UK Govt's Expensive Mobile Coverage Project Builds Just 8 Masts In 4 Years

An anonymous reader points out a dismal report at The Register on a project intended by the UK government to connect lots of internet have-nots, but which has so far not accomplished as much as hoped. The Mobile Infrastructure Project is intended to provide last-mile connectivity, but the project has languished, and fallen short of its promises. This year, Department for Culture, Media and Sport has managed to erect only six masts, which can serve about 200 homes apiece. Originally more than 575 sites had been commissioned, following the publication of the “no coverage” database by watchdog Ofcom. At the rate seen so far of four masts a year it will take over 140 years to complete the £150m Mobile Infrastructure Project. The original deadline was to to have all the sites equipped and live by the end of 2015. However, that deadline was extended to March 2016 to "ensure that benefits of the program are maximized."

Comments

Despite all evidence

[perryizgr8]

Despite evidence like this which speaks volumes about government intervention in what is a free-market area of expertise, we still have so many people clamoring for the government to offer all kinds of services like healthcare, telephone, internet, etc.

Re:Despite all evidence

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Meh, it's just a question of management and accountability, this project clearly had very little of either. Projects farmed out to the private sector with stiff penalties for delays and failures (with insurance to cover the costs in case of bankruptcies) can quite often be an adequate way to get the most out of public funds. And/or ditch the jobs for life mentality that many government workers seem to have.

Re:Despite all evidence

[Shadow of Eternity]

It's easy to say government doesn't work when your side is busy doing everything in its power to ensure that outcome.

Re:Despite all evidence

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It certainly sounds like they fucked this project up pretty vigorously(if nothing else, even if it is amazingly difficult for some reason, failing to identify that ahead of time is bad); but there is one important aspect you fail to note: The project's objective was to provide coverage to areas that private operators were not providing coverage to. Exactly what mixture of 'potential customers too poor'/'topography ensures lousy RF propagation'/'planning permission, rights of way, and fights with the neighbors will be a march through hell' caused private operators to ignore these areas is unknown, at least from this article; but for one reason or another providing cell coverage was an area of utter disinterest and/or inability for the private sector in these areas.

That's a pretty major distinction: walking in on something that the private sector is doing vigorously and competently and deciding that we need a Ministry of Whatever is folly. Coming into a situation that the private sector is unable or unwilling to address and doing something about it is what 'the public sector' is all about.

There is room for debate about what counts as 'unable or unwilling', and when we should do something vs. just let them suck it up; but 'do what the private sector won't or can't' is essentially the mission statement of even libertarian governments(they just interpret that as a pretty small number of things).

Re:Despite all evidence

[Intrepid imaginaut]

As for the jobs for life mentality, too many people who think their job is on the line are afraid to buck the system, stand up for what's right, and talk about problems.

Funny how it seems that it cuts both ways, isn't it?

Even funnier is the way it works out the exact opposite to what you seem to imagine. The jobs for life brigade are the most likely to keep their heads down because they're both aiming for a career and scared of being shunted off into a dead end paper shuffling position if they step on the wrong toes - you have to live with that job for life. Office politics in government bureaucracies are far more vicious than in the private sector.

Re:Despite all evidence

[AmiMoJo]

The free market failed to deliver essential services. The government encouraged the free market to serve those areas, but the free market still failed. The logical conclusion is that the government should just provide the services directly itself.

Re:Despite all evidence

[rmdingler]

Often times the most effective public works projects are managed with a combination of for profit private enterprise and sober government oversight.

The original deadline was to to have all the sites equipped and live by the end of 2015. However, that deadline was extended to March 2016 to "ensure that benefits of the programme are maximised.

Except for the colloquial spelling distinctions, almost exactly the same as most USian government projects.

If the exaggerated completion scope can be remediated by some massive cost overruns, then it is precisely the same.

Re:Despite all evidence

[trout007]

Of course companies fail. That is the entire point to a free market and why it works. The free market optimizes the problem of who gets to control resources. If a company fails to generate profits that means it is using more resources than the customers give it. It then goes out of business and the resources are freed up to more profitable companies to make use of.

Government is the exact opposite. If a department does its job well and actually reduces a problem its budget stagnates. If it does a very poor job it claims it needs more resources and is typically given them. It also intervenes in the markets when a company is politically connected and "too big to fail". The market determines a company is wasting resources and it needs to go out of business. The government taxes the profitable companies and gives it to the bankrupt ones as a bailout.

Re:Despite all evidence

[trout007]

There is a cost/benefit analysis you need to do before you live anywhere. A city has lots of access to goods and services but is expensive. The middle of nowhere is beautiful and peaceful but you miss the benefits of society. But if you vote for the right politician you can have both by forcing other people to subsidize your costs of living in the middle of nowhere.

Re:Despite all evidence

[trout007]

So can I build a house in the middle of the Antarctic and get others to pay for my power and cell phone?

Re:Despite all evidence

[drinkypoo]

So can I build a house in the middle of the Antarctic and get others to pay for my power and cell phone?

It's beneficial to governments to have taxpayers dotting the country, so they are willing to spend some money to accommodate people who live in the sticks.

Re:Despite all evidence

[fche]

... but but but ... internet access is a human right! It better be pretty fast too.

Re: Despite all evidence

[AHuxley]

Re 'How does that justify the huge government project?"..
AC most of the cash would have gone into mapping and working out what was a "no coverage" area and would stay as "no coverage" long term.
Was a remote area in need of coverage, having no other traditional services and lacking in the ability to attract traditional private shared telco interest.
Height, location, costs, floods, numbers of users, power options, existing telco connections in the area that could be used or extended, what providers in the area will share or have to build out from very limited local support.
All that complexity would have to be found, created as raw data and considered. Where a service is really needed and the private sector is cautious due to location or existing non cell services...
No duplication of existing or planned private sector builds, no systems with too few users. How much for power and a network connection to a new site?
Who pays for the new connection? How many providers would even be interested per site long term? A government gifted tower that looks after a few lost people and a few locals at a huge loss over many years?
Or a tower that could be projected to make some profit after gov support up front?
The limitations and media event thats a for profit "public private partnership" Tax payers take all the risk, private sector gets all the profit even with fewer than expected users. Support costs given a more remote site and faults over the years of the project for a very small set of users? A huge distance to cover or some strange local hills, mountains that offer unexpected coverage over distance. Still worth the build? An overlay of mil and sensitive sites that have stingray like cell perfection but dont show as having much private sector coverage on databases. No need to create issues with a new telco cell tower.

Re:Despite all evidence

[trout007]

Only if you consider the Central Banks abort to flood the market with cheap money inflating bubbles a part of the free market.

Re:Despite all evidence

[trout007]

If they are rich they can afford their own fire protection.

Re:Despite all evidence

[PopeRatzo]

Milton Friedman is one of those evil people that covers up his evil with the cloak of university

As maybe the only Slashdot user who has actually taken a class from Milton Friedman, I feel obliged to say that I don't think he was an evil man, just a True Believer. The policies that have come from his writing have been disastrous, even evil, but he was just a zealot.

[I was a 17 yr old UofC undergrad and it was a lecture course with over 100 people in it, so I didn't really know him. He taught some interesting stuff, but he also taught me that Economics is basically Parapsychology with wingtips.]

Re: Despite all evidence

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Obviously, now that the project has massively failed, nothing justifies it. Public or private, nobody ever wants to be stuck explaining or justifying a plan that went so badly that it delivered none of the benefits that it was supposed to. About the best possible justification is that the failure was not one that could reasonably have been predicted; and it gets worse from there.

The question, though, is whether the project was always folly(either in that its objectives weren't worth the price even if they had been fulfilled; or that its estimates of success were optimistic to the point of dishonesty, or some combination of the above); or whether the project was justified; but somebody screwed up project management pretty impressively and left us with an unjustifiable result.

I have no interest in defending this particular project, either in original concept or in execution, just in keeping certain important distinctions in mind. Public, private, personal, whatever; some plans are born stupid and attempting to execute them is a failure in itself. Some plans are risky; but have large potential upsides as well as large potential downsides, whether or not these are a good fit for you depends on your situation. Some plans are good, or at least adequate, and should be pretty uneventful; here implementation failures are the major villain.

Given that TFA provides a reasonably sparse account of what the plan was; and my interest in obscure UK infrastructure projects is limited, I'm not terribly interested in trying to track down whether or not this plan was dumb from the start; just noting that all failures look dumb in hindsight; but only some failures look dumb in foresight.

Re:Despite all evidence

[AmiMoJo]

Remind me who the government of the Antarctic is again. What did their last manifesto say about cell coverage?

Re:Despite all evidence

[trout007]

Didn't sound like a personal attack. The solution is to allow a free market in money, gold, silver, bitcoin, tulip bulbs, Amex gift cards, etc. When you give anyone the power to create money out of nothing expect it to be abused and the powerful to fight for that control.

Re:Despite all evidence

[trout007]

http://www.coolantarctica.com/...

Re:Despite all evidence

[thegarbz]

Before you talk about public vs private inefficiencies I suggest you look up some private sector project fuckups as well. Just an anecdote but I witnessed a $50m project to upgrade a process plant to reduce acid consumption. It was originally a $10m project. That got changed half way through, then got changed half way through the new scope, and then got changed again a 3rd time. I'm sure they would have made changes again but they canned the project after spending $40m and have absolutely zero to show for it.

There are really efficient, and really inefficient projects in both sectors.

Re: Despite all evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

It hasn't massively failed, unless massive failure means simply not proceeded as quickly as they could have.

Do try to remember that is an important distinction.

Maybe the question was if they had the authority to complete the task in the time expected. However, since they've only spent part of their budget, and they have begun to proceed, it's at least possible this is more of a delay than a massive failure.

A massive failure would be something like these towers not even working.

Re:Despite all evidence

[AmiMoJo]

There us a cost/benefit analysis to not subsidising more rural areas. If you encourage everyone to move to densely populated areas it creates various problems, which ultimately you will end up paying for.

Yes, Minister

[3.14159265]

These two series of documentaries are necessary if you wish to understand the politics of government and public service:
Yes, Minister and Yes, Primer Minister.

All politics is local

[tomhath]

FTFA:

It added there had been problems with site providers' willingness to allow a mast to be erected, local planning application, the availability of power and access and meeting the final value for money test based on build costs rather than forecast costs.

In other words, they fudged the numbers to make it look cost effective and ignored that fact that they can't just walk in and force people to give up their private property..

Re:A problem with spending unearned money?

[orasio]

Could this be a problem endemic to organizations that spend money that they didn't really do anything to earn in the first place?

No. If that were true, all people who are born rich, and all rich families would be completely useless to society. Many of them are. Some of them are not. You need a different theory.

Re:So eight masts, but what's their future look li

[tomhath]

You can imaging that, but it isn't what's happening. The problem is that the people paying for the masts and providing the sites don't benefit from them, so they have no incentive to go along with the project.

Re: A problem with spending unearned money?

[mattwarden]

Orgs that don't have to worry where next year's operating income will come from will never be as motivated to hit timelines as orgs that have to build and sell things in order to continue to exist. Nonprofits with endowments or steady donation commitments, government funded science or other orgs, and government agencies all fall into this category.

Trouble erecting masts?

[seven of five]

They have pills for that now, y'know...

Correct your story, then come back with it.

[Fragnet]

4 years isn't much time to give it. In the UK you need something called planning permission before you erect a mast. It's very hard to get, especially in rural areas.

Re:Correct your story, then come back with it.

[ledow]

I work for a private school that's near a huge town inside the M25. It sits in the middle of borough-owned land and the land was sold to the borough with a permanent legal edict that it can only be used for a school. Thus, even the government can never build anything else on it but a school. There are no neighbours to speak of (the school owns most of the surrounding buildings for staff), and nobody can even SEE the school from the local towns/roads anyway as its so set back. There are huge full-size pylons going through school grounds so it's hardly a picture-postcard to start with.

To my knowledge, the school have at least 4-8 planning applications on the go at any one time. Some of them pre-date even the oldest members of staff, and most of them are handled by staff that inherited them when they started the job. Some are tiny (e.g. to combine existing sheds into a more structured building), some are huge (e.g. to take hundreds more students in a purpose-built building). Rarely does anything get approved, and it takes literally years, sometimes decades, to get close. By which time the planning application may have been back and forth with architects, legal departments and the planning people some dozens of times because of necessary changes caused by new laws etc. introduced in the meantime.

Not only that, but when you get close, the plans are heavily modified and usually are nowhere close to fit-for-purpose so the projects get abandoned or restarted under another plan.

As such, the history of the buildings that are there show you that they get about one plan approved every 10 years or so. There's the original house, the block they added in the 60's, the one they added in the 70's, the 80's, the 90's, etc. The total size of the school is about, maybe, three times the size of the original building and still NOWHERE NEAR encroaching on any services, neighbours, people's views, etc.

Planning is an absolute roadblock to all these kinds of things. We wanted a decent Internet connection. We couldn't get one over traditional lines (because we're SO FAR AWAY from anyone who has a telephone!). Even VDSL could only manage 11Mbps. So we needed a leased fibre.

It took three years to get one. Planning blocked every move. At one point, it was discovered that NOBODY KNEW who owned 12 feet of land. It took six months to resolve that, and I was told that was the fastest it's ever been done. The local borough had to apply to the Land Registry to take control of UNOWNED land, then cede that to itself, then ask itself permission for us to use it, etc.

In the end, we had to dig hundreds of metres of soil, with the aid of co-operative local landowners, ourselves to get close to where we could join up with a fibre provider. Three years after initial plans were laid, we got a 100Mbps connection. And all because of planners.

I've been asked to price up the IT for another building plan they are working on. After many years, they were expecting an answer and then we could start laying the groundwork for it. Turns out, it's going to be nearly the end of the year before the next stage happens. Nobody is surprised. And there's now little point pricing up. Who cares how much a fibre run would have cost to put in many months ago before all the building plans were changed again?

Given that the school is in the "millions of pounds" territory, that the site can never be used for anything else, and that we're miles from disturbing anyone, it still takes decades. You have to have at least 5 plans on the go or you'll never get anything done... if you submit a plan every year, then in ten year's time you might get maybe 1/5th of those plans approved, but at least you have something to be getting on with. If all you have is one request, in one place, and can only ask once? Come back in 5 years when it's refused and resubmit the same plan again. It'll never happen.

Not saying that I disagree with there being the need for planning permission, especially in cities and where pe

TL;DR version

[Mr_Silver]

UK network operators are castigated by the UK Government for not building out mobile coverage in rural areas.

Network Operators respond by pointing out that they don't because of the difficulty in finding locations to provide the required coverage, local planning applications, the availability of power and problems with site access.

UK Government says "amateurs, we can do it better than you" so sets up project to do just that.

Project spectacularly fails to achieve anything and sheepishly admits that the reasons for its failure are due to the difficulty in finding locations to provide the required coverage, local planning applications, the availability of power and problems with site access.

Re:So eight masts, but what's their future look li

[AK Marc]

The problem is that the people paying for the masts and providing the sites don't benefit from them, so they have no incentive to go along with the project.

So this is another case of a poorly written contract and insufficient oversight. No, I'm not going to blame the government, I see this as much (or more) with large corporations. The contract is to build towers. There isn't a cancellation clause for failure to perform (or it's not being exercised). Or a claw-back for delays.

One of the things government does right is roads in Dallas. The new LBJ toll express lanes were done months ahead of schedule. I didn't live there for that, but I did when US-75 was widened, quicker than scheduled, and under budget. They cut payment for lane closures, so they widened a busy 2-lane (each way) urban highway with almost no daytime lane closures (the "cost" of closing a lane at night was lower).

If the person providing the site doesn't benefit, then why aren't they compensated at a reasonable cost? If they simply refuse to cooperate because they think they can extort more money from the builders, then eminent domain (compulsory purchase) should solve that problem.

UK government project

[nickweller]

"The Mobile Infrastructure Project is intended to provide last-mile connectivity, but the project has languished, and fallen short of its promises."

Sounds like it's going to plan, as in spending as much government money as possible ..