Programme to further extend coverage of Superfast Broadband across Derbyshire. State aid public consultation
The Digital Derbyshire Project is aiming to extend the availability of Superfast Broadband across Derbyshire.
Digital Derbyshire conducted its most recent public consultation between 14 August 2016 and 14 September 2016 as a precursor to the extension of its Phase 2 project with British Telecommunications (BT) which commenced on 29 March 2018. This followed the award of the Phase 2 project to BT on 27 April 2015 with additional State Aid approved public funding of £4.38 million. The Phase 1 project was awarded to BT on the 9 August 2013 with State aid approved public funding of £14.78 million.
The contracts with BT included provisions to ensure that the full amount of the public funding is deployed, and that in the event that take-up of superfast broadband services exceeds forecasts in the contracts, then the amount of public subsidy required would subsequently be reduced to reflect this. Any funds released are then available to be reinvested into further coverage of Superfast Broadband under the terms of the contracts.
In August 2015, BT announced that take-up across the UK was likely to exceed the forecast level of 20%. To date, BT has made available up to £129 million across the UK to meet the contractual obligations outlined. Digital Derbyshire has received an initial allocation of £2.41 million and intends to reinvest this in further coverage as part of the current contracts. It is Digital Derbyshire’s intention to model residual funds of £470,000 which is from the original reinvestment figure.
The purpose of this public consultation is to confirm the areas which do not have Next Generation Access (NGA) broadband infrastructure delivering at least 30 Mbps, or where there are no plans to provide such infrastructure over the next 3 years. These are described as “white NGA areas”. This is to enable all interested stakeholders - the public, businesses and telecommunications providers - to comment on the proposed white NGA areas before further coverage is committed.
Digital Derbyshire will then submit its final proposals for the NGA white area, taking account of the outcome of the public consultation, to BDUK’s National Competence Centre for clearance.
Timescales
This State Aid public consultation will be open and run for one calendar month until 7 April 2021.
Once the State aid public consultation is complete and the white NGA areas have been finalised by the Digital Derbyshire project, a change will be agreed by the local body and BT to deliver the extended Superfast Broadband coverage.
NGA mapping
This is a brief overview of NGA mapping for the purpose of informing responses to this State Aid public consultation. NGA and basic maps for Digital Derbyshire are attached to this page.
The European Union State Aid rules are designed to ensure that any use of public funding (‘State Aid’) is targeted at areas of market failure and produces positive market outcomes while minimising any distortion to competition.
The State Aid rules require public interventions to be targeted so as to limit the risk of crowding-out or disincentivising existing and / or concrete planned private sector investments that would otherwise meet the desired policy objectives. In the context of broadband, the 2012 State Aid Decision permits the use of public funding only to extend broadband coverage in geographic areas where there is no provision of Superfast Broadband and it is unlikely to be developed in the near future (within the next 3 years).
See the ‘EU Guidelines for the application of State aid rules in relation to the rapid deployment of broadband networks’ (2013/C 25/01) The objective of the further investment is to provide access to NGA infrastructure which is capable of delivering access line speeds of at least 30Mbps.
The objective of this intervention is to target the reinvestment funding at areas that were designated as white NGA areas through the previous public consultation (carried out by Digital Derbyshire in September 2016) and where there have subsequently been no plans to deploy as part of the existing contract between Digital Derbyshire and BT. These areas are identified as [white] on the map attached to this page.
Responding to this State Aid Public Consultation
The information requested is specified in the next section. When responding to this request, Digital Derbyshire would be grateful if you could provide the following:
- Your organisation’s name
- Your organisation’s address
- Your name
- Position
- Contact telephone number
- Email address
We also request confirmation from an authorised signatory that the information provided is suitably accurate and up-to-date.
Please send your response to arrive no later than 5pm on 7 April 2021 by email to broadband.mailbox@derbyshire.gov.uk with the subject line 'Digital Derbyshire Public Consultation Response'.
or by post to:
Digital Derbyshire
Public Consultation Response
Derbyshire County Council
County Hall
Matlock
DE4 3AG
Please note that any information you provide in your response will be treated as commercially confidential to your organisation. However, it may be necessary to share some or all of your response with our professional advisors and / or DCMS / BDUK, Ofcom, the National Competence Centre, and the European Commission, in the course of seeking State Aid approval. The Digital Derbyshire name is also subject to certain legal obligations to disclose information in certain other limited circumstances.
It should also be noted that it is a State Aid requirement to utilise the information provided in response to this consultation to refine our State Aid maps to define White/Grey/Black areas for NGA and Basic Broadband. However, the published maps will show the aggregated White/Grey/Black NGA and Basic Broadband areas, not the data provided on a per-operator basis.
If you have any questions about this State Aid public consultation process, please contact the Digital Derbyshire Team by email at: broadband.mailbox@derbyshire.gov.uk
Information Requested
If you are a telecommunications provider, this section specifies the information you are requested to provide in response to this State Aid public consultation.
Digital Derbyshire is requesting information on, and supporting evidence for, any current broadband infrastructure or planned investment (within the next 3 years) in broadband infrastructure in Derbyshire, where these may not already be included within the proposed NGA and Basic Broadband Intervention Area maps attached.
For the avoidance of doubt, if you are content with our proposed State Aid Intervention Areas, no further response is required.
For any current or planned coverage not included within the proposed State Aid Intervention Areas shown on the attached maps, Digital Derbyshire is requesting information on the premises covered (or planned to be covered) by your broadband infrastructure investment. Digital Derbyshire is asking for information on coverage of Basic Broadband and NGA Broadband coverage separately (to enable us to map the Basic Broadband and NGA White/Grey/Black maps required for State Aid purposes). By ‘covered’ (or ‘passed’) Digital Derbyshire means that fixed network infrastructure is or will be available to the premises, potentially subject to a final drop connection, or that the premises are able to receive a suitable quality radio signal over the air interface (in the case of wireless or satellite coverage), potentially subject to the installation of a suitable antenna. Where an operator is responding with current or planned coverage for NGA, it must respond to confirm those premises that it is able to provide a broadband service with an access line speed (or equivalent) of at least 30Mbps.
Any information provided in response to this State Aid public consultation should include, but need not be limited to:
- Detailed maps for NGA and Basic Broadband showing the existing coverage, and separately maps detailing the planned investment in NGA and Basic Broadband for at least the next 3 years.
- Details of the actual premises covered or passed ( within postcodes (at 7-digit postcode level), and confirmation that fixed network infrastructure is available to the premises, potentially subject to a final drop connection, or that the premises are able to receive a suitable quality radio signal over the air interface (in the case of wireless or satellite coverage), potentially subject to the installation of a suitable antenna.
A detailed description of the technology solution(s) deployed (or to be deployed) in your broadband infrastructure, and where these claim to be NGA, demonstrate how they meet the minimum standards as set out in the BDUK NGA Technology Guidelines .
- A description of the services / products currently offered, and separately those services / products to be offered within the next 3 years.
- Installation, annual / monthly subscription, and additional volume or per-service tariffs for those services / products (identifying whether such tariffs are inclusive or exclusive of VAT).
- Upload and download speeds typically experienced by end-users, and how these may vary by factors such as distance, increased take-up or demand, contention, etc.
- Appropriate indicators of the quality of services (e.g. contention ratios, bandwidth allocation per user, etc), including any characteristics (e.g. latency, jitter) that are required to support advanced services such as video conferencing or HD video streaming.
- Evidence to substantiate actual or planned coverage claims, including business cases and evidence of available funding to enable plans to be fulfilled.
- Details and planned timing of roll-out of any future investments, including further investments required to cope with future increases in take-up and demand.
Please supplement the required information with any supporting evidence as you consider appropriate (such as links to public websites, etc).
Proposed NGA White postcodes
DE postcodes
DE12 8LP, DE22 5JR, DE24 8SZ, DE24 8TB, DE4 2EQ, DE4 2JY, DE4 3BT, DE4 3EJ, DE4 3EL, DE4 5FW, DE4 5LF, DE55 4BX, DE56 0RA, DE56 2BN, DE56 2JF, DE5 9TF, DE6 1LP, DE6 3DH, DE6 5AD, DE7 6BB, DE7 6BD, DE7 6DG, DE7 6DT, DE7 6FY
S postcodes
S18 1RP, S18 1UY, S18 1UZ, S18 1WA, S18 7WB, S18 7WD, S18 7WE, S21 3UZ, S21 3WA, S21 3WF, S21 5RH, S21 5RZ, S32 1AD, S32 1BG, S32 1BH, S32 1BL, S32 5QB, S33 0AW, S33 0BE, S33 0BW, S33 6SB, S40 4TD, S41 8LJ, S41 9BN, S42 5EB, S43 4EL, S43 4EN, S43 4HR, S43 4TP, S43 4TW, S45 8AJ, S45 8AN, S80 4NR,
SK postcodes
SK13 5ES, SK13 5ET, SK13 5HH, SK13 5HQ, SK22 1AZ, SK22 3AR, SK22 3AT, SK22 3AU, SK22 3AX, SK23 0QR, SK23 0QS, SK23 6AP, SK23 6AW, SK23 6DZ, SK23 6EA, SK23 7NZ, SK23 7PX, SK23 7PZ
Links to useful documents