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SUPERFAST BROADBAND EXTENSION PROGRAMME

AUGUST 2014

PUBLIC CONSULTATION

Executive Summary

This document sets out the current understanding of where minimum 2Mbps and superfast

(>24Mbps) broadband services are currently available or will be provided over the next 3 years

across Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire, and thereby where, under state aid rules, intervention

using public funds to increase superfast broadband coverage can be permitted.

This consultation is intended to inform interested parties of our intention to progress a final

Intervention Area for submission to the BDUK National Competence Centre for clearance, taking on

board the outcome of the public consultation. It follows on from our previous Open Market Review

conducted during June-July 20141, where commercial operators were invited to provide details of

any formal investment plans for the proposed target areas over the next three years. The results

from this review have been used to establish the proposed intervention areas for the project set out

in section 8 of this document. This consultation provides an opportunity for broadband suppliers,

residents and businesses to feed back on the proposed intervention areas, particularly in relation to:

any broadband not- or slow-spots (i.e., areas unable to access minimum 2Mbps services) not

included in the proposed intervention areas, or the reverse; i.e., locations listed as

broadband not- or slow-spots, when 2Mbps or faster services are in fact available;

any locations where the current availability of superfast (above 24Mbps) services as

described in this document is known to be incorrect (i.e. areas listed as having superfast

services but where these are in fact unavailable, or the reverse);

any proposed intervention areas where plans are already in place to deliver minimum

2Mbps and/or superfast broadband services but these were not reported as part of the

previous Open Market Review.

1 http://www.cswbroadband.org.uk/whats-happening/procurement-2014/open-market-review-omr/

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Businesses and residents are also encouraged to complete our broadband surveys in addition to

responding to this consultation. This document will be used to validate the proposed extent of the

intervention areas and inform the project’s final intervention area and tender processes.

Proposed Project Timetable

Activity Date

Public consultation period 18 August – 18 September 2014

Award superfast broadband contract December 2014

Broadband roll-out projected completion End 2017

Background – the importance of superfast broadband

It is now widely recognised that reliable, high-speed broadband access is now essential for homes,

businesses and public services. From the Governments’ National Infrastructure Plan2, published in

December 2013:

“Digital communications capability is an essential part of the UK’s core infrastructure and an

increasingly significant enabler for economic growth. The current revolution in the capability of

information and communications technology is transforming the way we live and work. The

government’s overarching ambition for digital communications is to harness the benefits of this

revolution, equipping the UK to succeed in the global race by moving first to secure a stronger

economy and a fairer society for all.”

In November 2013, the Government published its UK Broadband Impact Study – Impact Report3. Key

findings on the impact of broadband include:

for every £1 the government is investing in broadband, the UK economy will benefit by £20;

a significant short-term boost to the UK economy as the network construction adds around

£1.5 billion to the economy; adding £0.5 billion and about 11,000 jobs in 2014 alone;

long-term growth to the UK economy with public investment increasing annual GVA (gross

value added, a measure in economics of the value of goods and services produced in an

area, industry or sector of an economy4) by £6.3 billion and causing a net increase of 20,000

jobs in the UK by 2024.

2

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/263159/national_infrastructure_plan_20

13.pdf 3 https://www.gov.uk/government/news/the-benefits-of-broadband 4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_value_added

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Government funding for superfast broadband

In pursuit of these benefits and to ensure the widest possible availability of superfast broadband,

the Government has to date allocated £790m to extend roll-outs beyond the commercial

deployments that will reach around two thirds of UK premises to reach 95% of premises by 2017 and

99% by 2018. This breaks down as follows:

A first wave totalling £530m (match-funded locally) for local authorities in England to ensure

superfast broadband reaches 90% of premises in each local authority area by 2015-165;

An additional £250m for local authorities in England announced in June 2014 (again match-

funded locally) to extend superfast broadband from current coverage plans to 95% of

premises by 20176;

A £10m fund to support innovative approaches to superfast broadband provision in the

hardest to reach areas of the UK, to support strategies to ensure 99% coverage across the

UK by 2018.

In addition, the Government is investing £150m in 22 Super-Connected Cities (of which Coventry is

one) across the UK and £150m to improve the coverage and quality of mobile services, bringing the

total investment in fixed and mobile telecommunications across the UK to more than a billion

pounds.

Funding for superfast broadband in Coventry, Solihull & Warwickshire

The Government initially allocated the Coventry, Solihull & Warwickshire (CSW) Superfast

Broadband Project £4.07m in August 2011, later revised upwards to £4.45m7. Following a formal

procurement process, a £15.47m contract was awarded to BT In June 2013 to deliver superfast fibre

broadband to around 91% of CSW premises by spring 20168. BT is contributing £5.67m whilst the

CSW Broadband Project is contributing £4.45m – of which £3m is from Warwickshire with the

balance coming from other local authorities, with a further £4.45m from Government funds.

Approximately 40,000 additional premises should have access to superfast broadband and every

premise should be able to access minimum 2Mbps services by the end of this phase of the project9.

In February 2014, it was announced that the CSW Broadband Project would receive £3.68m from the

additional £250m announced in June 2013 to extend the reach of superfast broadband10. In June

2014, the Government offered the CSW Broadband Project an additional £6m, subject to local

match-funding being available; potential match funding options are currently being explored by the

5 https://www.gov.uk/government/news/363-million-for-broadband-roll-out-in-england-and-scotland 6 https://www.gov.uk/government/news/14-million-more-premises-to-get-superfast-broadband-after-250-million-capital-

investment 7 https://www.gov.uk/government/news/363-million-for-broadband-roll-out-in-england-and-scotland 8 http://news.warwickshire.gov.uk/blog/2013/06/07/multi-million-partnership-to-bring-superfast-broadband-to-91-per-

cent-of-homes-and-businesses-across-coventry-solihull-and-warwickshire/ 9 The rolling 12 month deployment plan for the CSW Superfast Broadband Project is available at

http://www.cswbroadband.org.uk/where-when/rolling-12-month-plan 10 https://www.gov.uk/government/news/250m-boost-taking-superfast-broadband-further-and-faster--251

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CSW Superfast Broadband Project Team11. If successful, this will create a total fund of more than

£19m to extend superfast broadband provision across CSW beyond the 91% that will be reached by

the current roll-out.

State Aid: identifying additional intervention areas

The European Commission (EC) requires that public investment only occurs in ‘white areas’: areas

where there is no current, or planned (i.e. within the next three years) deployment of either basic or

superfast broadband. As part of the procurement process an application to invest in these areas,

following public consultation, must be submitted to the Department for Media Culture and Sport

(DCMS).

The EC Guidelines12 distinguish between geographic areas on the basis of current or planned (next 3

years) broadband infrastructures thus:

• ‘White’ areas are those in which there is no qualifying broadband infrastructure and none is

likely to be developed in the near future (within 3 years);

• ‘Grey’ areas are those where one network operator has a qualifying presence and another

qualifying network is unlikely to be developed in the near future; and

• ‘Black’ areas are those where there are, or there will be in the near future, at least two

qualifying network operators.

The geographic mapping of White/Grey/Black areas has been carried out separately for both Basic

Broadband and Superfast Broadband. The criteria used to classify areas as black, grey or white in

relation to basic and NGA broadband coverage are set out as an appendix to this document. In

accordance with the EC Decision on the National Broadband Scheme for the UK13, proposed NGA

and Basic Broadband Intervention Areas have been defined to target NGA ‘White’ areas and Basic

Broadband ‘White’ areas, respectively.

This document provides an overview of the CSW Superfast Broadband Project and sets its objectives

against the wider context of broadband initiatives, policies and frameworks within the UK. The

Public Consultation follows on from our previous Open Market Review conducted in June-July 2014,

where broadband suppliers were invited to share their plans for future investment in broadband

infrastructure across Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire over the next three years. The information

from this review has informed our understanding, as set out in this document, of the extent of

existing broadband provision across the three local authorities and all known future developments

by the telecoms market to deploy superfast broadband in these areas (see section 8), both solely

commercially funded deployments and deployments subsidised by the CSW Superfast Broadband

Project.

It is not the intention of Warwickshire County Council to duplicate or compete with the provision of

services by operators who may be operating outside of the on-going project, nor is it the intention to

11 The additional funding options being explored for the CSW Superfast Broadband Project are described in the June 2014

project newsletter available at http://www.cswbroadband.org.uk/newsletter-june-2014/ 12 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:C:2013:025:0001:0026:EN:PDF 13 http://ec.europa.eu/competition/state_aid/cases/243212/243212_1387832_172_1.pdf

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provide subsidy where it is not needed. This consultation therefore seeks additional feedback from

broadband providers as to whether there will be any changes to basic and superfast broadband

provision as shown in this document, due to additional rollouts through private investment. It is

imperative that any operator already delivering or planning to deliver services that exceed what has

been detailed in this document make their plans known to us, if they have not already done so via

the previous Open Market Review.

This consultation also seeks feedback from local residents and businesses in relation to the proposed

intervention areas for the project, particularly in relation to:

any broadband not- or slow-spots (i.e., areas unable to access minimum 2Mbps services) not

included in the proposed intervention areas, or the reverse; i.e., locations listed as

broadband not- or slow-spots, when 2Mbps or faster services are in fact available;

any locations where the current availability of superfast services (above 24Mbps) as

described in this document is known to be incorrect (i.e. areas described as having superfast

services but where these are in fact unavailable, or the reverse);

any proposed intervention areas where plans are in place to deliver minimum 2Mbps and/or

superfast broadband services but these were not reported as part of the previous Open

Market Review.

How to respond

If you are a provider of broadband services and wish to make us aware of your plans to offer services

in the proposed intervention areas set out in section 8 of this document, please send your response

to this consultation to bduk-consultation@warwickshire.gov.uk identifying them as CSW Broadband

Public Consultation in the subject, or send them via post to

CSW Broadband Project

Warwickshire County Council

Wedgnock House

Wedgnock Lane

Warwickshire

CV34 5AP

Please address the request for information from suppliers set out in section 10 of this document

Comments from local businesses and residents in relation to these proposals are also welcome to

the email and postal addresses above. If you are responding as a member of the public and/or on

behalf of a business or other organisation, please also complete our residential and/or business

broadband surveys at:

http://www.cswbroadband.org.uk

If you work or run a business from home please complete both surveys.

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A link to this State Aid public consultation is also available on the BDUK website at:

https://www.gov.uk/broadband-delivery-uk

1 Introduction

The CSW Superfast Broadband Project aims to deliver the Government’s 2017 targets, as set out in

Britain’s Superfast Broadband Future14 (December 2010) and Investing in Britain’s Future15 (June

2013), that every premise should be able to access broadband at speeds of at least 2Mbps and that

superfast broadband (defined as providing more than 24Mbps) should be available to at least 95% of

premises in each local authority area. The intention is to procure network services that:

are available to any Internet service provider so that it can use to deliver retail superfast

broadband services to residential and business customers;

can assist businesses by helping to connect premises and mobile workers to the services

they require;

any community network can use for backhaul.

Our future aspirations are in keeping with the European Commission’s 2020 targets that fast

broadband coverage at 30Mbps should be available to all EU citizens, with at least half European

households subscribing to broadband access at 100Mbps16. The project will endeavour to deliver

infrastructure and services that can scale appropriately to keep pace with the increasing bandwidth

demands of new applications and services.

The project aims to subsidise a private company to deploy network infrastructure to provide a

wholesale service, to many different ISPs, into areas where it is not financially viable. Hence it is

imperative that areas that are selected for this intervention, which is classified as State Aid by the

EU, do not cover an area where any private company or community enterprise plans to build an

equivalent facility. This would clearly be a waste of public money and would undermine the viability

of the other network. We aim to make every effort to minimise the risk of this happening and this

consultation, together with the previous Open Market Review in June-July 2014, are key steps in

that process.

Warwickshire County Council is acting as lead authority for the initiative. Coventry City Council and

Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council are supporting partners. The project is formally supported by

Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership. The Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local

Enterprise Partnership also support Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council’s inclusion in this

Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire Partnership.

Other partners we are working with:

14 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/britains-superfast-broadband-future 15

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/209279/PU1524_IUK_new_template.pdf 16 http://ec.europa.eu/unitedkingdom/press/press_releases/2010/pr1095_en.htm

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North Warwickshire Borough

Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council

Rugby Borough Council

Stratford-on-Avon District Council

Warwick District Council

Community Groups via Community Forums and Parish Councils

Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce

Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire Federation of Small Businesses

2 The case for investment in CSW

Despite restricted availability and late roll-out of current generation broadband, take-up within

Warwickshire is above average with Coventry and Solihull being average. This is indicative of a

strong case for investment in superfast broadband across the sub-region which our demand

registration and stimulation activities are promoting further.

Coventry City Council, Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council and Warwickshire County Council are

committed to transforming the delivery of public services and online access via superfast broadband

is instrumental to this. Effective online public services will help to drive demand for and take-up of

superfast broadband.

All three upper tier local authorities have a strong track record of successfully procuring and

implementing wide area network infrastructure. Demand for and usage of broadband by public

sector sites (for example, schools, local government and health) continues to increase year on year.

This expected future demand for broadband will provide a guaranteed return for investors, above

and beyond the take-up of superfast services by new domestic and business customers.

The decline of traditional manufacturing means the knowledge economy is increasingly important to

the sub-region’s economic growth. The knowledge sector has experienced phenomenal growth in

the last five years, which has contributed significantly to the local economy and is also leading to

increased employment in the region. There are 1,300 ICT and software companies in the CSW sub-

region, concentrated in six major science parks located in and around the CSW Software Triangle.

These companies represent a vibrant base of high growth indigenous companies underwritten by

many of the world’s leading global ICT and software companies. The importance of a world-class

communications infrastructure to this sector’s continued growth is clearly apparent.

3 The project area

Coventry is at the heart of the sub-region, and is surrounded by Solihull to the west, and the five

districts of Warwickshire – North Warwickshire, Nuneaton & Bedworth, Stratford-Upon-Avon,

Warwick and Rugby.

Solihull is one of the seven West Midlands Metropolitan Boroughs, located between Birmingham (to

the west) and Coventry and Warwickshire (to the east). It covers an area of almost 18,000 hectares,

two-thirds of which is rural farmland. Much of the rural area is designated green belt. Solihull has

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two main built-up areas, in the north around Chelmsley Wood and in the south-west around Solihull

town.

Warwickshire is generally more rural in nature, interspersed with a variety of market towns and

major centres, such as Stratford-on-Avon and Rugby. Around one third of the population live in rural

areas.

The project encompasses all of the areas encompassed by Coventry City Council, Solihull

Metropolitan Borough Council and Warwickshire County Council. We are working closely with

neighbouring authorities to co-ordinate with their broadband procurement activities. Our seven

neighbouring local authorities are:

Staffordshire

Leicestershire

Northamptonshire

Oxfordshire

Gloucestershire

Worcestershire

Birmingham

In addition, the northern tip of Warwickshire is only 3 miles (5 km) from the Derbyshire border.

We have provided coverage maps and a list of postcodes for the sub-region17. Our data is derived

from a number of sources identified over the course of the project to date, including operators’ roll-

out plans, crowd-sourced information18 and data from Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK). Whilst we

believe we have built up a good overall understanding of coverage across our region, we recognise

that this is a complex and fast-changing area so any further input is most welcome.

4 Broadband services in CSW

a) Current provision in CSW

CSW as a whole is reasonably well provided for in terms of current generation broadband. However

there are a number of slow-spots and not-spots where speeds are less than 2Mbps or where no

broadband services are available at all. The majority of these are in CSW’s rural areas. The gap

between CSW’s urban and rural areas is set to increase as service providers’ next generation

broadband upgrade plans focus on CSW’s densely populated urban areas.

This is the key issue facing CSW: how to enable the transition from current to next generation

services in a way that benefits as many people as possible. We want to ensure superfast broadband

services are extended as far into our rural areas as our funding allows, in accordance with the

Government’s targets that superfast services should be available to at least 95% of premises by 2017

and 99% by 2018.

17 http://www.cswbroadband.org.uk/procurement2014 18 http://4sfb.crowdmap.com

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We therefore need to identify and focus on the areas broadband providers will not reach without

additional subsidy. Such instances of market failure arise when costs are too high (chiefly because of

distance) and returns are too low (because of the limited number of potential subscribers) to

support the provision of affordable broadband services.

The current CSW superfast broadband roll-out will ensure that around 40,000 additional premises

will have access to superfast broadband; in total 91% of the area’s homes and businesses will be able

to access superfast broadband by the end of this stage of the project. Historical information on the

situation prior to the CSW Superfast Broadband Project roll-out is available in the CSW Local

Broadband Plan19, which was approved in March 2012 and published in May 2012.

The first communities to benefit from the current CSW Superfast Broadband roll-out were

announced in February 201420: from Spring 2014, superfast fibre-based broadband became available

for the first time in parts of Alderminster, Fillongley, Henley-in-Arden, Kineton, Quinton, Long

Marston, Snitterfield and Welford-on-Avon. In addition, fibre will also ‘go live’ in areas of Stratford-

upon-Avon and Wellesbourne not already enabled by any commercial rollout. All CSW premises will

be able to access a minimum of 2Mbps service by the end of the current roll-out.

A rolling 12 month deployment plan is available on the CSW Superfast Broadband Project website21.

The additional £3.68m from central Government announced in February 2014 will be used in

combination with locally matched funding to extend superfast coverage to at least 95% of CSW

premises by 2017 and 99% by 2018. In June 2014 the CSW Broadband Project was offered an

additional £6m central Government funding, subject to local match-funding being available;

potential funding options are currently being explored by the CSW Superfast Broadband Project

Team22.

b) Broadband provision in CSW by 2017

Following the Open Market Review conducted in June-July 2014 we are able to publish preliminary

results which show the areas that the providers have committed to cover by 2017 using their own

funds. BDUK funds will be used to extend the coverage beyond this by investing in the White areas.

The following tables show the expected availability of superfast and basic broadband services (via

solely commercial deployments and deployments subsidised by the CSW Superfast Broadband

Project) throughout the region by 2017:

Superfast Broadband Area type No. of premises % of premises

Black – two or more providers 211,483 43%

Grey – one provider 233,228 48%

19 http://www.cswbroadband.org.uk/local-broadband-plan-redacted/ 20 http://www.cswbroadband.org.uk/first-communities-to-benefit-from-multi-million-pound-coventry-solihull-

warwickshire-superfast-broadband-programme-are-announced/ 21 http://www.cswbroadband.org.uk/where-when/rolling-12-month-plan/ 22 The additional funding being sought for the CSW Superfast Broadband Project are described in the June 2014 project

newsletter available at http://www.cswbroadband.org.uk/newsletter-june-2014/

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White 45,313 9%

Total 490,024 100%

Basic Broadband Area type No. of premises % of premises

Black – two or more providers 251,153 51%

Grey – one provider 232,983 48%

White 5,888 1%

Total 490,024 100%

5 Project approach

Our funding will be used to subsidise the successful bidder to extend the reach of superfast

broadband services into such areas, staged appropriately against implementation and performance.

The wholesale assets created through this investment will be owned and maintained by the

successful bidder and will be available to any provider to support the delivery of retail broadband

services. Our approach acknowledges the Government’s intention that superfast broadband is

available as widely as possible, reaching at least 95% of premises in each local authority area by 2017

and 99% by 2018.

We will as far as possible seek to ensure that the infrastructure put in place by the successful bidder

can scale to benefit from any additional funding made available in the future to support both the

further roll-out of superfast broadband and higher speeds. Our focus will therefore be on

developing the underlying broadband infrastructure across CSW, to ensure we have a roadmap for

improving both fixed and mobile/wireless broadband coverage and performance over the longer

term post 2017-18. The new services offered as a result of this intervention will be required to be

comparable in terms of pricing, performance and contract duration to that already available

elsewhere.

Looking beyond 2017-18, our intention is to ensure that as much funding as possible contributes

towards building the infrastructure required to reach the 2020 Digital Agenda for Europe targets of

universal availability of 30Mbps and 50% take-up of 100Mbps services. We will seek to minimise the

amount of funding allocated to solutions of last resort, thereby maximising the amount of funding

available to support the roll-out of superfast services in a way that will keep pace with the region’s

future requirements for speed, performance and availability.

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6 Procurement approach

We are planning to deliver the CSW Local Broadband Plan by using a gap funding approach to

leverage further investment by commercial operators. A further mini-competition will be conducted

under the BDUK Framework to award a second Local Call-off Contract to a supplier to deliver

extended coverage through the additional funding.

The capital grants to the successful commercial operator (with further matched investment by the

operator) will tip the business case for extending superfast broadband from the level of penetration

that is otherwise likely to be achieved by the market alone to 95% of premises in each of the three

local authority areas by 2017. Our plan assumes a platform across the sub-region to enable

competitive retail service provision to Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire. The assets funded

through this investment will be owned and maintained by the successful bidder.

Areas that do not currently form part of broadband providers published plans but which we believe

will be covered by further investment from the private sector will fall outside of our procurement.

Respondents should submit evidence to the contrary if they believe such areas will not be reached

by commercial deployments.

7 Purpose of this consultation

This public consultation with suppliers is being undertaken in accordance with the European

Commission (EC) guidelines for state aid approval23. The EC requires that the public sector only

invests in areas where there is demonstrably no current or planned (i.e. within the next three years)

investment in broadband. These are termed white areas, those where it is appropriate to use public

subsidy to support the roll-out of broadband infrastructure. Other areas are termed either grey (one

superfast broadband operator) or black (two or more superfast broadband operators). As part of

the procurement process an application to invest in white areas, following public consultation, must

be submitted to the Department for Media Culture and Sport (DCMS).

We have previously conducted an Open Market Review during June and July 2014, where we invited

suppliers to share with us information on their plans for further investment in broadband

infrastructure across Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire over the next three years. This

information has determined the intervention areas set out in section 8 of this document: these are

the areas we propose to use our funding to support the deployment of broadband infrastructure by

the private sector. We are also inviting feedback from residents and businesses across the sub-

region on our proposed intervention areas and plans. We are particularly interested in feedback in

relation to:

any broadband not- or slow-spots (i.e., areas unable to access minimum 2Mbps services) not

included in the proposed intervention areas, or the reverse; i.e., locations listed as

broadband not- or slow-spots, when 2Mbps or faster services are in fact available;

any locations where the current availability of superfast services (above 24Mbps) as

described in this document is known to be incorrect (i.e. areas described as having superfast

services but where these are in fact unavailable, or the reverse);

23 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:C:2009:235:0007:0025:EN:PDF

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any proposed intervention areas where plans are in place to deliver minimum 2Mbps and/or

superfast broadband services but these were not reported as part of the previous Open

Market Review.

The information gathered from this consultation will also be an input into our invitation to tender.

As such, the information provided by broadband service providers in support of planned investments

must be robust and supported by detailed evidence. Please refer to section 10 for information on

how broadband service providers should respond to this consultation.

It is imperative that any operator already delivering or planning to deliver services that exceed what

has been detailed in this document make their plans known to Warwickshire County Council as lead

authority for the sub-region. It is not Warwickshire County Councils’ intention to duplicate or

compete with the provision of services by operators who may be operating outside of the on-going

procurement, nor is it our intention to provide subsidy where it is not needed.

8 Proposed intervention areas

We have provided coverage maps and a list of postcodes for our proposed intervention area which

you can access at:

http://www.cswbroadband.org.uk/suppliers/procurement

The mapping presented here was developed through our previous Open Market Review (OMR) in

June-July 2014. Details of the OMR were sent to all known broadband infrastructure and internet

providers in the CSW sub-region. The maps, which are fully zoomable, illustrate our current

assessment of the State Aid status (white, grey, black) for each postcode area in the region – pink

has been chosen to represent the “white” areas. The boundary of the region is shown by a thick red

line. The coloured dots on the map represent both business and residential premises, with the

different colours highlighting our current estimate of the distance of the premise from existing

infrastructure (green is near, hence good, red is far away, hence bad).

You will see this evolve as we gather more information from people filling in surveys and

crowdsourcing the existing infrastructure.

The postcode list covers all postcodes in the mapped area.

9 Working with businesses across CSW

As part of the councils’ procurement, engagement with local companies is a priority. Where possible

we want to encourage the use of local companies to form part of the supply chain for broadband

across the three councils. If you represent a company that would like to participate and are happy

to have details passed on to the successful contractor, please register your interest at:

http://www.cswbroadband.org.uk/suppliers/supplier-registration

Please be aware that by providing this information you are allowing these details to be passed to the

successful contractor who may or may not choose to follow-up each expression of interest. This

register of potential suppliers is intended to assist our main contractor to use locally available

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businesses and labour. Please note that inclusion in this register does not in any way imply that your

business has been approved or endorsed by the project or any of its member organisations, and

does not guarantee that you will receive work through the project.

10 Information required from broadband service providers

This public consultation is a formal request for information. The information provided will be used

to support a notification to the EC for approval of state aid.

Please provide details and supporting evidence of any current or planned investment in broadband

infrastructure (basic broadband and NGA broadband) in the proposed intervention area for the

project (see section 8).

In the case of planned investment, we are particularly interested in plans for the coming three years

(by date). However, any plans for years beyond that would also be of interest.

Any information provided should include but need not be limited to:

Detailed maps for basic broadband and NGA broadband showing the existing coverage and

separately maps detailing the planned investment in the basic broadband and NGA

infrastructure networks for at least the next three years;

Exact detail of premises passed or covered, i.e. postcodes (at a digit postcode level)

including information on the number of premises passed (in the case of a fixed network) or

covered and able to receive services (in the case of a wireless/satellite network);

A detailed description of the technology solution(s) deployed (or to be deployed) in

your broadband infrastructure, and where these claim to be NGA, demonstrate how

they meet the minimum standards as set-out in the BDUK NGA Technology

Guidelines24;

Description of the services/ products currently offered and separately those to be offered

within the next 3 years;

Installation and rental tariffs for those services/products clearly identifying whether they are

inclusive or exclusive of VAT;

Upload and download speeds typically experienced by end users and how these may vary

by factors such as distance, increased take-up or demand, contention, etc;

Appropriate indicators of quality of the service e.g. contention ratio or bandwidth allocation

per end user including any characteristics (eg latency, jitter) that are required to

support advanced services such as video conferencing or HD video streaming;

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Evidence to substantiate actual or planned coverage claims, including business cases

and evidence of available funding to enable plans to be fulfilled.

Details and timing of roll-out for future investment including further investments

required to cope with future increases in take-up and demand; and

Confirmation from an authorised signatory that all information provided is of suitable

accuracy.

Please supplement with supporting evidence as you consider appropriate e.g. public websites.

Please note that the data you provide in your response will be treated as commercially confidential

to Warwickshire County Council25, albeit that it may be necessary to share some/all of your response

data with our professional advisors and/or DCMS/BDUK, Ofcom, BIS State Aid Branch and the

European Commission in the course of seeking State aid approval for our local broadband project. It

should also be noted that it is a state aid requirement to utilise this information to produce state aid

maps to define white, grey and black areas for basic and NGA broadband. These maps will be

published as part of the Public Consultation process and will be utilised to define the intervention

area. However, please note that these published maps will be assimilated utilising data from all

relevant operators and will not be directly attributed to a single source.

When an area is classified as eligible for intervention with State Aid (pink on the maps), it may not

guarantee future coverage as funding is predicated on reaching 95%/99% of premises with superfast

services. However, when an area is classified as currently having a service available (shown on the

maps as grey = one provider, or black = two or more providers) then it does mean that we are

definitely not able to intervene. Because of this we will need to see clear evidence of your financial

provision, the necessary approval being recorded from an appropriate authority in the company or

enterprise and an implementation plan. Clearly we do not want anyone to miss out so due diligence

is necessary here.

If you have any questions about the project or concerns about providing information then please

contact the CSW Broadband Project at bduk-consultation@warwickshire.gov.uk outlining your

concerns as we do not want to build over your planned deployment.

25 We are also subject to legal obligations to disclose information in certain limited circumstances.

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11 Appendix

The following criteria have been used to classify areas into Basic Broadband and NGA

White/Grey/Black areas respectively.

For Basic Broadband, each postcode is turned Grey if:

BT estimate that all premises in the postcode can receive (or are planned to receive) a

broadband speed >2Mbps;

OR, if Virgin Media serve 90% or more of premises within the postcode;

OR, if it is an area served by an alternative fixed infrastructure provider with Access Line

Speeds >2Mbps;

OR, if a wireless service or other qualifying technology is available at >2Mbps to all premises

in the postcode.

Each postcode is turned Black for Basic Broadband if it satisfies at least two of these conditions. All

other postcodes remain White.

For NGA, each postcode is turned Grey if:

BT has upgraded the network infrastructure serving the area AND ALL premises within the

postcode have an estimated (VDSL2 for FTTC) Access Line Speed of >15Mbps;

OR, if Virgin Media serve 90% or more of premises within a postcode;

OR, if it is in an area that is served by an alternative fibre-based, NGA fixed wireless or other

qualifying technology that meets the requirements of the BDUK NGA Technology

Guidelines26.

Each postcode is turned Black for NGA if it satisfies at least two of these conditions. All other

postcodes remain White.

Where 2 operators have declared partial coverage of premises within a postcode, a complete

overlap of coverage is assumed, e.g. if a postcode contains 30 premises and operator A serves 10

premises and operator B serves 15 premises with Superfast Broadband, 15 premises are considered

to be NGA white. This assumption aligns with observations from sample testing of suppliers’ online

availability checkers and aims to ensure that no premise is left behind in the objective to achieve full

Superfast Broadband availability by the end of 2017.

The priority for the Council will be to use the available public funding intervention to

provide a ‘step change’ in broadband capability for premises currently getting relatively

slow broadband speeds (< 15Mbps). Therefore, in the first instance, the focus of the

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forthcoming procurement under the BDUK Framework will be the NGA White areas

identified in the attached State Aid Map. However, the Council reserves the right to

consider extending intervention to the areas classified as “Conditional White” in the event

that the risks of these premises not achieving Superfast Broadband is verified.