband networks to businesses and consumers.
But whilst cellular technology has
progressed exponentially since
Vodafone director Ernest Harrison
made the first UK public mobile
phone call in 1985, progression
around the development of
fixed line development remains
a complicated and sometimes
controversial talking point
amongst the press, critics and
industry commentators.
Major service providers have
the gargantuan and politcally
unenviable task of delivering
superfast connections UK wide.
But some consumers still say
they still aren’t always receiving
adequate internet connections
to power the data-hungry devices
and technology of the 21st
Century.
At the time of this publication
delivery targets of BDUK
superfast broadband to about
5% of the remainder of the UK
are still to be realised, the task of
replacing a legacy copper network
with full, or even part-fibre is fully
underway.
But within the modern households
of the 21st Century, consumers
expect to be able to plug and play
with all sorts of gadgetry and
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there is both the variation and
volume of home gadgets all
‘fighting’ for a share of the
broadband connection - this is
even outside of the usual tablet,
smartphone, laptop or desktop
computers.
We are also now living in
the advent of interactive
home appliance and system
management smart hubs like
Amazon’s ‘Alexa’.
Alexa will do your shopping,
control you appliances and stream
your music all of which eats into
the broadband connection and the
average 20mbps is just not going
to be futureproof.
Internet-facing technology is in
its infancy right now but one can
only assume that the introduction
of other similar ‘Alexa-like’
competitor devices from Apple
and Google will undeniably result
in device advancement through
market competition.
“Consumer data
gluttony has become a
technological talking
point”
And what comes with that is
probably more data sapping from
the broadband connection.
Whilst copper connections might
seem great at the moment you
can’t always, or at least won’t, be
able to juggle multiple devices of
the future on copper supported
networks.
Devices are becoming more
affordable which means they’re
more likely to multiply within the
home environment, meaning
further demand on the connection.
Devices will demand more data
versus what the fixed lines can
feed them and it means UK is
almost at the point where tech is
to out-progressing the fixed line
connectivity which supports them
and thus the topic of consumer
data gluttony has becoming a
technological talking point.
Futureproof networks surely lie in
the rollout of pure fibre and in a
brave new post-Brexit world, so
will the UK’s economy to a certain
extent.
Areas of the UK which have not
yet been reached by pure fibre
from Virgin Media, or ‘Superfast
Fibre’ from BT, (or similar major
services) communities and
entrepreneurs are taking it upon
themselves to fill in the gaps in
provision - a market sector known
as ‘Alternative Network Provision’,
or ‘Alt-Nets’.
In one community in Lincolnshire,
the wait for broadband was just
too long, so villagers took it upon
themselves to raise funds and
established the Broadband For
Rural North scheme (B4RN).
The objective of the project was
to self-deliver a community fibre
network in a cost effective fashion
with elements of the community