North Canterbury · © John Stroh
Drafted with AI assistance, then checked and revised by the author. The judgements and the errors are the author’s. How this site is written sets out what is declared on every piece, who checks it, and where the per-piece record lives.
A framework for working it out, and worked numbers that are examples rather than findings.
Series part F · Version 0.1 · August 2026
What does this cost? We do not know, and neither does anyone who has not built one. Anybody quoting you a figure for something that does not yet exist is quoting an aspiration.
So what use is this part? A structure for working out your own answer, with every line named, and worked numbers to show the shape of the arithmetic.
Which number actually decides it? One. Everything else ladders to it.
And where does the arithmetic usually go wrong? In four places, all of them in year three rather than year one.
Every figure in this part is marked ILLUSTRATIVE. They are placeholders showing the shape of a calculation, not estimates of anything. Replace all of them. If you quote one of them back to anybody, we have failed to mark them clearly enough.
Cost per site to install and sustain for five years.
A minister and a board of trustees need the same figure. A funder asks for it in the first meeting. A member compares it to what they pay now.
Not cost to build. Not total programme cost. Not cost per member per month, which hides the sustaining problem in an average. Per site, over five years, because year three is where arrangements like this fail and a one-year figure conceals exactly that.
If you can produce this number and defend it, you have a proposition. If you cannot, everything else is elaboration.
Keep them separate. Mixing them is how the sustaining cost disappears into an average and reappears as a crisis.
What sits in the member’s building, owned by them outright.
| Line | ILLUSTRATIVE | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Compute node | $6,000 | A workstation-class machine with a current consumer GPU |
| Storage and networking | $1,500 | Local storage, boundary device |
| Installation and commissioning | $1,200 | Local subcontractor, one day |
| Initial training, two people | $800 | Half a day each |
| Site capital | $9,500 |
What moves this. Hardware falls in price and rises in capability; this line should shrink in real terms every year, which is the whole argument for measuring shares in capability rather than dollars. Organisations with existing server rooms need less. Organisations in remote districts pay more for the day.
The line that kills projects, because nobody budgets it.
| Line | ILLUSTRATIVE | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Hardware replacement provision | $1,900 | Straight-line over five years |
| Model and software updating | $600 | Central cost apportioned |
| Remote monitoring | $300 | |
| One on-site visit | $600 | Local rate, half a day |
| Support and escalation | $1,800 | See pool 4 — this is the uncertain one |
| Site sustaining, per year | $5,200 |
Five-year cost per site: $9,500 + (5 × $5,200) = $35,500. ILLUSTRATIVE.
That is the number. Every argument about this proposition is really an argument about that figure and what it buys.
Whatever a group of sites holds in common: pooled compute, the shared knowledge base, the exit-drill capacity, the boundary attestation.
Scale it per cluster and divide by members, and do not hide the exit guarantee inside it. Holding complete state at every cluster costs more than centralising. State the premium as its own line and defend it, because a guarantee absorbed into overhead is a guarantee an efficiency review removes.
| Line | ILLUSTRATIVE, per cluster per year | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Shared compute and hosting | $40,000 | Sovereign-qualifying provider |
| Complete-state premium | $12,000 | The cost of being able to leave — never fold this into the line above |
| Annual exit drill | $8,000 | Steward and operator days, plus remediation provision |
| Heterogeneity premium | $10,000 | Second model family and hardware generation |
| Per cluster, per year | $70,000 | Across 25 members ≈ $2,800 each |
People at the desk. This is not the largest pool but it is the least predictable, and it is where the whole proposition is decided.
Model this before anything else. The economics rest on a ratio: how much routine work the local system handles unaided versus how much reaches a person.
| Escalation rate | Contacts to a person, per member per month | ILLUSTRATIVE cost per member per year |
|---|---|---|
| 5% | 3 | $900 |
| 15% | 9 | $2,700 |
| 30% | 18 | $5,400 |
If your case only works at five per cent, you are betting the organisation on a capability forecast. Build it to survive three times your target rate. If it does, the model is robust; if it does not, you have found out for the price of a spreadsheet.
Two things reduce this pool that are not efficiency measures: members contributing accredited hours in exchange for entitlement, and a local system that improves as it reads more of the member’s own material.
Do not average across these. The averages are meaningless and the differences are the plan.
| Segment | Ability to pay | Speed to decide | Assurance cost | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Public bodies | High | Slow | High | Want evidence before piloting — real cost before revenue. They are the anchor because their requirements force the standard to be real. |
| Professional practices | Medium | Fast | Low | Clear pain, understand recurring costs, decide in one meeting. |
| Schools and education | Low | Slow | Medium | Procurement cycles, boards, term timing. |
| Community organisations | Low | Fast | Low | Highest contribution potential, lowest cash. |
| Trade and small business | Medium | Fast | Low | Largest by number, hardest to reach individually. |
Geography. Cluster density decides utilisation and field-service cost simultaneously, and they pull in opposite directions. A dense urban cluster has good utilisation and cheap service calls. A dispersed rural one has neither, and is where the need is greatest. Model at least one of each; do not build a plan that only works in a city.
Not a register. Lines in the model, with money against them.
| Risk | Effect on the model | ILLUSTRATIVE provision |
|---|---|---|
| Escalation rate above target | Central pool inflates | Model at 3× target |
| Field service worse than modelled | Sustaining pool inflates | +25% on visits, years 1–2 |
| A member cannot pay | Revenue loss, no cost relief | 5% of member revenue |
| Base model becomes unavailable | Substitution project | One-off, 6 weeks of engineering |
| Slower member growth | Fixed costs across fewer members | Model at 60% of plan |
| Hardware price does not fall | Capability-pegged shares squeeze | Sensitivity, not provision |
That last one deserves attention. If shares are measured in capability, falling hardware cost is what funds rising member entitlement. If prices stop falling, the mechanism stops working and the constitution has committed you to something the market no longer supplies. Model it before adopting the peg.
We have not built one, so we have no measured figures. What is above is a structure and an arithmetic shape.
Two things would change it materially and neither is knowable in advance: what members will actually pay for the exit guarantee, and what the real escalation rate is once a local system has been reading an organisation’s own material for a year. Both are measurable within months of starting. Neither can be resolved by more analysis.
If you build this and measure either, publishing the number would be worth more to everyone else than anything in this part.
Published under CC BY 4.0. Every figure marked ILLUSTRATIVE is a placeholder. None is an estimate, a quote, or a finding.
What this publication does not claim, and what is outstanding against it in the register.
Asserted, not yet measured: The cost of secession capability, this publication.
A question this rests on is parked: What secession premium will members bear?
We publish no pricing and no affordability claim, and we do not assert that members value the secession guarantee.
Alongside: sources and provenance · slides