It is hoped that this meeting will enable us to examine and address current connectivity problems, explore cutting edge developments in this field, and consider an action plan for next steps.

It is also expected that the event will provide an opportunity for those attending to make useful contacts from amongst both industry specialists and local broadband groups

The Venue...

The Council Chamber, Civic Offices, 1 Saxon Gate East, Milton Keynes, MK9 3HG

The Programme of Events...

7: 00 Introduction:
Richard Jones, Chair, will explain the purpose of the meeting in more detail and establish ground rules for the event

7:10 Broadband Action Group:
Nick Hubbard, founder of BB4MK, will explore some of the current problems with Broadband connectivity in MK from a citizen's perspective

7:25 BT:
John Small, Director of Customer Satisfaction, and Bradley Borum, Customer Satisfaction Manager, will explain BT's position and discuss some of the current issues and future developments in BT’s Broadband programme

7:40 Council & ntl:
Steven Jewell, Head of IT for Milton Keynes Council, and Nick Wainwright, Director of Access Engineering for ntl, will discuss MK’s Wireless Broadband pilot

7:55 Oakgrove Millennium Community:
Nigel Bruin, IT Consultant for English Partnerships will discuss the utilisation of future communication technologies within this groundbreaking development.

8:10 Question & Answer Session:
The Panel will be available to answer questions and queries from the floor

The Panel

Chair - Richard Jones:
Richard heads a Project Management consultancy (RDJ Consultants) with extensive experience in the fields of Broadband, Rural Connectivity, ICT, e-Government and e-Learning.
He is also founder and Chief Executive of the East of England Telematics Development Trust and in this role has been instrumental in the development of the East of England Broadband Network and the East Midlands Broadband Consortium.
Richard has recently become Managing Director designate of the proposed e2e Research Centre and Senior Consultant for the Informatics Research Centre at Reading University.

Nick Hubbard - BB4MK:
Nick is an ICT specialist and has been a Milton Keynes resident since 1983. Although he became a Broadband customer in 1999, on moving to Monkston in 2002 he discovered that connectivity problems meant that he could no longer access the service. He consequently formed the Milton Keynes Broadband Action Group, largely to see if he was the only technologically disadvantaged citizen in this hi-tech new city.
A year after foundation, the group now has over a thousand members.

John Small - BT:
As Director of Customer Satisfaction for BT Retail, John is responsible for the implementation and delivery of BT Retail's Customer Satisfaction improvement programmes. To achieve this, John leads a team who work to identify, define and deliver the improvement programmes and projects that underpin the BT customer satisfaction agenda.

Bradley Borum - BT
Bradley is Customer Satisfaction Manager for BT Retail.
She has worked in a variety of broadband roles in BT and is currently also the Champion for Milton Keynes Broadband. Bradley has known Milton Keynes from the early days of community access television.

Steven Jewell - Milton Keynes Council:
Steven has been Head of I.T Milton Keynes Council since October 2001. Prior to this he was a senior I.T manager at London Borough of Barnet for 10 years and before that worked as an I.T consultant for 5 years dealing with a mixture of public and private sector clients. Steven has a wide-ranging technical and commercial interest in many I.T technologies and has led for Milton Keynes Council in exploring the potential for the provision of wireless broadband services in the MK area.

Nick Wainwright - ntl:
As Director of Access Engineering, Nick is responsible for the engineering and implementation of technical solutions to enable the delivery of ntl products, namely television, telephony, Broadband and internet services, in support of both Business and Residential Customers. Nick moved into this new national role in January 2004. Prior to this, Nick was the Director of Operations for East/South East Region (which included the Milton Keynes Area) of England, and was responsible for all field related operations, including; installation and repair, technical networks services, planning, design and civil engineering and management of the UK’s access network. It was also from within this position that the relationship with Milton Keynes Council was borne to investigate the feasibility and viability of delivering Broadband services to a variety of Customers (small businesses, schools and residential) using wireless technology.

Nigel Bruin - Oakgrove Millennium Community Project
Nigel is an independent IT Consultant with close to 20 years experience of development and deployment of telecommunications systems.
A Computer Science graduate from Manchester University, his career started with software development on carrier-class voice switches and includes R&D and planning roles in North America, Japan, Turkey and China. Recently his work has included development of a Fixed Wireless Access product (voice & data), a rural broadband network and the next-generation broadband-enabled community project which will be described at this conference.

Useful Contacts

Please forward any immediate comments regarding this event to our newly established Broadband Forum.

You may also find the following websites useful:

BT Broadband - www.bt.com/broadband/bb_index.htm
East of England Telematics Trust - www.telematicseast.org.uk
East of England Broadband Network - www.e2bn.net
East of Midlands Broadband Consortium - www.embc.org.uk
Infomatics Research Centre - www.irc.reading.ac.uk
Milton Keynes Broadband Action Group - www.bb4mk.org
Milton Keynes E-Champion - www.mkweb.co.uk/e-champion
Ntl Broadband - www.ntlhome.com/ntl_internet/broadband.asp
Oakgrove Project - www.oakgrove-mk.org
RDJ Consultants - www.eastspace.net/scambsbroadband/documents/Broadband.pdf
Trilogy Telecom - www.trilogytelecom.co.uk