Never mind the quality, feel the speed.

In his recent rather self-congratulatory speech, Jeremy Hunt borrowed some of Team GB’s Olympic success to freshen up the performance of his department’s broadband development plans.  As others have pointed out, he didn’t actually have a lot to say that was new: he basically defended the pursuit of broadband speeds as a prerequisite for the country having the ‘best network in Europe’ and cited some helpful statistics on the UK’s relative performance – ignoring some less flattering metrics.  He also hit back at the other recent criticisms of government strategy by the House of Lords Communications Committee, in particular their alleged misconception that ‘fibre to the cabinet is the sum of the government’s ambitions’ for the broadband network. 

On the question of speed, Hunt is right to point out the folly of setting an arbitrary target that is deemed to be ‘enough’ to meet broadband demands: the latter are always likely to exceed current expectations.  However, he still fails to address the HoL’s legitimate concern over universality.  As the Select Committee put it: “what is important is the long term assurance that as new internet applications emerge, everyone will be able to benefit, from inhabitants of inner cities to the remotest areas of the UK.” 

The ‘misunderstanding’ over FTTC is perhaps more worrying.  Hunt seems to justify the choice of this technology as if it were a matter of government planning, whereas the choice is entirely a matter for BT. Similarly, the idea that FTTC “is most likely to be a temporary stepping stone to fibre to the home” and that “by 2016 fibre to the home will be available on demand to over two thirds of the population” are again matters that are both entirely dependent on BT’s commercial judgement.  (On current expectations, BT’s pricing of ‘FTTP on demand’ is likely to make it too expensive for the residential market).  

Hunt also fails to acknowledge the HoL’s deeper concern with FTTC – and the PON network that BT is also rolling out – that this architecture is unsuitable for physical unbundling, thus stifling the prospects for service competition.  The Committee’s fear is therefore that current broadband investments, including government subsidies, will allow BT to recreate in fibre the monopoly it gradually lost in its copper network.  But hey, monopoly or not, it’ll be fast..!!