Other Views: 'Fibre to the premises' plans will get Manchester connected

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Paul Robinson, Vagueware Ltd.

1:00 am, March 17, 2008
Other Views: 'Fibre to the premises' plans will get Manchester connected

Manchester City Council's proposals to create a digital masterplan for the city have been widely applauded by local industry, but what really stands out are plans for the UK's first “Fibre to the Premises” open network.

Within a short drive of the £150m Beetham Tower are some of the most deprived housing estates in the UK. A quick walk away from the Oxford Road corridor and you enter a world of homeless hostels, council housing and a feeling that you're not in a suitable neighbourhood for a stroll in the early hours of the morning.

One of the effects of this economic contrast is that of access to technology, high-speed broadband in particular.

In the heart of Greenheys on the edge of Hulme is a concentration of internet bandwidth that most locals would find mind-boggling.

Making connections

In the 400m between Oxford Road and the far edge of Manchester Science Park there are at least three data centres holding thousands of servers with the fastest possible connections to the heart of the UK's internet infrastructure. And yet all around Manchester is digital deprivation.

Some of the locals have realised that cheap high-speed bandwidth is useful. Despite its reputation as being a rundown area, one estate through the “Redbricks Intranet Collective” — a network built by locals, for locals, providing low cost Internet access — has arguably one of the highest uptakes of technology in Manchester. I remember the first version of their network, made mostly of ethernet network cables strung between lamp posts.

Many of Manchester's other areas haven't been so resourceful. With low uptake of bandwidth in low-income households, service providers are reluctant to put the infrastructure in place to make access affordable. However, if the infrastructure was there projects like RIC would have shown uptake rises. Ultimately this results in an increase in the education, skills and salaries of the residents in the area. A chicken and egg situation, if ever there was one.

“Fibre to the Premises” would make new services available that are inconceivable with the current generation of broadband. Whilst the initial attraction might be for entertainment services — a demand that local creative firms will be happy to cater for — the hope is that access to advanced information networks will only help Mancunians in the global information economy.

In fact, the stakes couldn't be higher in global terms. If Manchester doesn't take advantage of the large demand for high-speed bandwidth by finding a way to supply the infrastructure, local technology industries and information-hungry residents may find a city better prepared to cater for them.

After a decade of growth and a realisation that we are now at a tipping point of being dominant in the technology sector regionally, nationally and maybe even continentally, Manchester needs to make sure the opportunity isn't wasted.

At least we know where to find some people prepared to string up their own network over lamp posts as a last resort.