UK Secretary of State for Media, Jerermy Hunt, has called on BT to settle its dispute with competing companies over the price to be paid for access to its “ducts and poles” that will allow competitors to deliver broadband access to their customers….
UK Secretary of State for Media, Jerermy Hunt, has called on BT to settle its dispute with competing companies over the price to be paid for access to its “ducts and poles” that will allow competitors to deliver broadband access to their customers. He also warned that the pricing structure needs to be fair and pro-competitive.
Hunt said he would work closely with telecoms watchdog Ofcom over the coming months to ensure progress is being made.
The remarks were made at the Royal Television Society convention in Cambridge on Wednesday, where the Secretary of State laid out his vision for a new Communications Act.
Speaking about the UK’s plan for the rollout of superfast broadband, he said that progress on pricing for access to BT’s infrastructure for competing third parties needs to come quickly, and needs to be fair.
“The process to reach a satisfactory conclusion on PIA [physical infrastructure access] prices […] is taking too long,” Hunt said. “PIA has to be sorted out – and quickly – in a way that allows fair competition with different providers able to invest in our broadband infrastructure. It’s also important that we have a properly competitive market in retail fibre.”
While progress has been made on the UK’s plan for superfast broadband, it is not going quickly enough, he argued. “Average speeds today are 7.5Mbps, but consumer bandwidth is rising by 60% each year. At this rate we’ll hit 1 gigabit by 2020,” he warned.
