British Telecom ducks Ofcom’s duct decree

BRITISH TELECOM (BT) has been forced to issue a statement in response to Ofcom's plans to provide competing services over BT's fibre lines.

Ofcom published proposals this morning to give BT's rivals access to a dedicated virtual link over new fibre laid by BT, stripping away from it one of the last few monopolistic resources BT still holds. Ofcom claims that this approach will give the competition control of virtual unbundling and stated, "BT should be able to set prices for these new wholesale products to enable them to make a fair rate of return."

"The proposals would give physical access to BT's underground ducts and overhead telegraph poles to other companies and allow them to lay their own fibre," the report continued.

BT is chomping at the bit to demonstrate that no one tells it what to do and it already doing what it can *cough cough* to act on Ofcom's proposals, with several bitchy caveats. BT said its network is already open to the competition since the start of this year and trials for 17 communication providers were already in place, so BT hasn't been "forced" to provide access.

On duct access, BT said it's happy to roll out but thinks duct access hasn't been successful elsewhere and sneers that it would like access to the ducts of others, too, but this is currently outside of Ofcom's remit.

Ross Cook, director of media relations at BT Group said, "BT has already said that it is willing to open its ducts so the requirement we do so comes as no surprise. We agree with Ofcom that there are challenges with such access but we will work with industry to define a suitable product that meets everyones' needs. Duct access is unlikely to be the 'silver bullet' to get fibre to the countryside but all options should be explored."

So called 'superfast' broadband is the soup-of-the-day and Ofcom's kick to BT comes as the political parties are trying to engage us with their respective technological manifestos before the election.

Mike Wilson, broadband manager at moneysupermarket.com, waded in today, saying, "Next generation broadband is a hot topic, with both the Conservatives and Labour party vying to implement superfast broadband across the UK. Ofcom's announcement seems like a step in the right direction to ensure effective competition in the market and a fair deal for broadband users, but Ofcom and the government overseeing the next generation roll-out must ensure this remains the case, particularly in rural areas where infrastructure and competition is limited."

Somehow we suspect that this wrangling over how to wire up Blighty for broadband is just getting started. µ