ITWales.com
Michael Eaton: Taking Broadband Wales to the next level
By Basheera Khan
Broadband Wales, a pivotal part of the Welsh Assembly Government's ambitious Cymru Ar-lein strategy, was first announced in July last year with a price tag of £100m. The budget has risen since then,
with a progress report to August 2003 quoting a total cost of £115m.
The job of seeing that this amount is used both judiciously and effectively has fallen to the new director of Broadband Wales. News of Michael Eaton's appointment came almost a year to the day after
the Broadband Wales strategy was first unveiled, and he assumed his new responsibilities at the beginning of September this year.
A brief look at his career history, and it appears that the Assembly has coaxed on board a new member who can be trusted with the job at hand. Not only has Eaton worked in the communications
sector for the last 20 years, he's worked in Welsh telecommunications for the past 15 and on a range of broadband technologies for the last 10.
An engineer by training, Eaton cut his teeth in the telecommunications sector when he began working for what was at the time the General Post Office, at about the point that it started the transition to
British Telecom.
Over time, Eaton moved into the private sector, working on both telecommunications networks, structures and architectures and technology, and data communications. Newbridge Networks, now part
of the Alcatel stable, first brought him to Wales; he joined the company in its early days as European product manager, and worked across all kinds of technologies that were being brought into Europe.
Eaton comments, "In that context, I started working on broadband technologies over 10 years ago. And I was responsible over the years within that context working with many service providers around
Europe, and many large enterprise customers on the application of new technology to solve their business needs. So although I started off as an engineer, I've always been straddling the blend of
technology business usage and regulatory issues. And really, what drives me is the usage of appropriate technology to solve those needs, so I have an intimate knowledge of most broadband
technologies and their usages in different parts of the world."
"I'm lucky in that over the years I happen to have gone into both traditional fixed line technology - things like DSL - but I also was responsible for broadband wireless technology, so I'm equally at home
in fixed line and wireless technology, and I think that is very fundamental to the success of broadband Wales. If you look at it as effectively, a five year programme, over that period of time, technology
will change. Different technologies will become available but in the end, the way that it will be successful in a Welsh context is that the appropriate technologies will be deployed and used for the
different market requirements."
Eaton's view of broadband access technology is all-encompassing, and in that respect he steers clear of seeing wireless access alone as the panacea to deliver high speed Internet access to rural
Wales.
Wireless technology has the potential to work in certain applications, he says, and though in recent years a lot of work has been invested in broadband wireless for local loop distribution, some of the
technologies which people had hoped would address the issue fell short of satisfying requirements for economic viability and quality of service.
Now, Eaton believes, research and development focuses not only on local loop distribution technology, but also long-distance backhaul technology, a move which he believes makes wireless
technology a much stronger proposition.
"I don't think that people should view wireless as a necessarily secondary option - it's intriguing that people do think of it as such, but it needn't be viewed as such. Different technologies can be applied
in certain different environments and the key thing is to provide a total coverage for both the business and the residential customer, effectively."
Eaton is certain that Wales will find a suitable blend of technology to take high speed Internet access to even its remotest corners. An example can be taken from other countries around the world
which have similar geographical distribution of people with differing needs. Switzerland is one such place, and there are many more from whom we can learn, he says.
"In that context, the combination of fixed line and wireless represents a fundamental component in the same way that roads and railways have been over the past, in terms of enabling economic
behaviour as well as linking in with individual requirements. For me, that is a fundamental piece of the puzzle."
"I think in the Welsh context, the reason why I'm here is really very simple - it's that I believe that the successful deployment of broadband technology linked with other activities that are to do with
knowledge and education and usage of ICT within the home and within business, is fundamental and is achievable."
Eaton's hopes for Broadband Wales include a ramping up of the supply side industry, making it attractive and competitive, and ensuring that it provides bandwidth in all shapes and sizes within the
broadband context.
He believes the supply side should be healthy and competitive across a range of technologies, and the demand should be fuelled by both business and consumer sectors, and should be encouraged
along people's natural usage of broadband as a communications facility.
"What I'm focused on at the moment is a blend of activities which have been ongoing anyway - the education and awareness raising campaign, which is as much to do with enhancing business
knowledge of what broadband can do for you, as well as the consumer knowledge of what broadband can do for you. This is linked with a number of specific projects which are underway, and which
are to do with the supply side piece of the puzzle."
Broadband Wales' work with the Welsh Development Agency in encouraging take-up of the SME Satellite Broadband Subsidy Scheme, and in delivering broadband access to business parks will
continue apace, even as Eaton focuses on the issue of supply.
"We will continue to move forward on the supply side opportunity by building forward relationships with the suppliers who work or want to work within the Welsh context, to effectively build a stronger
broadband backbone capability within Wales - there's no point building the access network if the core network cannot handle it - as well as the multiple players that are already active within the
Welsh communications market."
"At the moment there are a number of initiatives which are already running and will continue to run, but the Broadband Wales piece of the broader ICT strategy and the Winning Wales strategy will
become more visible as more things happen in the network to make broadband technology both more available and more affordable over the period of the programme."
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