Community support and consensus is required for all stages of the project development lifecycle, as without it the project is unlikely to receive the necessary support for implementation.  As a result, it is extremely important to ensure that as wide a section of the community as possible is engaged and supportive of the project.

A fantastic example of community engagement was and still is evident in Neunan, Netherlands where, prior to the development of a FTTH project for all 7500 homes, a series of community workshops were held in order to assess the types of local services that the network should support. This early engagement and sense of ownership of the network is cited as being one of the critical success factors for achieving the high penetration rates of 97%.  It also resulted in the network being called “Onsnet” meaning “Our network”.[ix] Neunan and the Co-Operative model of financing are discussed more fully in Chapter 5.  Similar experiences to the Neunan example can also be found in Sweden and Denmark especially in the rural projects.

This type of support is even more critical when the community has to provide substantial financial resources to implement the project and where there is no guarantee that the project will be self-sufficient.  Also, in jurisdictions, such as a number of the U.S. states where there are initiatives at the state level to restrict the development of these municipal networks, the support of the local community becomes of critical importance.

                                                                     
As discussed above in 4.2.2, we believe that this need for community-wide engagement and participation points towards the formation of a dedicated corporate vehicle (of whatever legal and financial structure) with which all constituent interests in the community can engage (including the public sector).   This may be more difficult to achieve if it is undertaken as a direct public sector initiative.
 

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