COLLABORATION NATION – DEPLOYMENT AND OPERATION OF DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE

“Collaboration Nation” was the conference organised by the Technology Strategy Board to showcase the 84 projects chosen in the Digital Britain innovation competition, worth in total £2m. One of the afternoon strands focused on infrastructure issues, the most relevant to community broadband initiatives.

BATH LABS was the first presentation. Their project aimed to demonstrate NGA delivery to flats, hotels etc at speeds of 1Gbps using unused bandwidth in the existing internal terrestrial TV distribution system. They reckoned this gave faster installation and reduced costs. A major advantage is that the TV system will already have maintenance arrangements (usually high quality). The market is a sizeable niche, though the many and varied installation arrangements can make a one-size fits all solution difficult. Neat solution for valuable niche.

NEXUS ALPHA have developed a very low power computer and are looking to take that further to 0.5W to 3W in order to run solar powered WiFi. This would be ideal for remote regions, bringing web connectivity to otherwise unconnected communities, and for temporary systems in emergency or relief situations.

To my mind, the most interesting presentation for community broadband groups was from POWERLINE TECHNOLOGIES. They string fibre over the overhead electricity infrastructure. A head-end is then installed on the final pole, where the transformer is located (and which is already reinforced). This provides 200Mbps to an average of 8 homes over broadband powerline communications. The same system can also provide backhaul into 3G not-spots and smart-grid capability to the electricity company, thereby sharing the costs between more players. They aim to do a proof of concept trial in April, and are looking for community partners.

ZAP CORPORATION’S pitch was totally different. They have a method of IP packet inspection which enables them to insert targeted content (ads) into IPTV streams. A profiling engine allocates individuals to one of many sub-sectors, allowing ad agencies to select appropriate content to be delivered. There are some data privacy issues, though active consent and the fact that individuals’ information is not released to the ad agencies get around most of them. Clearly this is a coming service – time will tell whether this is the right technology.

For more on these and other projects go to http://digitalbritain.innovateuk.org/