Fibre Optic Cable project to get green light soon?

The Manx Herald has been informed, by someone it considers to be a reliable source, that the long-running saga of the 9 �unused� Manx Electricity Authority/Department of Trade & Industry fibre optic cables is about to be resolved.

Apparently the latest proposal does not include any involvement of Boeing, who, it had been speculated among informed circles, was the hot tip for taking control of the project.

The word is that the MEA will retain control and operate the cables with the assistance of an existing, Isle of Man based, telecoms business (which sounds like a case of d�j� vu).

Almost since the laying of the electricity interconnector cable, between the Island and the UK, which included the 12 cables, there has been a dispute over �ownership� and their use.

Originally, The Manx Cable Company, the MEA subsidiary, granted the DTI a 30 year lease in 2000, but a disputed Memorandum of Understanding, drafted in 2003, indicated that control was reverting back to the MCC.

The MEA formed a telecommunications Committee in 2003, later to become a limited company, known as Skyward, to develop a plan to sell bandwidth to IOM based telecommunication service providers.

Skyward were projecting income streams of between �5 - �9.7m p.a. with a very healthy profit margin ??" just what the MEA needed having accumulated a massive debt burden from all the infrastructure investment.

Part of the Skyward plan was to utilise the copper power wires, which it delivers electricity to every household etc, to also carry broadband internet communications to the same consumer.

A pilot scheme was established in the MEA�s Ballacottier headquarters and two other trials were arranged; with certainly the first claimed to be a success.

However, the technology has been questioned by several parties, some of whom claim that it causes interference with other electronic systems in the building.

Whether this project will be pursued further is open to doubt.

Whatever the nature of the anticipated announcement, one thing is known for sure. The Island�s taxpayers and electricity consumers have been paying for capital investment, made several years ago, without any return so far.

The sooner this classic example of Isle of Man Government incompetence is sorted out the better.