EURIM Shared Infrastructure and Services Subgroup

The UK faces converging investment demands for smart metering and fibre networks with our fixed and mobile communications networks increasingly under pressure.

The sums quoted dwarf the £800 million government is making available to bring broadband to those parts that markets will not reach. But these sums do not take into account the savings that can be made by sharing existing infrastructures and by mixing technologies and business models according to local needs - provided the barriers to these are removed.

So how much infrastructure and network sharing is practical and what are the barriers?

Can we bring the Green Energy and Information Society agendas together in an affordable investment programme that will help reboot the UK manufacturing as well as knowledge economies?

You are invited to be part of the working group which will aim to structure a major policy study into the actions needed at local, national and EU levels to enable market forces to do most of the work. A prospectus for this study will  be launched at the Summer Reception on 9^th June as part of the Alliance’s theme ‘Britain Open for Business – UK Competitiveness in a Global Information Society.’

The first step will be bringing the work of the Shared Network Services Procurement Subgroup on how serious savings can be made by building on existing networks and pooling budgets alongside work on smart metering, grids and innovative fixed and mobile technologies. The group will aim to add experience from other parts of the world on delivering inter-operability,  resilience, value for money for customers and attractive returns for investors.

As part of the study we will be looking at direct and immediate benefit to members, e.g. identifying and sharing authoritative guidance on inter-operability standards, state aid rules and public funding guidelines - where the EU has just gone out to consult.

Recent Meetings & Papers

Date	Description	Papers
18 Jan 12	Shared Infrastructure Meeting
13 Sep 11	Shared Infrastructure Plenary Meeting
20 Jun 11	Shared Network Services Subgroup Meeting	Summary Report
10 May 11	Inaugural meeting of Shared Infrastructure Group	Summary Report

Subgroup Outputs

Date	Description
Feb 12	Position Paper: Unlocking Infrastructure Investment: How the UK can build the digital foundations for a 21st century economy (Draft)
Aug 11	Shared Network Services Subgroup - An Introduction
Jun 11	The Procurement of Shared Network Services (draft for comment)