Cornish connection

Ambitious plans to make Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly the best-connected locations in the world under a 132 million project by BT and the EU, is set to test groundbreaking joint-project management skills. Naomie Standford-Jones reports.

Surfing in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly is set to take on a different dimension as superfast fibre-optic broadband is rolled out over the next four years.

The Superfast Cornwall project will generate 80 to 90 per cent broadband coverage across the area, with a target of 10,000 businesses taking up the technology by 2014.

To support Cornwalls economy, which is relatively under-developed because of its geography and demographics, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly qualified for EU Convergence funding back in 2007, and digital infrastructure was one of the identified areas for investment.

The project will see the area benefit from faster broadband thanks to the creation of a high-speed network that will be open to all communications providers on a wholesale basis. For local businesses, the superfast network will underpin the introduction of many new services and applications. Users will be able to run multiple bandwidth hungry applications at the same time and send and receive large amounts of data much more efficiently. Computer processing and storage of files will also become more sophisticated and secure. There will be faster back-up of computer systems and wider use of high-quality videoconferencing within firms and between them and their customers.

Businesses and homes outside the fibre footprint will also receive faster speeds than today through a mix of alternative technologies such as advanced copper, wireless and satellite broadband. These technologies are more suitable to deploy than fibre broadband in the remotest and hardest to reach locations.

Cornwall has a strong reputation for pioneering initiatives, such as the act now broadband project, which was recognised by the EU as an exemplar project for e-business. Between 2002-2007 act now helped more than 10,000 Cornish businesses get connected to first generation ADSL broadband.

Project co-ordination

The project is being jointly managed by BT and the Cornwall Development Company, the economic development arm of Cornwall Council.

Ranulf Scarbrough, BT programme manager, said: This is the most ambitious superfast broadband rollout in a rural area in the world and the single biggest European investment in broadband.

The Cornwall project is visionary because it is breaking new ground, with the public and private sectors working together to provide a future-proof technology infrastructure while keeping the entry costs affordable enough to end users to allow an unprecedented level of take up.

Our aim is to build the infrastructure, drive take-up, and get businesses connected resulting in larger productivity and a transformed economy.

Ensuring communication flows between the project managing teams and Cornwall businesses and residents is one of the main challenges facing the project.

Ranulf said: There is a large amount of stakeholders that we have to take with us including MPs, agencies and councillors. The main aim is to keep the information flowing so everyone can understand what is going on at each stage of the project process.

Cornwall Development Company programme manager, Julian Cowans, said: This project is highly complex because there are two project managing teams working together in partnership.

The project has 16 different work streams to ensure its smooth rollout. These include marketing and PR, business support, an up-skilling scheme, environmental initiatives, research and digital inclusion.

Julian added: The marketing activity will target businesses to highlight the benefits of getting connected to superfast broadband, and business support initiatives will help drive up local business productivity.

Using the project as a test-bed, research will be carried out by local organisations, including the Combined Universities in Cornwall, to monitor the socio-economic impacts of the project.

There will also be a network of volunteers who target those who have been unwillingly digitally excluded in the past.

Julian said: This investment has the potential to transform the local economy by boosting local business productivity. It will also help to attract a more diverse range of high-growth, high-value companies to the area to lead innovations thanks to the world-leading connectivity on offer. Some of our most innovative businesses will become producers rather than consumers of new content and applications, and sell products and services well beyond the local area.

Its absolutely fantastic to be involved in such a groundbreaking project and hugely rewarding to be rolling out something that will benefit Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly for decades to come.

Ranulf from BT added: Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly have a lot of pride about the investment. There is a huge desire to be ahead of the game and we want to put Cornwall on the map for reasons other than tourism.

We want to make sure that there is no barrier to getting superfast broadband up and running.

What do local companies think?

With the project aiming to create 4,000 new jobs and connecting at least 50 per cent of the area by 2014, we ask local companies whether they think this is a positive or negative move.

CASE STUDY 1

Altcom is a Penzance-based software development company, specialising in rich web applications and software and support services for the oil, gas and geothermal industries in many parts of the world.

John Cowles, development director, said: The current broadband service is essential in allowing us to provide comprehensive software training and support for our international clients as far afield as California and Kazakhstan.

Superfast broadband will offer us all sorts of benefits, including the ability to handle much larger datasets online and provide greatly improved, higher spec training and support. In particular, it will make a big difference to the range and complexity of the services we offer.

CASE STUDY 2

Hoteldirect.co.uk is a Truro-based company with websites offering discounted hotel accommodation in many of the worlds major cities. About 100,000 people visit the companys websites each week.

Mark Wilson, director, said: We are working in a highly competitive, international marketplace where speed and accuracy of information is absolutely essential. At all times our websites must be able to provide comprehensive information for our customers and deal with orders quickly and efficiently.

Superfast broadband will give us a competitive edge. For example, it will make it much easier to place video footage on our websites. This will be a major benefit for our customers because they will be able to gain a much better picture of the hotel and its facilities before booking accommodation.

CASE STUDY 3

Anns Pasty Shop makes and delivers pasties all over the UK, supplying up to 400 a day in the summer months.

The shop is based in the most southerly point of Britain, The Lizard, and has been running for the last 20 years.

Its owner, Ann Muller, said: Currently my internet connection stops and starts. The shop is out on a limb here so my website is a lifeline. The website is a wonderful way to get noticed and to promote myself so anything that can make the connection more reliable sounds good to me.

Just how quick is it?

The aim of the project is to give between 80 per cent and 90 per cent of businesses and homes access to superfast fibre broadband by 2014.

Half of them should have fibre to the premises technology, which could deliver download speeds of up to 100Mbps (megabits per second).

According to the communications regulator Ofcom, the average residential download speed in the UK was 5.2Mbps in May 2010 although speeds tend to be even lower in rural areas.

Jargon buster

• Superfast fibre optic broadband can be delivered as fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) or fibre to the premises (FTTP).
• FTTC is where the fibre connection is from the exchange to the street side cabinet with the remainder of the connection being over copper. FTTC provides download speeds of up to 40Mbps (megabits per second) and upload speeds of up to 10Mbps.
• FTTP is where the fibre connection runs all the way from the exchange to the customer's premises. This technology provides download speeds of up to 100Mbps and upload speeds of up to 30Mbps.