Scottish Government

4. The Scale of the Issue

It would be easy for the 'not-spot' issue to generate a disproportionate amount of attention. With emphasis on rolling out broadband services and high-profile campaigns to encourage demand registration and then uptake, for those who cannot yet be served, strong messages of frustration are often sent back to those willing to listen. Political pressure also backs those who cannot obtain service and this can add to the perception that we are facing a larger problem than may be the case.

This section gathered information from a number of sources, but, principally, from information made available from BT, together with the Scottish Executive database of broadband enquiries. Using these sources, together with a review of other available material, estimates of the nature and scale of the out of reach issue were determined.

4.1 Approach

The Scottish Executive has collated data on those reported as out of reach and who have contacted the Executive, Highlands & Islands Enterprise and MSPs with their problem. This is one source of data.

K-map, the mapping software used by Scottish Enterprise, provides locations of households or businesses that are greater than 7km from their serving BT exchange. This radius is used by K-Map as an approximate limit for the delivery of 512kbps ADSL. Where appropriate, this has been used in this study to analyse specific geographies further - although there are some issues with accuracy addressed later.

To complement this, and a source which offers the most accurate picture available, BT has provided confidential figures under a Non-Disclosure Agreement ( NDA) on the total number of lines they estimate to be out of reach in Scotland, based on a number of internal sources.

It is clear in this analysis that the 'not-spots' will comprise both clusters of users and also small numbers of households or business scattered across the whole of the country. The clusters should be easier to identify, whereas the others may appear virtually anywhere across the country and will continue to crop up as demand continues and the network changes. It will be near impossible to identify these users at this stage; instead, an approximate number can be predicted based on the information sources available.

4.2 Source Data

4.2.1 BT Data³

BT has investigated the availability position across the whole of the UK, including Scotland, for the reach of 512kbps broadband. As previously explained, the reach is affected by signal strength and noise on the network, and can only be an estimate based on the records and measurements available. To obtain the true position, the line has to be provisioned for ADSL and the service tested, which involves the customer going through the ordering process and undergoing an engineer visit where appropriate.

BT's predicted figure for those who cannot access DSL broadband in Scotland is between 7k and 24-25k(which is a 'worst case' figure). Please note:

• This is where access cannot be delivered at a 512k service or faster
• This reflects the new position post-DSL 'Max' rollout in 2006

[Furthermore, although it has not been examined within this study, the Executive estimates that a few thousand of these premises out of reach of DSL may have access to cable broadband,]

As described in Section 3.8, BT has a number of sources, which are used to predict if a line can support broadband and there a number of different technical reasons why this might be the case.

a) Electrical Characteristics

This figure is estimated from BT's knowledge of the distribution of lines in Scotland that can obtain service, together with line records to provide a total number of lines most at risk of not obtaining service due to electrical characteristics.

However, the only way to truly know if these lines can support ADSL is to test through provisioning. Local conditions, such as good quality copper runs, limited cable fill in the route etc, can result in small variations that can bring a line into service.

b) DACS

In June 2006 BT Openreach announced a new policy with regard to DACS, and will be investing an additional £10 million on DACS removal and providing replacement capacity in the network. It must be emphasised that there will still be cases where the cost to de- DACS will be excessive and will be refused. In addition, there may be examples where removal of DACS still leaves the subscriber out of reach and affected by electrical characteristics. We would suspect that this would be relatively rare, as the installation of new copper to remove DACSs should also provide a good overall link quality to the exchange.

In light of this announcement, we can assume that the DACS issue will no longer be a significant barrier to broadband provision.

c) TPON

TPON tends to be evident in relatively new housing estates around the outskirts of towns and the figure for Scotland represents the number of lines which are not yet provided with a copper overlay as part of the ongoing Openreach copper overlay programme. This programme has been ongoing for approximately four years, and the figure will drop as the programme progresses.

d) Line Concentrators

There are a limited number of lines affected by older style concentrators, and most of these concentrators will be removed through the 21 CN upgrade programme; the caveat being that there are some versions of concentrator that are compatible with 21 CN, although records show there are none of these units in Scotland.

4.2.2 K-Map

K-map provides address counts of the number of households or businesses that are greater than 7km radial length from their serving BT exchange. This radius is used as an approximate limit for the delivery of 512kbps ADSL. A reporting function within K-Map provides the total number of addresses greater than 7km across all Scotland as 5,603. Taking a 35% uptake figure, this equates to 1,960 lines out of reach and demanding service. The variation in this figure, and that provided through estimations from BT, indicates the inaccuracy of using a simple radial distance as a prediction.

4.2.3 Exchange Activate

Although not a reach issue, there are a total of 148 Exchange Activate exchanges in Scotland, which are equipped with one or multiple 30-customer units to provide basic 512kbps service. If these modules become full, then the service is no longer available for new customers, and so an upgrade is required. The upgrade is a fairly low cost for BT to provide but the limitation may be the availability of backhaul serving that exchange.

If BT does not upgrade these sites with extra modules to match demand, this will raise a further not-spot issue in these areas.

4.2.4 Scottish Executive Data

The Scottish Executive database of 'not-spots' is held in a spreadsheet that has some 750 entries at time of writing. These entries date from April 2005 up to present day. As such, they include customers who could not get service at the time of logging, but will now be served as a result of the Supply Side Intervention ( SSI) project that delivered broadband to all exchanges by December 2005.

A review was made of this database to filter out the entries that were either general enquiries or which were known, as far as possible, to have been covered by the SSI project. This has reduced the database down to 487 entries. Through a further review to group multiple complaints from the same area, this list is further reduced to approximately 230 separate entries.

Further analysis of these entries shows the following clusters:

Further analysis was completed for each of these cluster areas, using Mason's mapping software, to examine in more detail the geography of the problem and to help identify possible solutions. This is presented in the associated document, 9 WQA003O.

Note that developing the cluster table above, and the analysis of entries into clusters, was done on the information logged at the time of writing. As new entries are logged by the Executive, new clusters may emerge. In addition, single entries and small clusters of two or three are not included in the cluster table.

It should also be highlighted that there are a number of reach issues reported to the Executive from the Western Isles. These have not been included in this analysis as it is assumed they will be addressed by the Connected Communities programme operating in that area.

Note: A further two clusters were identified just prior to final issue of this report. There is a cluster around Arnisdale/Glenelg in the Lochalsh area of approximately 20 users who are out of reach and suffer what appears to be a local BT cabling problem. There is a further cluster of approximately 17 affected users in Path of Condie, which is situated directly between Kinross and Perth, who are connected to the Glenfarg exchange and affected by line length.

4.3 Analysis of the Scale

For this analysis, we assume that TPON, DACS and Line Concentrator issues will be addressed through BTs upgrade programme. In these cases, there is a role for the Executive in maintaining continued pressure on BT to progress with these upgrades as quickly as possible.

The customers affected by electrical characteristics of the line, will be a mix of clusters and of individuals scattered across the country and fed from any one of the BT exchanges. A total of 47 clusters of various sizes have been identified at this stage.

4.3.1 A Moving Target

Whilst we can say that at the moment we are maybe dealing with an estimated figure of potential customers, we would also suggest that the 'not-spot' issue is very much a moving target. As ADSL Max is rolled out across the country, and standard services move to 2Mbps as a minimum, the benchmark for the have-nots will increase. In addition, as the percentage uptake figure increases, the figure will rise further, bringing new clusters into the picture.

Though basic high-speed Internet access remains the primary driver behind the deployment of DSL, there is increasing demand for DSL to accommodate higher bandwidth applications, such as video. As such, the target of delivering high bandwidth DSL to as many customers as possible will remain and we will start to see the next round of the digital divide. Whilst the form of what is 'not' may evolve, whilst there is reliance on copper based ADSL services for provision, the not-spot issue will remain at some level.