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Open Market Review
Request for information on broadband
infrastructure provision in Scotland
27 October 2014
OPEN MARKET REVIEW – SCOTLAND
REQUEST FOR INFORMATION
1.
INTRODUCTION
The Scottish Government has set ambitious policy objectives aimed at
delivering world class digital infrastructure across Scotland by 2020.
As a key first step, the Scottish Government, Highlands and Islands
Enterprise and our local authority partners are investing over £280 million in
the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband (DSSB) programme that is
extending fibre broadband infrastructure into non-commercial areas.
Alongside commercial rollout, the DSSB programme will extend access to
fibre broadband to 85% of premises by 2015/16 and at least 95% of premises
across Scotland by 2017/18.
The DSSB programme is being delivered through two regional projects – one
covering the Highlands and Islands; the other covering the rest of Scotland.
Both projects were procured in 2013 – by Highlands and Islands Enterprise
and the Scottish Government respectively – with BT the successful bidder for
both.
The Scottish Government has also established Community Broadband
Scotland (CBS), a £7.5 million initiative which is supporting the development
of community-led schemes in those areas least likely to have a superfast
solution delivered by the DSSB programme. CBS is working with a range of
communities and assisting them as they move towards formal procurement of
broadband solutions.
Scotland has been allocated £20.99 million by the UK Government as part of
phase 2 of its Superfast Britain programme. This will be matched by the
Scottish Government and local partners. The overall aim of the programme is
to reach 95% superfast broadband coverage at UK level. In Scotland, we
intend to go beyond this.
This Open Market Review (OMR) is intended to capture an updated view of
suppliers’ commercial coverage ahead of the potential deployment of
additional public funds to support broadband rollout across Scotland (by
Scottish Government, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, local authorities,
Community Broadband Scotland or a combination thereof). This exercise will
be followed by a public consultation on the areas where public funds can
legally be deployed (the ‘Intervention Area (s)’), as defined under the
European Commission’s state aid rules.
2.
GEOGRAPHICAL SCOPE
The OMR covers all of Scotland, comprising both existing Intervention Areas
– Highlands and Islands; and the rest of Scotland. The Overall Geographic
Area (OGA) for Scotland consists of all the postcodes and premises shown
below in Figure 1.
Figure 1 – OMR, Geographical Scope
A complete list of live postcodes comprising the geographical scope of the
OMR is provided as a template for OMR responses. This reference dataset
has been extracted from the National Records of Scotland Postcode Index,
2014 release 2 (published August 2014). For reference, this dataset also
provides counts of residential, non-residential and total premises per postcode
to enable supplier testing against reference data prior to OMR responses.
3.
PROGRESS TO DATE
Key milestones are as follows:
Scotland’s Digital Future:
Infrastructure Action Plan
published1
Digital Scotland Superfast
Broadband – Highlands and
Islands contract awarded to BT
Digital Scotland Superfast
Broadband – Rest of Scotland
contract awarded to BT
DSSB project delivery: planning
and deployment
UK Government funding
allocation (£20.99 million) to
Scotland from Phase 2
announced
Scottish match funding confirmed
Open Market Review – Scotland
State Aid consultation – Scotland
Phase 2 public funding deployed
4.
January 2012
March 2013
July 2013
2013 – 2017
February 2014
June 2014
27 October – 19 December 2014
January 2015
During 2015
PURPOSE OF THIS OMR
This OMR is intended as a precursor to a formal public consultation
document. The OMR, in contrast to that public consultation document, is not
a specific requirement under the European Commission's Broadband
Guidelines2 or the National Broadband Scheme3. However, we consider that
early market engagement at this stage is an essential and extremely
important part of our market research. The results of the OMR will assist us
with understanding the broadband infrastructure (basic broadband and Next
Generation Access (NGA)) already in place and where there are plans for
investment in such infrastructure in the coming three years. This will
represent a significant step in the design of the intervention area.
1
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2012/01/1487/0
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:C:2013:025:0001:0026:EN:PDF
3
http://ec.europa.eu/competition/state_aid/cases/243212/243212_1387832_172_1.pdf
2
5.
YOUR RESPONSE REQUIRED
We are inviting responses to this OMR from all recognised broadband
infrastructure and internet providers in our area. In addition, we are
publishing the OMR document on the Scottish Government and Highlands
and Islands Enterprise websites. This document is accompanied by a data
file/response template (.csv), which is available on request.
We require responses by Friday 19 December 2014 to the questions set out
in Annex A. When responding, we would be grateful if you could confirm your
organisation's name and address, as well as the name, position and contact
details of the person responding on behalf of the organisation.
Please submit responses to:
iapopenmarketconsultation@scotland.gsi.gov.uk
All responses must be submitted on the response template and be received
by the Scottish Government no later than 17:00 on Friday 19 December 2014.
Please note that the data you provide in your response will be treated as
commercially confidential, although 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 local broadband projects.
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.
If you have any questions about any of the above, please contact Robbie
McGhee (robert.mcghee@scotland.gsi.gov.uk), Broadband Policy Team,
Scottish Government.
ANNEX A
1.
Please provide details and supporting evidence of any current or
planned investment in broadband infrastructure (basic broadband and
NGA broadband) in Scotland. 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.
If your broadband investment is planned, we will require the submission
of a business plan, along with a detailed timeline and deployment plan
as well as proof that the plan is adequately financed.
Responses should be provided using the accompanying response
template (.csv format) and should indicate the exact number of business
and residential premises passed per postcode.
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 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);
Details of the technology and where these claim to be NGA,
demonstrate how they meet the minimum standards as set out in the
BDUK Technology Guidelines4.
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;
Appropriate indicators of quality of the service e.g. contention ratio or
bandwidth allocation per end user;
Evidence to substantiate actual or planned coverage claims including
business cases and evidence of available funding to enable plans to be
fulfilled;
4
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/236341/NGA_Technol
ogy_Guidelines_300813.pdf
Details and timing of rollout for future investment; 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.
BDUK / April 2014
© Crown copyright 2014
You may re-use this information (excluding logos and images) free of charge in any
format or medium, under the terms of the Open Government Licence. To view this
licence, visit http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/
or e-mail: psi@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk.
Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to
obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.
ISBN: 978-1-78412-899-9 (web only)
Published by the Scottish Government, October 2014
The Scottish Government
St Andrew’s House
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG
Produced for the Scottish Government by APS Group Scotland, 21 Tennant Street, Edinburgh EH6 5NA
DPPAS39277 (10/14)
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