WHAT WILL IT COST?
It is difficult to give an indication of how much a community broadband project is likely to cost as each case will be different depending on a variety of factors such as location and remoteness, type of technology used and the number of potential users.
In December 2010 BIS (the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills) published the results of a theoretical exercise undertaken by BDUK (Broadband Delivery UK). You can download the document here.
http://www.culture.gov.uk/images/publications/10-1330-broadband-delivery-exercise-conclusions.pdf
The purpose of the exercise was to understand the choice of cost effective solutions available to provide a minimum level of coverage to all premises without access to at least 2Mbps broadband.
The exercise produced the following results regarding the levels of subsidy required to bring different broadband technologies to an appropriate proportion of small, very rural, areas with no backhaul availability.
|
Technology |
Indicative subsidy range per property |
Commentary |
|
Fibre to the premises |
£2,000-£3,000 |
The subsidy per premises amounted to a significant proportion (~90%) of the capital amount. These high costs are driven by the average cost of deploying fibre the typically long distances to the sparsely populated non-spots and slow-spots only. |
|
Fibre to the cabinet |
£250-£800 |
The range and number of solutions created a large spread in subsidy amount, indicating that the cost effectiveness of this solution is highly dependent on the local geography. |
|
Fixed Wireless |
£300-£800 |
Several suppliers believed their fixed wireless solutions were unsustainable in some areas. |
|
Satellite |
£300-£400 |
Given the high wholesale product rental costs and limited margin, there is little scope for cross-subsidisation of the capital – government subsidy would instead be directed at the CPE and installation. |
To create and manage a Community Broadband project you should consider both the set up costs and the running costs.
