Today we have published the minutes from the NGNuk Executive meeting of the 14th of December.
It has been some months since my last update, this reflects a time of background work where much activity has been taking place but clear, well defined deliverables were not ready for general circulation. The level of activity and output of draft papers will accelerate over the coming months.
The work streams on the key commercial issues have maintained steady progress over the period. Views on both the number and location of interconnects and the potential charging models that might be deployed have a high level of consensus across the membership and the outputs of the work groups will be presented to the February Executive.
Progress on the overall work stream remains slower than either myself or any of the Executive would like but is reflective of the breadth of views and ambitions of the members. The Executive discussed limiting the scope and vision of NGNuk activity to provide a narrower focus and facilitate faster progress however it was agreed that the original ambitions of the organisation should remain unchanged. It is anticipated that end-to-end requirements and the derived interconnect requirements will be issued as draft to the membership by the end of this month and soon after to the wider community.
The programme of work has highlighted an unnecessary overlap with the responsibilities of NICC which could lead to a duplication of activity and contention for scarce resource. I have therefore agreed with Professor Sir John O'Reilly that NICC will take responsibility for the execution of technical activity associated with NGNuk, we are in the process of agreeing Terms of Reference for this work. NGNuk will continue to monitor the technical activity and help with commercial direction and resources where possible. We are also working actively with NICC to ensure industry support in delivering the Green Release to plan.
In my last update I indicated that there would be a plenary session open to all Members in December. The feedback from members was that this was not required as the programme was well understood by those involved and the more important milestones are now scheduled for early 2007.
Clive Fedida is leaving us for a long planned protracted break on the ocean. We will therefore be re-configuring the team to ensure we deliver the required results. I want to thank Clive for his immense contribution to getting NGNuk off the ground.
Peter McD. Black
Executive Chairman