Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 16 July 2008 08:44
Opinion and Analysis
Page 1 of 4
In a move that closely parallels Telstra's 2005 announcement of its FTTN plans, UK incumbent telco BT has promised to deliver high speed broadband services to 10 million UK homes (40 percent of total): if it can get the appropriate guarantees from the regulator.
Specifically BT announced on 15 July that it would invest £1.5 billion ($A3.1b) to roll out fibre-based broadband to as many as 10 million homes by 2012 with top speeds of up to 100Mbps. These speeds would be achieved primarily with VDSL from fibre to the node, but FTTP would be used in greenfield developments.
Comparisons with the various cost estimates being bandied around for the Australian NBN are inevitable, but difficult. However it is worth noting that this headline figure exceeds that specific to the new network. BT said that only about £1 billion would be in addition to planned expenditure in fibre deployment. This is distinction that I suspect could be directly applied to Telstra's claimed costs estimates but which I have not seen made.
The BT deployment will not be confined to the cities. BT says it will work with Government and regional and local authorities on the rollout plans. "Our aim is that fibre will be widely available and not just in the major cities...Its precise deployment will depend on the engagement of government and regional and local authorities but there is no reason why it should not be available in a variety of environments...Our aim is that both urban and rural areas will be able to benefit." Such involvement in Australia's planned NBN is something that Australian state governments are fighting for rather than it being offered.
Beyond the 10 million home rollout, BT says it will upgrade its ADSL network to ADSL2+ and it claims that recent tests show the majority of ADSL2+ customers should enjoy speeds of around 10Mbps or above with many getting substantially higher speeds. The technology is also improving all the time." It is not clear from the BT announcement whether the £1.5b figure includes this expansion. In addition, BT says it will "roll out fibre beyond this [10m] home] plan if there is sufficient demand and it can make an adequate return on its investment."
BT says it "totally committed to a wholesale market and so will make its services available on an equivalent basis to all communications providers." This, of course is exactly what Telstra said back in 2005 but it scrapped the plan on the basis that it had no faith in the ACCC allowing it to charge what it considered a fair price.
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