BT Fiber Infrastructure Plans 'Fatal' To Competition 100
twoheadedboy writes "BT today revealed it is to start selling its Physical Infrastructure Access (PIA) for fiber broadband product to other providers later this month, but the announcement was met with one particularly cold response. Geo Networks, which is helping deliver superfast networks in Wales in partnership with the Welsh Assembly, said it was going to withdraw bidding for Government-provided BDUK funds and in all next-generation access sales. 'Inadequacies of the current PIA product are fatal to infrastructure competition,' he added. 'The Government's stated desire for a competitive market in the provision of new optical fiber infrastructure is at risk of complete failure.'"
Re:main problem is backhaul (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah. It's funny how conservatives the world over always talk the talk about real competition, and yet when push comes to shove they seem the least likely to actually implement it well. They want the free market, which is very rarely the same as the competitive market.
Re:Competition, yes (Score:2, Interesting)
Recently I contacted my ISP to find out why I had 750 kb/s upload and yet 40 kb/s upload since I was looking to upload some stuff to youtube and uploading 3 gig at that speed is like pulling teeth. My ISP informed me that BT uses this cap on all it's 20CN lines and the only way to get a better upload is to wait for BT to upgrade the exchange.
BT is not only holding back the broadband industry, it's restricting the UK's access to taking part in various websites often used to discover new artists and launch careers. I don't think I'm one of them, but it's sad to see the UK is being stunted online due to corruption.
Re:main problem is backhaul (Score:4, Interesting)
I remember my parents talking about what phone service used to be like. I remember them talking of messages like "all the lines to birmingham are in use". I remember phone call prices that made the phone something you used for short calls to get important information across. Long chats on the phone were a rare indulgence.
Nowadays the phone network seems to connect calls extremely reliably and unmetered call packages are common so you can chat as much as you like (provided you keep each individual call less than an hour).
How much of this is down to competition (enabled by regulators forcing BT to share infrastructure) and how much is down to technological improvements I do not know