Rural Broadband Co-operatives?

trekkypj

In the late 1880s, Sir Horace Plunkett and others helped form the first co-operative creamery in rural Ireland. This led to a movement which spawned, among others, multinational food companies such as Glanbia. But the co-op movement was started to provide a service no commercial provider was willing to supply. See anything familiar about this?

My thinking is this: we face a huge digital divide between urban and rural areas and if something isn't done NOW in 15 years time we'll be talking about the farmers in rural Ireland being stuck on 1Mbit lines when everyone is on 1GB fibre or something like that. There is no way, barring a huge culture change in government and industry thinking, that we will see NGN access in areas like where I live, which have about 800 people scattered over a five mile radius, in hilly terrain.

I came across some websites in the UK which deal with this idea for community co-operative broadband, apparently there has been some success in establishing fibre connectivity for low population areas.

http://www.broadband-uk.coop/

There's also a pretty nifty site where users can submit a broadband not-spot to create a map of the UK where there's no broadband.

http://www.broadband-notspot.org.uk/

Would IrelandOffline be interested in working on a feasibility study, perhaps in partnership with someone like Irish Rural Link? I for one would be interested in helping to set one up in my area but given my complete ignorance with respect to the technical aspects of broadband, people like me need to know what's needed, how much and can it be done.

One thing is for sure, if someone doesn't make a move, we're going to be condemned to the dark ages.

Sponge Bob

trekkypj wrote: »

There is no way, barring a huge culture change in government and industry thinking, that we will see NGN access in areas like where I live, which have about 800 people scattered over a five mile radius, in hilly terrain.

You and the rest of us

Would IrelandOffline be interested in working on a feasibility study, perhaps in partnership with someone like Irish Rural Link? I for one would be interested in helping to set one up in my area but given my complete ignorance with respect to the technical aspects of broadband, people like me need to know what's needed, how much and can it be done.

Were there a feasibility study then concrete examples must be given.

For what you described, 300 houses scattered about, you should design a fibre route from a point near the local mobile mast . No fibre run should be more than 10km long ( including doglegs into and out of peoples houses) .

A run is a loop that goes off around a few boreens and back to the originating point and no longer than 10km ( to support the 10GEPON ONU10 class of fibre module in the premises)

Essentially you are mapping a trench .

The feasible bit initially would be to survey all 300 houses and check :

1. How many have what they think is broadband
2. How many want good quality broadband , better than that .
3. How many are prepared to PAY to dig a community fibre serving all 300 houses like a group water scheme would.
4. What would every household think such a service is worth to them ???
5. How many are prepared to HELP dig a community fibre serving all 300 houses .

One thing is for sure, if someone doesn't make a move, we're going to be condemned to the dark ages.

Green party policy is to flush us out of our rural lairs, nevertheless the network would be exactly the same length if they do ...merely serving fewer people and therefore MORE expensive per house .

trekkypj

Sponge Bob wrote: »

For what you described, 300 houses scattered about, you should design a fibre route from a point near the local mobile mast . No fibre run should be more than 10km long ( including doglegs into and out of peoples houses) .

Here's the issue - we don't have a mast in the area - we have very very poor coverage from the edge of an 02 mast area and nothing from the other providers. Nothing. Nada. This might be a problem for us.

Three are supposedly erecting a mast for the NBS nearby and eircom are also supposedly upgrading the exchange to DSL - it's the Coan exchange in Kilkenny.

Sponge Bob wrote: »

A run is a loop that goes off around a few boreens and back to the originating point and no longer than 10km ( to support the 10GEPON ONU10 class of fibre module in the premises)

Essentially you are mapping a trench .

That should be easy enough if I can get hold of a suitable map - I know most people in the area and have a good idea of roads and lanes around the village.

Sponge Bob wrote: »

The feasible bit initially would be to survey all 300 houses and check :

1. How many have what they think is broadband
2. How many want good quality broadband , better than that .
3. How many are prepared to PAY to dig a community fibre serving all 300 houses like a group water scheme would.
4. What would every household think such a service is worth to them ???
5. How many are prepared to HELP dig a community fibre serving all 300 houses .

I'll take a note of all of that.

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Green party policy is to flush us out of our rural lairs, nevertheless the network would be exactly the same length if they do ...merely serving fewer people and therefore MORE expensive per house.

Ironic that they seem to want to save the planet by making it even more difficult to live outside the urban sprawl.

Sponge Bob

The fibre itself can easily fit in a Hydrodare (standard black wavin water pipe) in a shallow trench and it will be fine in there and there are no rocks in Kilkenny ye lucky bastards .

Generally if the locals own something they will take care of it . Most of the cost/work is laying fibre, the rest is a lot easier than it sounds , honest.

clohamon

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Green party policy is to flush us out of our rural lairs, nevertheless the network would be exactly the same length if they do ...merely serving fewer people and therefore MORE expensive per house .

Yes SB, this is the policy that dare not speak its name. Rural flushing is at the heart the Minister's reluctance to consider fibre beyond metropolitan boundaries.

Public utility starvation is the means to bring this about.

trekkypj

Sponge Bob wrote: »

The fibre itself can easily fit in a Hydrodare (standard black wavin water pipe) in a shallow trench and it will be fine in there and there are no rocks in Kilkenny ye lucky bastards .

Not many, anyhow.

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Generally if the locals own something they will take care of it . Most of the cost/work is laying fibre, the rest is a lot easier than it sounds , honest.

Definately true for our area. If people are agreeable, fibre is easily laid if the county council have no issues with it.

What I'm wondering is how we'd hook it up to backhaul. As you say we could piggy-back onto a mobile mast's connection, or perhaps Eircom's (doubtful perhaps?) but if that's not available or feasible, might be problematic.

Sponge Bob

That will be the biggest issue, there are some back channels discussions underway on it but in essence it would be to bring fibre to within maybe 10-20k of every home and the locals have to do the rest ....as you know.

As you may take it that national fibre will follow regional and national roads to a large extent you would try to reach one of those with your network and the M9 and M8 motorways would be the single most sensible target to aim at in Kilkenny and the access networks would have to radiate outwards from the motorways in Kilkenny . Networks can often beget other networks further afield .

Any bit of motorway will do ...does not have to be a junction. How far away are they ??

trekkypj

Well, let's see - Leighlinbridge is 7 miles away and they are working on the new motorway along that stretch. I'd imagine that would be the most accessible route, though quite hilly.

Other than that, hooking up to the existing MAN in Kilkenny would seem to be the closest.

Sponge Bob

Well the fibre network must start from one of those points and cover everything along the way . Scratch up an outline design and get a few locals interested and prepared to canvass at the feasibility stage ....yes that means door to door .

Have a public meeting to REPORT these results and next actions . By then have a list of every planned water sewer and road project off the council...particularly pipe replacements .

PogMoThoin

Sponge Bob wrote: »

The feasible bit initially would be to survey all 300 houses and check :

1. How many have what they think is broadband
2. How many want good quality broadband , better than that .
3. How many are prepared to PAY to dig a community fibre serving all 300 houses like a group water scheme would.
4. What would every household think such a service is worth to them ???
5. How many are prepared to HELP dig a community fibre serving all 300 houses .

This is the main issue, word has it that the IFA sent a circular to all farmers telling them three broadband offer upto €10,000 for a site for a mast in a NBS area in order to bring them what our minister calls "real broadband".

trekkypj

PogMoThoin wrote: »

This is the main issue, word has it that the IFA sent a circular to all farmers telling them three broadband offer upto €10,000 for a site for a mast in a NBS area in order to bring them what our minister calls "real broadband".

Not that I'd have any problem with a three mast being nearby since we have NO decent mobile coverage, but as a broadband solution that's not good enough even at the moment, since it's geared for mobile devices such as iPhones and netbooks on the move. Even in a rural area a 3G solution would quickly become insufficient for the needs of the community.

In any case, it's about choice, and being able to have the best of mobile and fixed internet solutions. We need phone coverage and 3G and its successors will help with portable apps and so forth. But for watching TV and video online, for making VoIP calls, for businesses, the internet is developing at such a rate that we have to think about 10 years down the road TODAY.

We got left behind when DSL was rolled out. I'd prefer if that didn't happen with NGN technology.

PogMoThoin

What I'm saying is that You'd have a very hard job selling it and convincing rural people, most farmers would look at the situation the other way round, as in what can they make from it

bk

PogMoThoin wrote: »

What I'm saying is that You'd have a very hard job selling it and convincing rural people, most farmers would look at the situation the other way round, as in what can they make from it

It very much depends on who is asking.

If it is big company from Dublin, then sure the farmers will look for as much as possible.

If on the other hand it is their well known neighbour trekkypj, who is looking to bring high quality broadband to the whole community as part of a community scheme, then that can be a completely different matter.

Perhaps you could get some local community organisations involved, like the GAA and/or the local church. With the right approach you could be pleasantly surprised and end up getting massive support from farmers and the local community.

trekkypj

bk wrote: »

It very much depends on who is asking.

If it is big company from Dublin, then sure the farmers will look for as much as possible.

If on the other hand it is their well known neighbour trekkypj, who is looking to bring high quality broadband to the whole community as part of a community scheme, then that can be a completely different matter.

Perhaps you could get some local community organisations involved, like the GAA and/or the local church. With the right approach you could be pleasantly surprised and end up getting massive support from farmers and the local community.

That's almost a given in a community like ours. Get the GAA, the Parent's Council, the Churches, the Tidy Towns, the local Development Association, local employers, the resident politicians, and anyone else who'd want to be consulted on something like this, or it won't fly.

There's also the fact that this is a five year job (at least) between getting organised, getting funding, jumping any planning hurdles and getting the communities en route to back you. People are less enthusiastic about long term projects until they start seeing things being done.

Though one significant benefit would be the end of expensive copper line rental. IMHO If you allowed all the telcos access to run VoIP or Triple Play services on the fibre, you get more competition, you get lower prices both for the connection and the services themselves, and the telco companies will make their money on services not infrastructure (which is maintained by someone else), and that's as it *should* be. Of course if they don't play ball, Skype is always an option!

One area which could be a selling point in rural areas, particularly with young, tech-saavy farmers who work a part time job is the use of fast internet with biotechnology. One example, not even the best I'm sure, of how an NGN could benefit a farmer is the monitoring animals about to give birth, by providing live video over the fibre which the farmer can check either on his home TV, computer while at work, or perhaps on his iPhone/iPod using a wireless network, all streamed from his home connection.

There's many, many applications which could be used but it's very much a 'build it for the future, pray, and hope that people will use it in ways you can't imagine' rather than a 'people need this yesterday because they can't do X so build it quick'. There's also the fact that many people in the area commute and they could avoid this if they could work from home. And let's not underestimate the entrepreneurial possibilities of selling from home via eBay and so on....

Because of the need to make sure people will support the idea and are properly informed about what it could mean for the area, I don't plan on canvassing local people or organising meetings until I've thoroughly researched what has been done by rural communities in other countries using NGN and what can be done here if we had that sort of infrastructure.

I plan on spending my spare time over the Winter doing just that - drawing up maps and proposals, writing to various organisations, agencies and government offices to get info, to solicit support and get advice both here and from groups abroad.

I don't plan on going to my neighbouring farmers and country people and saying "You know what we should do, we should build a fibre network" without having answers to fundamental questions such as 'why bother?' - 'will anyone use it if it is built?' - 'how much would it cost to build and to maintain?' - will it be cheaper than what I have now?' - 'how will it make my life better?' - 'what makes you think we can do it if towns fifty times our size can't?'. I want to have answers to those questions which will convince the most skeptical of skeptics - fail to prepare, prepare to fail and all that.

Also it ensures I don't make an ass of myself if my germ of an idea doesn't prove doable. But I am pretty hyperactive and mulishly stubborn so..... forward momentum!

Sponge Bob

It is fairly simple to explain in the sense that in 1985 it was voice 4k , in 1995 it was dial up 50k , in 2005 it was early broadband 500k and in 2015 it will be impossible because the phone lines will not do 5000k out the country and neither will mobile broadband which is like 1995 dialup anyway most of the time .

The local development association must own the fibre and the right of way , they only deal with the person who lights the motorway or kilkenny end of it for 2 or 3 year contracts. The rest is theirs and stays put .

It cannot be sold off like eircom was after the taxpayer spent a fortune on it in the 1980s and we now pay the highest line rental in the world for what we paid to build back then .

3 years is very realistic right now, honest, but it will have to be 10GEPON or nothing .

bk

trekkypj you are right on the money with your plan.

Do as much research as possible before talking to your local community groups.

Try to figure out routes (and alternative routes), look at similar schemes elsewhere, cost out backhaul, etc.

Once you have all the planning done and if it is still feasible, then you can bring it to your neighbours and community groups. If your plan is detailed enough with detailed costings, etc. I'm sure you would get support for it.

Good luck with this and keeps us informed, you could end up being a model for other communities in Ireland.

trekkypj

Thanks everyone for your encouragement. It's good to know there's other people about with similar views to my own.

I've been reading up some on the practicalities of laying out fibre. I guess 10GEPON is possibly the most suitable. Luckily our area has farily circular routes around the village which are comfortably less than ten kilometers - I'm thinking that three rings of fibre (with branches to cover lanes and so on) could be the best way to approach it.

My biggest concerns are the following

(1) how to pay for it
(2) regulatory and local authority requirements
(3) getting backhaul

It seems to me that any backhaul connection for fibre would have to be ducted from either the M9 at Leighlinbridge (if there is fibre along that motorway when it's done) or from the MAN in Kilkenny. We're talking about a 20-25km length of backhaul cabling, passing through two other villages (on either route) before it reaches us.

It may be easier to get funding and agree contracts with a backhaul provider if we serviced the rural areas we passed through as well as our own. Thankfully, in rural areas it is easier to avoid 'digging up the street - we can just 'plant' fibre along the side of the road all the way to the village. But that's a lot of cable nonetheless.

I'm also wondering about the existing eircom network. People would sign up if they could also get phone services, but that would mean opening up the network to all providers. While an open network would be good in my book, if providers refuse to use it without demanding special concessions, how could we provide phone and broadband, or maybe triple play.

I know it's been done in towns in the US where the existing cable and telephone companies took advantage of their monopoly and ended up getting undercut by their community FTTH project who provided better service and the same triple play options. But how could this be done in rural Ireland? It obviously should be possible, but how to get it done is the question.

What I'd propose is that we own the network and open it up to anyone who wants to provide tv, broadband and telephone services using our fibre. We get a cut for providing the infrastructure and the technical support, they get a cut for the services they provide. There can be no question of *selling* it to one operator or even the State.

Sponge Bob

Conceptually I see it differently .

1. You may decide that the V1 network is a series of 20km loops from a point at a crossroads, this means that there is only one point where you need power and the backhaul starts from there. The whole lot is in one cabinet incl ups . The backhaul is a single line 'back' from there ...or two.
2. You may plan on shortening the loops to 10 km in future, this means you need dual use ONU10 and ONU20 terminations to allow for upgrades.
3. The biggest cost is digging, if you can go shallow then you can get volunteer gangs to do the install at weekends, that will take time but it reduces the cost . You are looking at €10k per km .
4. Backhaul is not that big an issue if you are buying lots of it , digging is the big big cost and reducing that is the key If you can shallow bury armoured fibre with no pipe surround you may get that to €5k a KM on volunteer labour .

Therefore what you need to do is work out right now whether 2pair 4pair ( 4 cores or 8 cores) armoured fibre will do the job and how much 10 20 40 50 km of that will cost and what segment lenths you need.

Joining the segments is a matter of bring a fibre joiner in for a few days with his little oven and that would be say €500 a day times nn days times 10 sets of joins a day ....say .

If you propose ducting and hatches and restoring roads with tarmac and stuff you will hit €100k a km . That is most certainly not feasible .

Crossing a road is best done at a convenient road culvert meaning the fibre could meander a bit to take paddys house over there into account and that a 20km loop may only follow 10km of road at the end

Sponge Bob

Finally look at a really big number for a sec.

If you install a 20km loop serving 300 premises it would cost €100k to so do ( ex lighting and joining and labour) .

I thnk it could be done for half that or €50k but that is for another day . Lets assume €100k or €5k a km leaving labour and terminating and joining out of it .

300 premises could each have a phone line costing €25 a month ...rental...dead money .

That means you pay €6k a month , between yiz, for nothing . How does that compute ??

The payback 'horizon' starts to look less absolutely infinite does it not ?? But I still cannot see how it can be done unless it is done using voluntary labour . Insufficient density .

trekkypj

Re the whole ducting and hatches issue... Hell no! I don't think anyone would agree to THAT. That would justify the tag of a 'white elephant' vanity project. Not at all what I was proposing!

No, what I was thinking was that we ourselves would dig a simple trench parallel to the roads, and use buried fibre with some sort of cable protection to prevent accidents with digging machinery and such... My only concern is creating drop cables after the main build- how would we distribute connections to any new builds on the road?

I presume there would need to be some sort of small hand duct every km or so so that new houses could be hooked up. Even if it's just four concrete blocks and a cover. I'd just as soon avoid having to dig up a whole section of fibre just to hook up a house built after the main network was laid.

In terms of funding, I'd round up community leaders who have applied for and gotten rural development grants under LEADER+ and other funding sources and start making applications for grant assistance for the project. I don't think this project could fly without some form of funding, and if there's money available, it's SO much easier to get volunteers to chip in, and perhaps even fund-raise for it.

trekkypj

Thinking a bit more about it - I think the biggest priority is to actually get the node built at a point where it can distribute the fibre loops fairly easily. The village itself would seem to be the logical choice, as there's already an eircom exchange there (for that reason I'd guess). *grin*

Then you can hook up the local pub, the school, the church hall and so on first. Instant usage for the community. The school is getting those electronic whiteboards apparently - would be great if they could be used with a PROPER fibre connection instead of a satellite link!

Then connect the closest houses to the hub, to generate some cashflow. Charge them a reasonable, flat monthly connection fee and a service fee, depending on what they want to use the service for.

Then move outwards, using the fees from the initial customers to add the users further out. Do the higher concentration areas first, then the lanes.

It might take longer than doing it all at once but I'm betting it would cost less.

One other area in which savings might be made is if we got funding to train 5/6 people to lay fibre and install the network. They get skills that will make them attractive to employers, we get their help building the network, sort of hands-on training, so to speak. :P

Sponge Bob

I think maybe install the most 'valuable' loop first and explain clearly how revenues from that will help the less dense loops along .

trekkypj

Sponge Bob wrote: »

I think maybe install the most 'valuable' loop first and explain clearly how revenues from that will help the less dense loops along .

Sounds good to me.

By the time I get talking to people next spring, I might actually know something about planning FTTH!

I'm boning up on different case studies - apparently there's a place in Sweden called Lindefallet which had only 230 people or so in the area, and they built a fibre network in exactly the same way as I'm proposing. Details of the case study are on these slides, towards the end.

In fact, they have snow, and ice, and mountains, and possibly lower population density than us. If they can do it, we can.

http://www.slideshare.net/ceobroadband/ftth-conference-2009-ovum-fibre-socio-economic-benefits

Sponge Bob

A Presentation By The Local Council in Lindfallet ( pop 230) here .

http://www.ssnf.org/upload/09%20F%C3%B6redragsdokumentation/Seminarie%20Bryssel%20061127/Broadband%20by%20FTTH%20in%20rural%20areas%20%28SSNf%20BLX%20nov06%29%20%28compressed%29.pdf

Please not that a lot of fibres are double counted or more , eg if you have 10km of 8 pairs they count that as 80km where you only laid 10km or as 16 cores in 8 pairs they count it as 160km where , again , you laid 10km .

Only a route map shows how much trenching was involved.

The Sweish model also shows how the voluntary effort was accounted for an received matching funds to some degree. This model would mean that where local effort installed fibre at n x €8 an hour you may 'bank' the aggretgate labour and get a 'credit' of sorts.

By using manual labour you also save scads of carbon which should be banked on top of that .

Against that a credit system ...a tax rebate for example...could be used to fund actual costs .

This form of credit could help to close the costs gap ...not that our green ministers have the first notion how to structure such a system in the first place meaning that some serious work must be done on that aspect of it too.

I will say that laying fibre , even quite a lot of fibre , is one of the few infrastructural tasks that can be done by hand or by a very low machinery input overall and which should engender credits of sorts .

The first few systems should be grant aided more generously while the crediting system is being worked out from concrete examples such as yours ...eg pilot projects . Our big problem with local FTTH is the lack of an equitable and calculable model . Someone has to start somewhere in order to 'build' the model .

The vice president of them oul greens is fairly local is she not ????

trekkypj

That's right. I think she's from Borris but she does have an office in Kilkenny....

Carbon Credits eh? That might be worth investigating. Not to mention that it will go down well with those people who are opposed to using phone masts/wireless solutions because of public health concerns. One less worry when using fibre, I guess.

I downloaded a report from the FTTH Council Europe which has some interesting stats on how 'green' the tech is.

http://www.ftthcouncil.eu/documents/studies/Impact%20fibre%20optique%20UK%2026%2002%2008%20A.pdf

Sponge Bob

Do not engage with anti masters they are complete morons in the main . Don't ally yourself with them or indulge them in any way .

They are likely to make lots of hysterical noise but will generally not do anything FOR anyone . Tell them to use satellite because the mast is guaranteed to be in space 22000 miles away , they deserve no better.

The labour credit / community credit / carbon credit model needs a lot of investigation and work . A simple initial approach is to find out how many people can work from home x how many days a week if they have PROPER broadband not some substandard mobile cack that the greens are pushing .

Sponge Bob

Linked 3 posts up !

trekkypj

I've been busy studying reports in my spare time and have to say there is a lot to think about!

The biggest issue which jumps out at me, funding aside, is getting wayleaves to install the ducting pipes across people's land. Which means two issues really:

(1) Getting permission and a wayleave from the Council to run ducting along the side of the public roads to provide the fibre 'rings'
(2) Same for private landowners

The first may be possible and one wayleave for the route along council roads has been done in the past in other areas. It would depend on the willingness of the Council to see it happen, and how much, if anything they would charge for this. If an MAN is utilised for backhaul it may make approval easier.

The second is a major stumbling block - it would require a wayleave agreement between the private landowners who would own land on the proposed routes and the committee of people (co-op) building the network. There would be legal costs involved most likely in registering these wayleaves, assuming they were agreed. It's not an insurmountable obstacle but one which would require considerable work and consideration on how to minimise the cost and bureaucracy of obtaining wayleave.

Thoughts?

Sponge Bob

Strand 1 wayleaves are contingent on your repairing the dig to the same standard it was before you dug , if you stay in the verges it is much easier but you must come to agreement on road crossings and making good.

Strand 2 is easy to deal with as long as every wayleave is packaged with a drop to the person giving the wayleave . I would bundle a drop and wayleave into one agreement document . Those who will not give a a wayleave will not take a drop either . So you must kill two birds with one stone in that case .

The drop should be to the road side of a premises not 'up the driveway' to the house . Once they know they can connect to the outside wall they will work out how best to do it themselves...over time .

The backbone or core should remain along the main roads where access will never be an issue .

BarryM

Not wanting to be -ve or knocking your ideas, jaysus the country needs ideas....

I was part of a similar scheme (not FTTH) a while back. We got the money from the EU regional fund, 250K€, and went ahead with wireless based solution over an area of about 50sq miles, mixed land and sea, with a satellite based up/downlink. Most of the installation was done by enthusiastic amateurs with a contractor (who was a bit of a disaster).

The technology, of the period, worked fine. The project funding stopped and the service continues to limp along - most of the original customers have changed to a €24.99 a month and upwards commercial wireless service. Why? the cost and provision of service. The original project had no continuity money, i.e. after the funding stopped there was only a fee based option which had to include service and the sums didn't really add up.

In addition, I would point out that the Dept of Comm had a rural bb scheme a while back, it overlapped with our project in the time line, but this 'initiative' died, why? a number of commercial wireless operators arrived....

I don't believe FTTH, in principle, will suffer the same fate, it offers so much more, but getting ordinary people (i.e not nerds) to subscribe long term will be a problem, most of them won't be all that interested in FTTH's advantages (VOD, TV, etc.). The only similar scheme which is still in business, I think, are people like South Coast TV, who are going digital and adding phone service, but at a price and the going is v. slow and only really working in built-up areas.....

Anyway, good luck.

Bye, Barry

Sponge Bob

I have a somewhat different view of the FTTH issue.

I would seek to centralise

1. National type approval for opticl ONT and ONU equipment and bulk purchasing . Fibre and wavin pipes to premises are commodity products .
2 .Aggregations of fibres from a rural communit(ies) to a town with backhaul.

Then you have a standard network and the only difference is the number of customers on it , the gear is the same an works the same all across the access network.

In these towns where backhaul is available and a diversity of carriers exist , eg Kilkenny you get Telcos to bid to plug in and run the service and backhaul themselves, you are bulk buying exclusive access to nn homes and nnn businesses in that network ...but the complexity of individual installs and LOS issues are done away with by complete standardisation .

The locals only contract directly (apart form the bulk buy) for splices and repairs as they arise and to an SLA .