UK telecoms regulator Ofcom has officially unveiled guidelines to regulate incumbent BT’s super-fast broadband plans.
In areas where BT plans to invest in fibre, it must offer competitors virtual unbundling services. To encourage BT’s investment, Ofcom…
UK telecoms regulator Ofcom has officially unveiled guidelines to regulate incumbent BT’s super-fast broadband plans.
In areas where BT plans to invest in fibre, it must offer competitors virtual unbundling services. To encourage BT’s investment, Ofcom will allow the company to set its own wholesale prices, although these will be constrained by wider broadband competition from the likes of fibre rival Virgin Media.
BT will be required to provide competitors with access to its underground ducts and telegraph poles in areas where it does not plan to roll out fibre, encouraging more investment across the UK.
“Today Ofcom has finalised a clear regulatory framework to promote investment, competition and innovation to enable as many consumers as possible to benefit from these exciting new services,” Ofcom CEO Ed Richards said.
A spokesperson for BT welcomed the guidelines as “reassuring”, saying they reflect the success of its unbundled services to date.
“This statement is reassuring in that Ofcom agrees that we have been providing suitable unbundled access to our fibre for some months now, that our product provides others with substantial control and that it will be the most likely way that fibre will be delivered in the future,” the spokesperson said.
“That recognition, combined with us having pricing freedom for that product, provides much of the regulatory clarity and certainty that we have been seeking”.
In related news, a spokesperson for UK-based internet provider TalkTalk has confirmed reports that it is preparing to become BT’s first high-speed wholesale customer.
Rather than invest in its own fibre network, TalkTalk is planning to sell BT’s superfast services to its retail customers.
The TalkTalk spokesperson declined to elaborate on the group’s commercial plans for high-speed internet.
