Campaign for Unmetered Telecommunications
 
News

BT speaks with forked tongue (29 June 1999)

BT has finally said something about something. In fact, it has said two things about something.

On Thursday a very senior employee told a meeting that BT would start to offer broadband services over its local loop in August 1999; then a report in the Sunday Times said it would not do so unless it was given exclusive rights by OFTEL to develop such services for three years. So, if this suggestion was accepted, until 2002 nobody else would be allowed to run broadband services over BT's local loop. This would allow BT to saturate the market for broadband services between mid-2001 (when OFTEL restrictions on BT becoming a broadcaster are lifted) and then, thus severely limiting future competition.

In the past BT has got a long way by saying as little as possible: if the Sunday Times report forms a fair reflection of BT policy - one of us phoned up the BT press office who confirmed that, in general, it is - it's an absolute gift to us. Other people have made excellent retorts to what BT said, but we have a couple of new points to make.

First, suppose BT doesn't get what it wants from OFTEL, storms off in the huff and refuses to release broadband services. What is it going to do - sit scowling while the cable operators and others crawl all over it by offering what it would have offered ... or better? NTL are already there, and others are on the way.

Second, its assertion that it would not be able to justify £3bn expenditure to roll out broadband services in a competitive environment is absurd. If it cannot justify that sum and is so frightened of competition, why not enforce competition? Why not take the local loop away from BT and let other organisations who do want to compete put together the cash to develop a service which would be a national asset?

Really, everything BT is saying enhances the credibility of Option Zero, our suggestion for unbundling the local loop in response to OFTEL's consultation document on that topic. We said 'take it away from BT and run it collectively' in March ...

[ Home ] [ About ] [ Analysis ] [ Solutions ] [ Mythbusters ] [ Get Involved ]
[ News ] [ Features ] [ Reference ] [ Discussion ] [ Press ] [ Diary ]
[ Members ] [ Contact ] [ Site Map ] [ Search ] [ Links ]

Site design by Richard Sliwa
based on an original concept by Runic Design.
© CUT 1999.