Britain's Broadband Questions

We hope that our interim and final reports may have contributed to the UK government's rethinking of its broadband strategy since July. Today's Britain's Digital Future announcement from the UK government echoes several of our recommendations, including the key recommendation that, Every community will get a digital hub so that by 2015 the UK has the best fast-broadband network in Europe..

In a dot.Rory blogpost published today, Rory Clelland-Jones (@BBCRoryCJ) asks what this means. What is a digital hub? What is meant by every community? The answers will be crucial to the success of the policy. Our final report has detailed answers to both questions.

What is a digital hub?

A digital hub performs two functions:

First, a hub should bring a fibre connection to each community, so that community networks and service providers can access a trunk connection to the global internet.

To stimulate innovation and maximise opportunities for revenue generation, wholesale access should be open at several levels, including IP services, leased wavelengths, dark fibre, ducts and poles. At the IP level, Britain needs regulation that provides existing and new providers with a level playing field guaranteeing access to equitable peering and transit contracts. Britain's core digital connectivity should enable appropriate use of all technology options: cabled and wireless connections, dedicated and over-IP channels, symmetric interactions, and real-time and on-demand content delivery.

A hub providing every community with open wholesale access to fibre should enable domestic, business and wireless providers to develop innovative forms of local access.

Second, social hubs should be provided so that internet access and support is available to residents and visitors, in libraries or other community centres.

What is meant by every community?

To enable universal access to next-generation speeds, the core backhaul infrastructure, must bring fibre within reach of every community of 2,000 people. Wherever a circle drawn on the map encompasses a population of at least 2,000 people, that circle should include a hub.

Planning for a five-year plan

Martha Lane Fox, the UK's digital champion, attended the industry day on 15th July at which Jeremy Hunt abandoned the 2 Mb/s target for 2013. She said it was essential that Britain achieved universal broadband coverage at 2Mbps as soon as possible. "I know fibre rollout is important, but I personally think we can do a lot by hitting the universal service commitment," she said.
In Scotland, our analysis shows that even to deliver 2 Mb/s will require the rollout of more fibre infrastructure. In fact, our analysis suggests that to deliver any significant improvement on the status quo, for communities outwith the major conurbations, will require a coordinated national strategy. To deliver 16 Mb/s internet access to Scotland’s population will require concerted and coordinated infrastructure planning, and sustained commitment.
Here we only presume to identify the key infrastructure that must be developed, and to outline the kind of planning that is required.
At a local level, the population densities at which most of Scotland’s population live are comparable with those in England. Indeed, for 90% of the population they are higher. We conclude from this that Scotland can exploit the same “last mile” technologies as the remainder of the UK. The un-forested scottish countryside may facilitate more use of wireless for backhaul and access distribution.

Backhaul is the issue

A prerequisite for local provision of an access network is the availability of a “backhaul” internet connection. Wireless and copper connections can only provide limited bandwidth. For our calculations, we use an optimistic figure of 512 Mb/s for the maximum backhaul that can be delivered by copper and wireless technologies. The total bandwidth required to serve a community is the product of the subscriber bandwidth and the number of subscribers, divided by the contention ratio. So a simple calculation allows us to quantify the subscriber bandwidth delivered by a given backhaul capacity.
Backhaul for current consumer connections is typically provisioned at a contention ratio of 50:1. As households include more connected devices, and as the use of streaming media and distributed interactive applications (such as cloud-based services, multi-player games, and video chat) increases, we believe that assuming 50:1 contention will be unrealistic. We use a figure of 25:1 to estimate the backhaul required to connect a community to the internet.
For these estimates we do not add a separate allowance for business connections. The main distinguishing feature of business connections is currently that they require more symmetric connections. This will affect the design of local access networks, but is not relevant to the issue of fibre backhaul provision. For our purposes, we assume that the population will make similar demands on backhaul whether working at work, working from home, or just using the internet for everyday life.
We assume an average household size of 2.5 people. A 512 Mb/s connection can support a 512 Mb/s service for 25 subscribers, or a 256 Mb/s service to 50 subscribers (population 125) at a 25:1 contention ratio. Working backwards from a required subscriber bandwidth, we can compute the maximum population that can be served by a wireless or copper backhaul connection. Larger populations require multiple connections; wherever these are aggregated, there must be access to fibre.

How much backhaul do we need?

Population served by a 512 Mb/s backhaul @ 25:1

speed (Mb/s)	population
128	250
16	2,000
2	16,000
0.5	64,000

If we want to get beyond the 2 Mb/s barrier we have to bring a fibre point of presence to every 16,000 people, and to get to next-generation speeds beyond 16 Mb/s will require a fibre connection to every population of 2,000. To do less would be short-sighted.
The accompanying map (2.4 MB pdf) shows the minimum spanning tree of Scotland's census output areas coloured to show, in green roughly where there is documented existing fibre, in red the new rural fibre that would be needed to bring fibre to each community of 2,000, and in blue the distal parts of the network, the local access networks that will use a mixture of wireless, existing copper, and fibre to the home.

Digital Scotland Report to be published on Tuesday 26th

Press release: embargoed to Sunday 24 October 00:01 

21 October 2010

RSE calls for Scotland to take urgent and innovative action on broadband.

“Communication is the life blood of society. Scotland’s future depends on having in place an effective digital infrastructure that will underpin a successful economy, vibrant culture and strong communities” explains Professor Michael Fourman, chair of the report ‘Digital Scotland’ that will be published by the Royal Society of Edinburgh on Tuesday 26 November.

“But when it comes to delivering access to high speed broadband, Scotland is falling behind its international competitors, and so will fall behind in all areas in which high quality communication is vital: the economy, health, education, the delivery of public services and social interaction.”

Following consultation with industry players, community groups, regulators and government, Professor Fourman and his team are calling for urgent action at a Scottish level to increase the volume and speed of access to the internet across the country. “Scotland must take the lead in developing its own digital infrastructure. We should not, and cannot, rely on the UK Government to deliver this for us. The Scottish Government and Scotland’s local authorities must work together to drive forward the digital agenda as they are the bodies that hold many of the levers to do so, such as planning regulations, procurement and business rates.”

Digital Scotland sets out a comprehensive plan for the creation of a core fibre infrastructure that would bring high speed broadband within reach of all of Scotland’s communities: urban, sub-urban and rural. It calculates the capital cost required to ensure that all of Scotland can keep up with the global pace of development over the next few decades at around £100 million. For reasons of social inclusion and equality of opportunity, Scotland cannot afford a widening digital divide. The report proposes that this enterprise could develop as a distinctively Scottish community effort, bringing benefit to the whole of Scotland, with innovative funding options that need not call on the public purse.

The working group recommends that a Digital Scotland Trust be established to raise finance, procure, operate and maintain the core digital infrastructure in the national interest. It calls for an optic fibre backbone, akin to the trunk roads of our transport network, to be created, that will bring next-generation speeds to a nationwide network of digital hubs from which community networks and service providers can connect to the global internet. And it recognises the need for social hubs, where internet access is available to all, in libraries and other community centres, and where support is available to groups who would otherwise be excluded from digital society.

Geoffrey Boulton, General Secretary of the RSE, comments “As with the industrial revolution two hundred years ago, we are now caught up in another technology-enabled global revolution of possibly similar magnitude. The coupling of new digital technologies that permit acquisition and manipulation of massive amounts of information with devices that put instantaneous communication in the hands of all, is again revolutionising the global economy and social, political and personal relationships. It is a revolution that has not yet run its course. It has both benefits and dangers, and its ultimate trajectory is uncertain. What is not uncertain is the need for Scotland to be at the forefront of this revolution as it was in the 19th century.”

“Good internet access is crucial to our competitiveness in global markets and the survival of our local communities,” Professor Fourman continues, “The pace of chance is likely to quicken rather than falter, which itself will create many challenges because, as recent history has shown, the trajectory of technological development is likely to be unpredictable, as will many of the uses to which it will be put. We are confident, however, that continuing advances in digital technologies will produce further benefits for society.”

Broadband communication offers dramatic increases in economic efficiency through reduction of transaction costs, and the opening of access to global markets. These come hand in hand with advances in data collection and analysis, improved user engagement provides real time customer feedback. Improved decision making reduces the reaction times of businesses in responding to threats and opportunities, claims the report. 

And it’s not just about business. The social benefits are enormous – enhanced broadband capacity increases social interaction in communities, opening up more opportunities and greater flexibility at work and in leisure. Both consumers and producers benefit from a more efficient economy. More people have the opportunity to contribute to the workforce. Rural areas excluded from the modern economy can now engage. Parents staying at home to raise children can work flexibly from home. 

The web has revolutionised social interactions amongst the young in particular. Social networking sites, pervasive communication and ready access to information and knowledge through instant search are not an integral part of the social structure of modern life. In the USA for example 17% of couples married in the past 3 years first met on an online dating site. 

Information technology is also providing a powerful stimulus to the strengthening of civil society, in which many hopes were invested at the time of parliamentary devolution. Digital systems have the capacity to enhance the delivery of public services at a reduced cost in health, education, social services and other areas of government responsibility. 

Lack of infrastructure capacity limits the provision of local access, the delivery of next-generation speeds to homes and businesses, and the rollout of mobile data services. The Digital Scotland group welcomes BT’s work to extend its fibre to more exchanges; and the announcement on 20 October that the Highlands and Islands have been successful in securing one of BDUK’s three rural broadband pilot projects which will be delivered in conjunction with the BBC.  The important point is to ensure that this delivers open access to affordable backhaul at fibre speeds. These initiatives will reduce the scope and lower the cost of the programme required.

The report is already receiving widespread support. 

Influential Scottish businessman Sir Angus Grossart commented “This report should be implemented. It will be a potent lever to liberate and develop the abilities and potential of Scotland, at a low cost. The enhancement of our communications infrastructure will have a transformational effect, across the widest areas of activity and geography.”

David Cairns, Chair of ScotlandIS welcomed the report, explained “A world class communications infrastructure is essential if we are to give Scottish entrepreneurs the ability to address global markets.  It is also essential to be internationally competitive in the 21st century.  The opportunity is exciting, but if we fail to seize the day we also face the threat of a weakening competitive position because others are not standing still.   ScotlandIS welcomes this report which sets out a practical, affordable plan to deliver a future proofed digital infrastructure for all Scotland's communities, businesses and public services.”

Jeremy Peat, BBC Trustee for Scotland, commented “I very much welcome this thoughtful report and wholly agree with the importance of spreading access to high speed broadband across Scotland  - and encouraging its take up. I would note, regarding take up, that the reasons for low broadband take up in West Central Scotland also merits attention.”

http://bit.ly/digiscot

http://twitter.com/digiscot

http://digital-scotland.blogspot.com

ENDS

This information and further details/interview arrangements from:

Susan Bishop, RSE

sbishop@royalsoced.org.uk

0131 240 2789

07738 570 315

Or 

Carol Anderson

The Business

0131 718 6022

07836 546 256

Scotland's Broadband Strategy 2001-2010

only the numbers have changed

Scotland has a problem

"the issue of the lack of trunk capacity is a real constraint on the promotion of economic development in island and remote rural areas, ....  island and remoter links are not robust"

Scotland has a broadband strategy – dating from 2001. In this post we look to see what has changed over the past decade. Short synopsis: nothing has changed but the numbers.

The 2001 strategy considered the backhaul requirements for five small towns. The speeds from 2000 look quaint (but remember, that even today the 26,000 population of the Western Isles shares one 34 Mb/s connection to the internet).

To adapt one of the key findings of the Digital Scotland working group to the language of the 2001 strategy, our Digital Scotland report finds that every 1,000 people require a backhaul bandwith of 32 Mb/s (at 25:1 contention, for 400 subscribers) to achieve subscriber speeds of 2 Mb/s – we argue that this is the minimum speed required for "functional internet access" in 2010.

By 2015, median speeds will have increased eight-fold. The minimum speed, available to all, should rise similarly, to 16 Mb/s, at which point a community of 1,000 will require 256 Mb/s of bandwidth. We should plan beyond that, for universal speeds of 128Mb/s in 2020.

Taking the 2000 populations, for ease of comparison, We see that each of these towns will require gigabit backhaul before 2015. This requires fibre. 

This why we recommend that every community of 2,000 people should have access to a fibre backhaul connection by 2015. Only fibre can provide the bandwidth required, just to satisfy the private demand.

The good thing is that once fibre reaches a community the backhaul issue will be resolved for decades to come. A single fibre can carry over 100 channels using different colours of light, and each channel can carry 100 Gb/s. Installing surplus fibre is cheap, so we can invest for the future as we provide for the present.

We must act now. Already many parts of Scotland cannot improve their internet connectivity for want of backhaul, and providers cannot extend mobile broadband coverage to many parts of Scotland for the same reason.

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The primary aim first stated in 2001 has stood the test of time. It should still be the foundation for a strategy for the present:

• to make affordable and pervasive broadband connections available to citizens and businesses across Scotland

We should still

• ensure that every school has access to a rich online world in which it will be possible to communicate with others by text, voice or video.
• ensure that all parts of the health service can transfer data and use telemedicine as necessary.
• ensure that all local authorities can provide modern, customer focused services.

And public sector procurement is still a vital tool

• Our objective is that, by providing broadband to the public sector, we stimulate providers to offer a wider range of services to business and individuals.

It is still true that

• Higher bandwidth facilitates high volume data transfer and certain applications, such as video-streaming and concurrent design. If we are to have world-class education, world- class health services and globally competitive business, it will be vital that the latest applications can be used and for this we need “always on” broadband.
• To be world-class, we need to be at the leading edge in the use of ICTs. That will require action to promote use, supplementing the stimulus of competition and the market.
• Demand is important, but the market does not always respond quickly enough. Therefore the focus of this paper is how we ensure that when demand exists, services can be supplied.

In short, we need a world-class broadband telecommunications infrastructure.

We still find it difficult to plan because, "None of the maps of telecoms trunk and local networks in Scotland are either comprehensive or definitive. This is because firstly, this information is very largely commercial-in-confidence and secondly, the network is constantly evolving."

We still find that the issue of the lack of trunk capacity is a real constraint on the promotion of economic development in island and remote rural areas, and that island and remoter links are not robust. 

It is still the case that Monopoly provision persists in rural and remote areas. The 2001 concern about whether it will achieve future widespread commercial provision of broadband services to meet anticipated demand, has given way to certainty that it will not.

The key challenge remains: how to build on existing network strengths whilst addressing the shortcomings of the existing infrastructure, particularly in rural areas.

Keeping up-to-speed

Scotland was an early leader in broadband access, with a programme targeting universal access to 512 kb/s broadband completed in 2009. This was largely successful. In practice, however, some consumers only achieved somewhat lower speeds, and over 2000 have only satellite services, with latencies of around one second making them unsuitable for many interactive applications. More important, the infrastructures established to deliver these services will not scale to keep pace with the growth of broadband speeds worldwide.
The importance of competitive data communications has long been recognised by the european universal service obligation (USO).

The connection provided shall be capable of supporting voice, facsimile and data communications at data rates that are sufficient to permit functional Internet access, taking into account prevailing technologies used by the majority of subscribers and technological feasibility.

Median broadband speeds in the UK are already (in 2010) over 5 Mb/s. As the usage of broadband interaction increases, median speeds will follow Nielsen’s Law, which predicts continued growth over the next decade, by a factor of 8 every 5 years. So we anticipate median speeds in the UK of 40 Mb/s in 2015 and 320 Mb/s in 2020.
A dynamic definition of universal service is implied. The minimum connection rate for universal access must track advances in the information society to ensure continuing digital inclusion. Our recommendation is that Scotland should plan to deliver minimum speeds that are somewhat less than half of these median figures:

2010	2015	2020
2 Mb/s	16 Mb/s	128 Mb/s

These targets should be subject to rolling review. The current Ofcom USO dates from 2005 and cites a figure of 28.8 kb/s. Just updating this by applying Neilsen’s Law would give a figure of 256 kb/s in 2010 and 2 Mb/s in 2015 (which matches the latest Westminster government policy). We recommend that this should be reviewed to take into account prevailing technologies, with a universal service obligation to provide access to the internet at speeds that are not less than one quarter of the median speed delivered to UK subscribers.
These are targets for minimum download speeds for universal access. We expect median speeds to be 2-4 times as fast. In our next post we analyse the infrastructure implications of these targets.
Download speed is not everything – low latency and upload speeds are also important. However, we will find that the infrastructure required to achieve these download speed targets will also support low latencies and symmetric services.
Our aspirations should be compared with those of our international competitors. For example, Finland has a commitment to deliver 100 Mb/s to all by 2015. This places Finland five years ahead of broadband rollout curve. However, current Westminster policy is to lag a further five years behind even our more modest goal.

Functional Internet Access: what speed do you need?

The importance of data communications has long been recognised by the european universal service obligation.

Article 4.2 The connection provided shall be capable of supporting voice, facsimile and data communications at data rates that are sufficient to permit functional Internet access, taking into account prevailing technologies used by the majority of subscribers and technological feasibility.

A dynamic definition of universal service is implied: the minimum connection rate for universal access must take into account advances in prevailing technologies. Universal functional Internet access (FIA) is necessary to ensure continuing digital inclusion in the information society.
Median broadband speeds in the UK are already (in 2010) over 5 Mb/s. As the usage of broadband interaction increases, we expect speeds to continue to grow. Prevailing technologies will follow Nielsen’s Law, over the next decade at least, with speeds doubling every 20 months–increasing by a factor of 8 every 5 years. So we anticipate median speeds of 40 Mb/s in 2015 and 320 Mb/s in 2020.
Ofcom guidelines on FIA, that users should be able to expect connection speeds of at least 28.8 kb/s, were issued in 2003. The most recent review (2005) considered that, "the benchmark minimum speed should remain at 28.8 kbit/s for the time being."
A speed of 28.8 kb/s no longer provides functional internet access, on any common-sense understanding of the term. For example, even an optimised page such as the www.tesco.com home page weighs in at 54 KB, and would take around 15 seconds to load. The www.amazon.co.uk home page totals 740KB, and would take 3m25s to load.
Just updating the 28.8 kb/s figure from 2003 by applying Neilsen’s Law would give figures of 512 kb/s in 2010 and 4 Mb/s in 2015.
The UK government has recently announced an unambitious target of 2 Mb/s for 2015. This will leave us some 10 years behind Finland (100 Mb/s in 2015) and 20 years behind Singapore (where they are currently installing 1 Gb/s connections to the home).

Dispersion of Scotland's Population

In his comments on our interim report, Alan Arnott noted our statement that,

“Over 10% of the population of Scotland lives in population densities greater than 10,000 people per km², while the least accessible 15% live at densities of less than 1000 people per km²."

He commented that,

the UK has an overall population density of around 350 people per km² with Scotland around 65/km² so the above figures seem somewhat inflated.

We based our analysis on the Census 2001 data for "output areas" (OA). Our interim report attempted to summarise the contrast between the dense cities and sparse hinterland. The figures we gave are correct, but rounded.

In fact over 11.0% (but less than 11.1%) live at densities over 10,000 p/km². The least accessible 14.6% live at densities < 1,000 p/km². The least accessible 15% live at densities < 1,070 p/km². Instead of rounding the percentage, we should have rounded the population count and said, "while the least accessible 15% live at densities of less than 1100 people per km²".

However, the comment prompted us to return to make a finer comparison with England, with a surprising result.
The population densities averaged over each country are Scotland 65 p/km²; England 377 p/km². One might naturally expect this to imply that, in general, people in Scotland live at much lower population densities than people in England. This is not the case.

At a local level, 90% of the population of Scotland lives at population densities at least as high as those in England!

There are 46,604 output areas in Scotland, and 165,665 in England. The "Key Statistics" table gives area (A) and population (P) for each output area.
We calculate population density for each output area (as the quotient P/A), and list the output areas in order of decreasing population density. The cumulative percentage of population included in initial segments of this list is used as abscissa (x-axis) in the graphs below (click on the graphs for larger images).
Our interim report included this plot: It shows, for each x, the percentage of the area of Scotland occupied by the most densely housed x% of the population, with the area shown on a log scale.
To compare the population densities in Scotland and England, we plot two new graphs (below) of population density. In each case we use a log scale, and units of people per hectare (for p/km², multiply by 100). The data for England (green) are compared with those for Scotland (blue).
The upper graph plots the population density for each output area against the cumulative centile within which its population falls. For the first 90 centiles of population from each country, those in Scotland live at marginal densities at least as high those in England. Scotland has many small communities, often packed more densely than their counterparts in England. So "last mile" solutions that work in England should be applicable also to communities in Scotland. The lower graph plots the "cumulative density", computed as the quotient, cumulative population/cumulative area. This shows how the gap between the overall figures of 65/km² for Scotland and 377 p/km² for England as a whole arises because the last 10% of the population is much more sparsely distributed in Scotland than in England.
What these graphs do not show is that many of Scotland's communities are widely separated. The "middle mile" connections required to bring broadband to these communities are a particular concern.

Broadband target pushed back ...

Culture minister Jeremy Hunt today announced that the 2Mb/s by 2012 target, which he had previously dismissed as unambitious, was unachievable. He said the target will have to be pushed back to the end of the current Parliament in 2015.
He still said Britain should have “the best broadband network in Europe by the end of this parliament”. Meanwhile, Finland's target for 2015 is for 100 Mb/s. Ours will not compete. Broadband speeds, worldwide, are expected to continue to grow – 8-fold in 5 years, 64-fold in 10. Just as a five-year-old computer has a hard time coping with today's applications, so a broadband speed of 2Mb/s in 2015 will seem as inadequate as a speed of 256 Kb/s does today.
It is worthwhile looking in more detail at the targets. How can we fall so far behind? Britain's focus is on the date by which every home will have a 2 Mb/s service. Finland concentrates on the core infrastructure. Its target is to ensure that fibre backhaul sufficient to accommodate 100Mb/s service is available within 2 km of every home and business. The presumption is that, once this is done, market forces will provide the "last mile" connection to the home. Rutland Telecom's success demonstrates that this could also happen in Britain, where suitable backhaul is available. Our national strategic target should be to establish the core infrastructure – the rest can follow through a combination of market provision and local initiatives.
Fibre must come within reach of every home and business (within 2 km for wired connections; within 30 km or more for small communities that con be connected by wireless links). This is an essential prerequisite for sustainable provision of broadband speeds that keep pace with those enjoyed by our competitors. In Singapore, which has a much greater population density, 1 Gb/s fibre to the home is being installed today.
Our strategic planning should concentrate on the development of this core fibre network. A fibre cable is as cheap as copper to lay, and can provide ten thousand times the bandwidth. It requires less maintenance and has an expected lifespan of over 30 years.
Hunt's calls for effective use of capacity in existing networks, and for exploitation of sewers and roadworks to reduce the costs of laying new fibre are welcome. To address the growing digital divide, we also need a strategic review of current fibre infrastructure, cooperation and open access to maximise the effective use of this infrastructure, and targeted investment to bring fibre to areas currently out of reach. This investment should be stimulated by removing – for shared-access passive infrastructure – obstacles such as business rates on fibre and masts, and Crown Estate levies on sub-sea cables.
Today's announcements gave no hint of a strategic plan. The issues of next-generation rollout are well-studied. Reports such as Alcatel-Lucent's Fibre Nations white paper (2008) set out clear challenges to governments. Unless these are addressed we will continue to fall further behind.
Our interim Digital Scotland report provides more detail, and your comments are welcome.

Interim report open for consultation

Michael Fourman presented the interim report today to the cross-party group for Science and Technology at the Scottish Parliament.

Digital Scotland Consultation

Update 23 June 2010 if you wish to comment on the draft consultation report, please use the comments section below this post. The consultation document will be launched on Wednesday 30th June.
Please comment on this and earlier posts to contribute to the development of a Digital Strategy for Scotland.
The development of digital society is changing the ways we live, work and play. These changes are global, but local action is required to maximise local benefit.
Scotland needs a Digital Strategy to remain competitive in a rapidly changing world. This should enable local enterprises to participate in the global digital economy, include local communities in the global digital society, and allow Scotland to exploit new opportunities — afforded by current and future technologies — for innovation in devolved areas of government.
To contribute to the factual basis on which such a strategy must be built, we will survey four major areas and conclude with our recommendations:

1. Users and benefits
• How may different communities be affected by digital society?
• To include communities of interest as well as geographic communities.
• To include business sectors as well as social groups.
• To assess the benefits digital inclusion may bring.
2. Infrastructure
• Geography and demographics
• Installed capacity
• Technology survey (copper, fibre, wifi, satellite, etc.).
• Technology foresight - five-year/ten-year.
3. Content and access
• Consider how Scottish policy may affect re-use of public-sector information in devolved matters (including, e.g. education, health, government).
• Public access – schools, libraries, parks.
4. Comparators
• We will consider a range of international comparators matched for demographics and geography, to see how both policy and practice elsewhere might inform a Scottish strategy.
5. Recommendations
• Our recommendations for policy and action will be founded on the evidence gathered in earlier sections.
• We will gather, and invite comment on policies and actions being proposed and adopted elsewhere, as well as novel suggestions for the Scottish context.

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We invite public contributions to help us both shape and answer the questions we will address under each of these headings. We intend this to be a flexible process.

Each of the five headings above is linked to its own page, where you will find more detailed questions and discussion.

In the first instance, please contribute by commenting on the appropriate page (for general suggestions on content and process please comment on this page).

All comments will be moderated – please, no spam: spam will be rejected. Please indicate in what capacity you are writing. Indicate clearly any parts of your message not intended for open publication (private messages for the committee or personal contact details). 

Always assume that participation online results in your comments being permanently available and open to being republished in other media. Be aware that libel, defamation, copyright and data protection laws apply.

Digital Scotland: Users and benefits

We will identify groups, activities and communities that will be affected by Scotland's Digital Strategy. These will include communities of interest as well as geographic communities, and business sectors as well as social groups:

• Commerce
• Entertainment
• Farming and fishing
• Tourism
• Education
• Health
• Government

We will assess, and where possible quantify, the requirements of different groups and the benefits digital inclusion may bring.

Economic framework

We hope to demonstrate that:

• Broadband is not only the web and email—it's also a radio, a tv, a daily newspaper, a library and a town hall.
• Digital infrastructure contributes to education, health care, energy, public safety, and democratic engagement.
• It supports collaboration and innovation, and provides producers and entrepreneurs with access to global markets.
• It makes remote communities more sustainable, and supports social inclusion.

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Please add your comments and contributions below.

All comments will be moderated – please, no spam. Please indicate in what capacity you are writing. Indicate clearly any parts of your message not intended for open publication (private messages for the committee or personal contact details). 

Always remember that participation online results in your comments being permanently available, and open to being republished in other media. Be aware that libel, defamation, copyright and data protection laws apply.

Digital Scotland: Infrastructure

We will identify the capabilities of current and future technologies that may contribute to Scotland's digital infrastructure, and examine their applicability in relation to Scotland's geography and demographics.

• Geography and demographics
  • Urban Scotland
  • Rural Scotland
  • Suburban Scotland
• Current and planned provision
• Technology summary
  • Fibre
  • Copper
    • POTS
    • Co-ax
    • Power Line
  • Wireless
  • Satellite
• Technology forsight
  • Computation
    • Moore's Law
  • Communication
    • Nielsen's Law
  • Data
    • The Data Deluge

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Please add your comments and contributions below.

All comments will be moderated – please, no spam. Please indicate in what capacity you are writing. Indicate clearly any parts of your message not intended for open publication (private messages for the committee or personal contact details). 

Always remember that participation online results in your comments being permanently available, and open to being republished in other media. Be aware that libel, defamation, copyright and data protection laws apply.

Digital Scotland: Content and access

We will consider how Scottish policy may affect re-use of public-sector information in Scotland — in particular, in devolved matters (which include, e.g., education, health, government).
What barriers exist to universal digital inclusion in Scotland?br /> What opportunities may be provided for public access – e.g. through schools, libraries, community meeting places and parks?

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We invite contributions to help us both shape and answer the questions we will address.

Please comment below.

All comments will be moderated – please, no spam. Please indicate in what capacity you are writing. Indicate clearly any parts of your message not intended for open publication (private messages for the committee or personal contact details). 

Always remember that participation online results in your comments being permanently available, and open to being republished in other media. Be aware that libel, defamation, copyright and data protection laws apply.

Digital Scotland: Comparators

This section will benchmark a selection of local initiatives and international comparators, in order both to learn from practice elsewhere, and to identify the plans and capabilities of our present and future competitors.

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Please add your comments and contributions below.

All comments will be moderated – please, no spam. Please indicate in what capacity you are writing. Indicate clearly any parts of your message not intended for open publication (private messages for the committee or personal contact details). 

Always remember that participation online results in your comments being permanently available, and open to being republished in other media. Be aware that libel, defamation, copyright and data protection laws apply.

Digital Scotland: Recommendations

Our final report will include recommendations for policy and action. These will be founded on the evidence gathered in earlier sections.
The draft recommendations listed below may be amended in the light of further evidence.

Draft recommendations

1. An integrated backbone providing universal access should be developed as strategic infrastructure for Scotland.
   This could be achieved by a combination of FTTC (fibre to the cabinet) in built-up areas, with sparser fiber provision supplemented by wireless distribution, in less-populated areas.
2. Regulation should be made to require open data on core infrastructure and competitive access to nodes and ducts.
   This will enable innovation and the development of local community broadband in areas of market failure.
3. All future transport infrastructures and urban developments should be pre-installed with tubes into which optical fibre may later be installed, or ”blown”, as a planning requirement.
4. Open internet access should be provided, in schools, libraries, community centres etc., to support digital inclusion.
5. A standard open licence for public data should be adopted and used.

Recommendations made elsewhere

1. Install broadband fiber as part of every federally-funded infrastructure project.
2. Deploy broadband fiber to every library, school, community health care center, and public housing facility in the United States
3. Create incentives for providers to install multiple lines of fiber as new networks are rolled out.
4. Encourage greater wireless broadband and reduce barriers to deployment.
5. Vouchers to allow low-income students to get broadband Internet service at their homes.

These are taken from various sources, including Google's suggestions for US national bb plan.

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We invite your comments on applicability to Scotland of the recommendations listed above and your contributions to help us formulate and shape our own recommendations.

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Second meeting

The RSE Digital Scotland Working Group met today.

It was agreed that Professor Michael Fourman would be the chair of the working group.

A draft scoping paper that had previously been circulated was discussed and a number of comments and suggestions made - these will be taken on board and a revised scoping paper, suitable for briefing organisations and individuals we wish to consult, will be circulated.

To help frame the questions for consultation, we will build the framework of issues that the final report may be expected to cover, and perhaps to identify some areas that it would not be feasible or worthwhile to address in the course of this work.

The two pieces of work identified above will be completed before the next meeting of the group, on 10th February. Interviewing of witnesses and gathering of evidence will commence after this meeting.