Northern Ireland NBP - "Project Stratum"

clohamon

Quite interesting committee meeting at Stormont (from 1:27:00)

https://niassembly.tv/committee-for-the-economy-meeting-wednesday-11-march-2020/

Project finance £165 M
Premises : 78,750 (96.8% rural)

Bidding closes: May 5th 2020
Project award: September 2020
Build begins: March - Jun 2021
Expected Completion: 2024

• As the finance is capped, the winning bid is the one that can cover the greatest number of premises. Apparently there is a plan 'B' for those that miss out.
• " A supplier" (BT presumably) recently did a re-evaluation of the intervention area and decided that it could serve an additional 18k premises (@>30Mb/s) without State Aid, hence the reduction in premises to 79k.

<wild back-of-envelope stuff follows>
Comparing to down here with Eircom cost per premises (300K network) at c. €760/premises and cost of Intervention areas at €4300/premises, makes net gap funding per premises at €3,540 (say £2,900)

Which gives approximately only 57,000 premises from the £165M available in Northern Ireland, ie a shortfall of 22,000 premises.

Correction:
Using a more up to date GBP-EURO exchange rate of 0.91 in stead of 0.84, gives a gap funding of £3,220/premises and a shortfall of 27,500 premises.

clohamon

Announcement of preferred bidder for NI NBP - Project Stratum - due in "coming weeks" says Irish News.
http://www.irishnews.com/business/2020/06/23/news/just-two-in-running-for-fibre-broadband-contract-as-openreach-hits-360-000-premises-1982331/

An announcement on the preferred bidder is due in the coming weeks.

Both remaining players in the process have been on separate charm offensives in recent days.

Last week Fibrus pledged that every home in the north will have access to full fibre broadband by 2025 under an ambitious commitment it has to identify and plug any remaining gaps in fibre coverage.

And Openreach, which builds and maintains the largest fixed communications network in the north, revealed it has reached a milestone of ensuring 360,000 homes and businesses - more than 40 per cent of properties in the north - are now able to access full fibre broadband at speeds of up to one gigabit.

clohamon

clohamon wrote: »

Announcement of preferred bidder for NI NBP - Project Stratum - due in "coming weeks" says Irish News.
http://www.irishnews.com/business/2020/06/23/news/just-two-in-running-for-fibre-broadband-contract-as-openreach-hits-360-000-premises-1982331/

Multiple credible sources have informed ISPreview.co.uk that the Northern Ireland Executive are set to announced (sic) that alternative network ISP Fibrus has beaten BT (Openreach) to be chosen as the main supplier for their £165m Project Stratum programme, which will extend “superfast broadband” (30Mbps+) coverage.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/09/fibrus-win-contract-for-n-ireland-superfast-broadband-project.html

At the time of writing Fibrus has declined to comment, while we are still awaiting an official response from the NIE’s Department for the Economy (technically the tender process is still on-going until they formally confirm otherwise). We also queried this with Openreach.

An Openreach spokesperson told ISPreview.co.uk:

“The Stratum tender process is still ongoing, so we can’t comment on that.
However, our Full Fibre build continues, with the aim of reaching at least 525k premises (60% of NI) by the end of March 2021 – and we don’t plan to stop there.

Former enet CEO Conal Henry's twitter account should be worth watching.

clohamon

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/09/openreach-hails-50-percent-full-fibre-cover-in-northern-ireland.html

Back in late June 2020 we reported that Openreach’s full fibre network had covered 360,000 premises (up by 100,000 since January 2020) and they’ve since added another 60,000 to reach the new total of 420,000 premises.

The operator, which is now building FTTP across N.Ireland at a rate of over 3,500 premises passed per week, currently plans to continue their deployment to the next target of 525,000 premises (60% coverage) by March 2021 and they’ve recently indicated that they won’t stop there.

clohamon

This looks familiar.
https://www.newry.ie/news/mla-requests-update-on-next-generation-broadband-roll-out

"In recent weeks utilities company Fibrus has been awarded the contract to build the network across the region. This is a very welcome development and I know it will be welcomed in many rural communities across Newry and Armagh."

Mr McNulty has asked Economy Minister Diane Dodds to bring forward and publish a detailed plan, by postcode area, of when the works will happen in each area to let communities know when to expect broadband provision in their area.

I hope the Minister will agree to publish a detailed roll out plan so communities can plan ahead."

clohamon

This deal has now been officially announced.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-54967504

About 76,000 premises are to benefit from full-fibre broadband access.
The total funding for Project Stratum is £165m, with £150m coming from the confidence-and-supply agreement deal signed between the DUP and the Conservative Party in 2017.
The remaining £15m is being provided by Stormont's Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs.

Charles Babbage

I can't find a good map of this project, but it seems to involve 97,140 premises. It is badly needed, Openreach have only been pushing out fbre to handy places, you see much less fibre on poles in the 6 counties than neighbouring parts of the 26.

The Cush

Charles Babbage wrote: »

Openreach have only been pushing out fbre to handy places,

The low-hanging fruit, as it was referred to down here under eir's 300k commitment.

clohamon

Charles Babbage wrote: »

I can't find a good map of this project, but it seems to involve 97,140 premises. It is badly needed, Openreach have only been pushing out fbre to handy places, you see much less fibre on poles in the 6 counties than neighbouring parts of the 26.

It was reduced to 79,000 back in January after BT did some cherrypicking, and now, to 76,000.
You can get the postcodes here.
https://www.economy-ni.gov.uk/consultations/extending-broadband-across-northern-ireland-project-stratum
(Revised Annex 1 - white postcodes)

Charles Babbage

clohamon wrote: »

It was reduced to 79,000 back in January after BT did some cherrypicking, and now, to 76,000.
You can get the postcodes here.
https://www.economy-ni.gov.uk/consultations/extending-broadband-across-northern-ireland-project-stratum
(Revised Annex 1 - white postcodes)

However, these white postcodes include quite a few in Belfast area, for instance BT6 0NE is the PC World at the Forestside shopping centre. It also includes a rural area I know to have Openreach FTTP already.

It doesn't quite seem like the list of remote places that the NBP map shows in the 26 counties.

clohamon

Following the award, Department for the Economy NI have updated their website.

The robust tender evaluation process for Project Stratum was followed by the necessary governance procedures in advance of Building Digital UK (BDUK) State aid Quality Assurance and final approval. The contract for Project Stratum has been awarded to Fibrus Networks Ltd. A portal has been developed by Fibrus to provide information to citizens on key aspects of implementation, including planned phasing and full deployment of NGA broadband infrastructure across the target intervention area. The information will be updated and expanded on a regular basis.

HyperfastNI is the Fibrus website for this project

A full fibre solution, capable of offering speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second to almost 97 percent of premises in the target intervention area will be delivered. Plans to address the remaining premises in the target intervention area will be announced in the near future, further building on DfE's aims to maximise coverage to reach as many premises as possible through this public intervention.


Deployment of the new infrastructure is expected to commence immediately, and implementation will run until March 2024. The public investment of £165 million combined with Fibrus' substantial investment in network build costs, will help transform the broadband connectivity landscape for many of our citizens and businesses across primarily rural areas of Northern Ireland.

clohamon

First connections in this project being reported by Irish News.
https://www.irishnews.com/business/2021/03/09/news/project-stratrum-goes-live-with-first-fibre-broadband-customers-connected-in-co-tyrone-2248102/

THE first customers have been connected to the £165 million broadband scheme to improve connectivity in rural areas of the north.

Fibrus Networks was awarded the tender for Project Stratum in November 2020. It will eventually provide full-fibre broadband to around 76,000 premises, with most of the funding coming from the £150m secured through the DUP’s confidence and supply arrangement with Theresa May’s government in 2017.

Last month the Department for the Economy (DfE) said it would seek additional funding from London to extend Project Stratum to a further 2,500 premises left out of its current scope.

Map of estimated roll-out schedule here.
https://hyperfastni.com

clohamon

Updates:

2021-08-13 - CEO of Project Stratum's contractor Conal Henry shows up on Adran Weckler's podcast.

2021-12-14 - As noted by @heavydawson on the NBP implementation thread.

Northern Ireland Audit Office relating difficulties of getting incumbent telcos to play nicely with newcomers.

Subsequently in April 2021, BT further announced that it intended to invest £100 million in the next 12 months to expand the availability of 1Gbps broadband to a further 100,000 premises and maintain its current network. BT confirmed that the investment would cover rural villages across Northern Ireland, including villages that already featured in the Project Stratum intervention area. BT has noted that it is normal that plans can change because of operational issues and that the updated premises data it provided in September 2020 reflected changes to its commercial build and future plans that had occurred since its last Open Market Review.

Full report here

https://www.niauditoffice.gov.uk/publications/contract-award-and-management-project-stratum

clohamon

Extra £32M for this project to fund 8,500 extra/different homes.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2022/01/project-stratums-n-ireland-fttp-rollout-adds-another-8500-premises.html

There's some confusion about whether these extra homes are replacing previously planned homes that have been encroached in the meantime by BT.

However, there is one element of confusion in the announcement, which stems from where it states that the “total number of premises to benefit from this … will be c.85,000, all of which will have access to gigabit-cable broadband as deployment of new infrastructure continues.” Except, that was the same total expected from their previous extension of 8,500, which leaves us confused as to why the new total is not more like 93,000+.

It’s possible that the increased reach of rival commercial deployments may have further reduced the previous coverage commitment. Alternatively, the DfE could simply be re-announcing the same extension, but then the funding levels and timescale this time are very different. We have contacted the DfE for clarification.

clohamon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118493557#Comment_118493557

Some further digging by ISP Review confirms that total premises is the original 76K + 8.5k = 84.5k. So effectively this is the third time these extra premises have been announced.

A Spokesperson for the Department for the Economy said:

“The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) announcement made in August 2021 was in relation to its intention to allocate public funding to this exercise, which the Department welcomed. The funding allocation from DCMS amounts to 70% of the final funding requirement, under terms agreed with BDUK, with the Department for the Economy (DfE) and Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) allocating the remaining 30%.

The announcement by the Department details the contribution by DfE/DAERA and is the culmination of the governance and approvals process, including State aid Assurance provided by BDUK, and represents the formalisation of the process to bring the additional 8,500 eligible ‘white’ premises into scope, utilising further funding of £32m. Project Stratum will therefore provide 85,000 premises in predominantly rural areas of Northern Ireland with access to gigabit capable broadband under the revised plans.”

clohamon

Fibrus Chairman Conal Henry explains why refusing discounts to rural fibre customers is in the public interest.

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/fibrus-defends-higher-bills-for-broadband-customers-in-rural-areas-41352919.html

“If we reduce the revenue available on the network you increase the amount of subsidy that is required to build that network and the result of that is against policy, because either you need more subsidy to deliver the same number of houses, or the same subsidy delivers a reduced number of houses and either of those outcomes I would have thought would be against policy.”

The Committee meeting is here

https://niassembly.tv/committee-for-economy-meeting-wednesday-16-february-2022/ Mr Henry speaks at 45:30 and 48:50

clohamon

https://www.independent.ie/business/technology/company-of-ex-nbp-boss-lands-260m-funding-for-rural-rollout-in-north-41507720.html

Not clear how much of this money is to be invested in Northern Ireland.

“This latest investment helps us to meet our current plan of connecting 330,000 premises and we are already well ahead of schedule. We are making Northern Ireland a better place to live, to work and to invest in.”

The company has also entered the English market, where it will build broadband connections in the northwestern province of Cumbria.

clohamon

Project Stratum is being superseded/complemented by Project Gigabit - a universal gigabit capable broadband plan.

https://www.economy-ni.gov.uk/sites/default/files/consultations/economy/OMR-Gigabit-RFI.pdf

The similarities with the southern NBP are quite striking.

• Intervention area mapping
• Granularity to Unique Property Reference Numbers UPRNs (cf. Eircodes)
• White Grey and Black areas, and areas ‘under review”. 
• Private deployments credibility test including detailed financial strength tests.
• Stage timeframes e.g., High Level Design, Lowlevel design, Build, Ready-For-Service etc

Interesting to see if NBI will have another attempt when this goes to procurement.

heavydawson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120320339#Comment_120320339

They're allocating £5 billion for the entirety of the UK? Seems...low.

clohamon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120323286#Comment_120323286

I think that refers to the wider UK "superfast" programme which is only >30Mb/s.

There’s parts of the Scottish R100 programme eg (Lot 3 Southern Area) which are 100% fibre and similar or higher cost per premises than NBP.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2022/12/scotlands-r100-fibre-broadband-build-wont-finish-until-2028.html

heavydawson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120325229#Comment_120325229

This is why the government has committed £5

billion for the hardest to reach parts of the country, ensuring that all areas of the UK can

benefit. This will be spent through a package of coordinated and mutually supportive

interventions, collectively known as Project Gigabit.

https://projectgigabit.campaign.gov.uk/

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2023/02/winter-2023-update-on-project-gigabit-uk-broadband-rollout.html

The project is technology neutral, thus operators can use FTTP (preferred), Hybrid Fibre Coax (DOCSIS 3.1+) or fixed wireless (e.g. 5G) to plug the gap.

clohamon

Not stricly Stratum related, but ISP Review reports that Stratum contractor Fibrus is increasing it's private deployment target in NI to 450k

....On top of that, Fibrus has also increased its ambitions in Northern Ireland, forecasting that a higher number of its million homes target could be delivered in this region. As a result, they now expect to cover 450,000 premises across N.Ireland, which is approximately 50% of homes in the region (that’s up from their original goal of 350,000).