Digital Region Project may seek commercial operator to rescue it

[Mikes10 10]

former Mayor of Doncaster Peter Davies says ( from Yorkshire Post article ):

 

“The council leaders involved thought they were businessmen, but the way

the project has gone proves they wouldn’t know how to run a whelk stall.”

 

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/main-topics/general-news/disastrous-digital-region-project-costs-soar-to-155m-1-5896044

[Paddy 10]

Is any of this going to effect Origin at all?

 

Well if no one buys the network then I suppose it will eventually run out of money and be switched off. So yes it would effect Origin and any other suppliers on there.

[AlexAtkin 10]

According to Origin: http://drlforum.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=647&pid=7419#pid7419

Everything's going REALLY well for Origin right now!

 

I can't say much - other than that we have an agreement protecting our - and our customers' interests. And contrary to this report, it's BAU for us!

[Paddy 10]

According to Origin: http://drlforum.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=647&pid=7419#pid7419

 

To be honest that's what all businesses say even when they know things are going bad. You'll never get anyone who works for a company to say "Yes things are really bad right now and we fear the worst". They would be too worried about being fired.

 

I hope things turn out ok for all those involved in the digital region project.

[walkerx 10]

To be honest that's what all businesses say even when they know things are going bad. You'll never get anyone who works for a company to say "Yes things are really bad right now and we fear the worst". They would be too worried about being fired.

 

I hope things turn out ok for all those involved in the digital region project.

 

Totally agree with that, look at RipWire they kept saying everything was fine, still taking on orders and then ceased trading about 2 weeks after I switched back to BT.

 

They must have known for a long time they were in trouble and would have been in talks with Digital Region and everyone else prior to closing. It's just not an overnight thing for big companies.

 

Either way I think something good will come of the Digital Region Network in one form or another and I don't think it will just cease to exist. BT, Sky, TalkTalk or Virgin could even take it over.

[tintin123 10]

Now the government has bailed out of their share, I don't see how the councils can legitimately continue to pour another £1m a month into the black hole. As the minster has said the market has changed. The business plan was flawed. No body will make it pay. Time to shut up shop. Origin may have agreements, but they'll be worth diddly squat when the network is powered off. I think the best us customers can hope for is that we are given a decent amount of notice to make alternative arrangements.

[Mikes10 10]

An appeal:

 

http://drlforum.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=649

[Paul Blade 10]

An appeal:

 

http://drlforum.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=649

 

Not really an 'appeal' is it more of "What would you do now to save it? I'm interested to hear people's ideas. " I don't know the person but he doesn't seem to have anything to do with DR apart from using them

Bio "Founder of the Unofficial RiPWiRE Support Forum which then became the "Digital Region Community Support Forum". "

I would be worried if one of the Origin team posted this

[walkerx 10]

Not really an 'appeal' is it more of "What would you do now to save it? I'm interested to hear people's ideas. " I don't know the person but he doesn't seem to have anything to do with DR apart from using them

Bio "Founder of the Unofficial RiPWiRE Support Forum which then became the "Digital Region Community Support Forum". "

I would be worried if one of the Origin team posted this

 

SpencerUK is the forum administrator and has broadband knowledge, he was also with Ripwire and that is how the original forum came about, when Ripwire ceased trading the forum was changed to what is it now known today.

 

The forum is a community of people who are on the network and also have been on the network and are they to help other users. It is also the best place to go for answers and information as Origin are quite active on there and quite a few users from SF also participate regularly.

[AlexAtkin 10]

There are also several users on the forum who AREN'T on the network but are considering moving there, smart people who are testing the water before committing.

 

What really gets my back up (not on the forum, people are more sensible there) are the people who moan about the network being a waste of tax payers money but who never even considered using the network. I wonder how many of those people have Virgin or some other comparable service. Its easy to call out the network with hindsight but when I got the service BT had no plans to do my exchange.

 

Even now they have my broadband connection is 10Mbit faster in both directions than I can get anywhere else. Granted I was fortunate to get the line card upgrade but if more people were willing to move over then they would have a reason to upgrade the cards. This bad publicity could easily be half the reason the network continues to dwindle, they are scaring potential customers off the network.

[walkerx 10]

Thanks Alex thought I had also put in about users moving to the network

 

The only reason it's so called 'waste of tax-payers money' is because there has never been a huge drive to get people on the network and as Alex says there has been a lot of negativity about it.

 

In a way I think the project should have been done in such a way that South Yorkshire became like Kingston upon Hull and had it's own infrastructure away from BT, especially as KCOM helped build the infrastructure for Digital Region...

[AlexAtkin 10]

That is a good point and its "kind of" what they were going for I think by pushing VoIP.

 

The problem is that the big cost of all this is paying BT for that last mile connection to the cabinet, which means its actually cheaper to keep your POTS line and go with the likes of Primus for line rental. If they could have run their own cables, or gone full fibre to the home, in the long run it would likely have worked out cheaper.

 

But that is another thing people miss about all this. When Digital Region started, BT were not allowing anyone to share their conduits. It was only once Digital Region had actually finished laying all their ducting that Ofcom forced BT to offer their ducting to competition.

 

So its all very well the government pointing the finger but if they had gotten BT to lease their ducting sooner, Digital Region could have saved a fortune and rolled out MUCH quicker. They might not have had to lay any ducting at all.

Edited July 28, 2013 by AlexAtkin