Handbags at noon. The day after the rather inconclusive meeting on the future of broadband in the UK, Viviane Reding, communications commissioner for the EU, called upon telecoms regulators across the continent to act to encourage investment in fibre at a conference held in Budapest:
“The treatment of Next Generation Networks is one of the most important regulatory issues facing us over the coming years. I want regulation to encourage investment in future networks. Regulatory holidays are not the solution, what we need is appropriate regulation that safeguards competition while creating new incentives for investment.”
By way of contrast, Ed Richards, Ofcom big cheese had this to say after Monday’s meeting: “Ofcom’s role is to deliver a robust regulatory framework allowing industry to deploy when there is a clear business case for doing so and in a manner which brings benefits to consumers.”
Read ‘clear business case’ should be read as ‘let the industry, and not the government decide’. Recently, Reding accused Ofcom for being too “cosy” with the industry, and has been striving to introduce reforms which would change the way ISPs advertise their services.
The bill for a full UK-wide FTTH to the Home network is mooted to be at least £15bn - BT have repeatedly expressed an interesting in bringing some money to the table, but given their history with Ofcom, chances of them coughing up the majority of this sum are slim.
Stephen Timms, the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) praised Virgin Media at the meeting for promising to unroll 50Mbps speeds next year, whilst simultaneously having a dig at BT: “I’m pleased that Virgin Media have decided to take an important first step to upgrade its network to 50Mbps by the end of next year. This is an important stride towards full next generation access in the UK which I’m sure others will want to match.”
This isn’t exactly great news for UK consumers, who are having to make do with antiquated technology whilst European and Asian consumers can enjoy the luxury of up to 100Mbps speeds on tap.
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