• silicon.com
• Technology
• Networks

By editorial@silicon.com, 8 April 2002 17:40

COMMENT "This is an awful lot of analysts for a two-company sector," a telecoms analyst sardonically remarked as the room filled for BT's latest strategy announcement. He had a point - although BT and Vodafone aren't the only two telecoms companies in the FTSE 100 and the others aren't quite "an irrelevance", as he described them. But in most of its markets, BT really doesn't have any very serious competitors and it is trying to put the competitors it does have out of business as fast as it can. It's nice to see BT being well managed for once. Ben Verwaayen does at least talk to the press, even makes them laugh on occasion, and he has a penchant for saying "relentless" that does suggest a certain dogged determination to sort things out. The company's strategy presentation today represents a viable blueprint for putting BT onto a firm financial footing. If it can deliver on a reasonable proportion of it, things should be rosy and the share price should recover somewhere from the current doldrums. Verwaayen's broadband strategy is also deserving of praise. Ten thousand new broadband connections per week simply can't be a bad thing. What a change from this time last year, when the grand plans of his predecessors to build a third-generation mobile empire to span the world were beginning to unravel under massive debts and technical delays. Yet although the BT managers aren't walking round with their hands in their coats saying "Not tonight, Josephine," the imperial urge has not yet been quelled. BT won't be a global mobile player but it wants to control as much of the UK as it can. NTL and Telewest, BT's main competitors in the fixed-line business, are on their knees. The local loop unbundling process may not have been viable to start with but no one ever accused BT of helping too much. Now they're gunning for the ISPs and taking on BT's competitors in corporate telecoms. The new Direct DSL product, launched today, offers the internet without going via an ISP. It may be good news for consumers but it's bad news for ISPs who risk being cut out of the equation altogether. And the further BT's broadband price cuts go, the harder it will be for any of its competitors to stay in the market. A well run BT is welcome, even a relentlessly competitive one. But not a monopoly, please - or we'll all pay the price in years to come.