NEWS BT has reaffirmed its commitment to 100 per cent UK broadband coverage during 2005 but admits government subsidies will be essential to reach rural areas and meet the target.
BT Retail CEO Pierre Danon said 90 per cent coverage should be reached by this summer but that public-private partnerships to support innovative radio and wireless broadband schemes are key to providing access for the remaining 10 per cent.
Danon said in a statement: "BT is absolutely committed to reaching our target of connecting every UK community, even the remote or rural ones, by 2005. By this summer we will have reached 90 per cent coverage by using a range of partnership models, which have already delivered 35 successful schemes across the UK."
On the back of radio broadband trials in remote areas of Cornwall, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, Danon said BT is aiming to create 20 community partnerships to bring the technology to "challenging" areas.
BT last year also extended its demand registration scheme for broadband by setting triggers for another 2,300 exchanges, but that still leaves 573 of the smallest exchanges serving some 100,000 households where the company says there is not enough demand to make an upgrade economically viable.
A BT spokesman told silicon.com that government subsidies will be essential if broadband is to reach these areas.
"We do hope radio broadband and wireless broadband will be suitable for some of those communities but it is dependent on the Regional Development Agency funding. It is not going to be rolled out willy-nilly," he said.
BT said it will have invested around £22m by 2005 in setting up a total of 35 public-private partnerships across the UK to bring broadband to areas where exchanges had not been enabled.
It appears some rural communities are also concerned about the time some exchanges are taking to be upgraded once they have reached their trigger levels, according to one local broadband campaigner who contacted silicon.com this week. He said some have been given 'ready for service' dates of December 2004.
A BT spokesman said most exchanges are upgraded within 150 days and that it is only a small minority where roads need to be dug up and a lot of new cabling needs to be laid that take longer to do.
Comments
There are 15 comments. Join the discussion
1. Phil Hughes
ONE NorthEast, the Regional Development Agency for the North East of England, recently signed a contract with BT that'll give 100% exchange enablement bu March 2005,. This'll cover the whole region including the very,very remote rural exchanges.The big challenge then will be to get people to take it up!Anyone could've bid for the contract and it would have been wonderful to have had an offer of 100Mbit delivered to every doorstep in the Region but there wasn't a single bid that offered anything like that.Where are all the big players?Skulking in holes waiting for a sufficiently large user group to be built up? Will we then see some innovative solutions to provision of truly broad broadband?
2. Martyn Witt
BT's '100%' will be their usual nonsense, no doubt: our local exchange has recently been enabled, yet half the people in the area live over 5.5km from it and so are still denied access. I bet such numbers will be excluded from BT's trumpeting.
3. Perry Offer
Jokers!
These people know that wireless is the answer in these regions, (and across the country in the longer term), so subsidy is totally unjustified.
Break them up and get some proper competition going
4. Mark Omori
The way to get BT to enable your rural exchange.
1. get your self setup a local wireless broadband network( you can hire a pipe line to bring in the broadband)
2. let BT know that it's in place and up and running (with users enjoying the benefits)
3. watch BT come and install ADSL regardless of your trigger level as they need to domainate the market.
That's what happened here in St Just Cornwall we ran campaigns to get ADSL to no avail, but we did get help in the form of wireless broadband and set up the Penwith Community Broadband Network with the help of 1stBroadband, BT have now enabled our exchange even though we only reached 138 people registering their interest in ADSL our trigger level was set at 300, I'm told we are not the only community with wireless broadband that have been enabled without reaching their trigger level
5. anonymous
Like to see them prove their figures. I live in a suburb of Reading with a high proportion of high tech residents. Enquired about broadband and was told too far from the exchange, BUT they claim the estate is broadband enabled.....Only if you live at one end!
6. anonymous
Yet more cynical misleading statements from the Telecoms companies. Just as early mobile telecoms providers used obscure definitions of coverage in their advertising, so is BT in its claims of broadband coverage. Broadband enabling of an exchange by no means broadband becomes available for all users of that exchange; a significant number of users are too far away from the exchange to take a broadband connection under current technologies. There is no indication that new exchanges will be erected.. This is a problem that affects users in all areas including major city conurbations.
7. John Cummins
I live 6 miles from Reading, you know the place that Microsoft, HP, Seimans, 3M (to name a few) have their UK headquarters and I can't get bradband!
My exchange is ready, however I live too far from the exchange!
so will I be classed as one of the 90% or one of the 10%?
8. Paul Turner
Public-Private Partnerships are the last thing we need to get Wireless Broadband into Rural Areas! They give licence to Councils and other public bodies to hold numerous committee meetings (usually getting nowhere fast) and to dicate to their populations what they should be doing. We provide a wireless solution which requires no public funding, needs just 15 users and costs similar prices to ADSL. The roll out of wireless providers' services is being slowed down while councils work out how to spend the money given to them by the government.
BT have no right to dictate. Their service can't be financially viable in these areas, the smaller wireless providers should be allowed to compete with each other without the interference of BT
9. Mike Johnson
Some years ago, as us more cynical folks remember, a prat called Edmonds at the then offices of Oftel, allowed BT to achieve the unimaginable; of delaying, bullying, promise-breaking, thus eventually forcing everyone but BT out of market for alternative broadband service provision. So maybe he should pay-up the required ante now being asked for, for bringing us to the magnificent position we now enjoy, of being last in just about every league position there is for infrstructure provision in the world.
10. Mark Studden
Paul, send me an email with more details please:
mark.studden@NOSPAMPLEASEvirgin.net
11. anonymous
How can BT talk about 90 percent coverage? We are company on a major homecounties industrial estate and they can't get broadband to us! Perhaps they should be trying harder to get this area covered before they cover rural areas! Our business is being majorally disadvantaged with out this facility.
12. David White
BT may well have set another 2300 trigger levels but how realistic are they?
My own area (Ham Street) has been given a trigger level of 400 for a 1500 line exchange!
13. Phil Young
If the goverment & Oftel would stop interfering with BT & allow them to compete on a level playing field with other telecomms companys, you would see action a damd sight faster.
14. Phil Young
Please note Mr Anon that the Home Counties is not the centre of the world. Then why should other vital work places in other parts of the country, bow down to the Home Counties. You may find the the problem of your not yet getting Broadband, may be that the cables underground are not copper but aliminum. These funnily enough with not support Broadband. Also bare in mind that the goverment & Oftel have decreed that all other telecomms companies have acces to the use of these cables. These companies neves pay to replace or upgrade these cables. But just winge & moan to BT.
15. Alistair Thomas
BT Missing some tricks:
Two I often wonder about.
1) I live in the wilds and pay £60/month for a high latency sub 500Kbit down 128Kbit up satellite. Given the small number of users in my area, I doubt there would be contention if they all got 2MBit connections. I'd gladly continue to pay £60 (or maybe more) for a fatter pipe. Why can't BT make more bandwidth available in rural areas and count each registration as 2 or 3?
I thought BT's register your interest scheme was very clever or at least enlightened self interest. I've never seen anything similar from the cable companies or indeed from Wireless operators looking to judge commitment before jumping. As we all suspect that the 90% includes the broadband have-nots that are >5.5KM away from their exchange, why doesn't someone setup some additional zones where if wireless technology were deployed, the have-nots could be brought into the net. Then of course you set trigger levels for each zone and deploy in the same way that exchanges get enabled on a 'needs' basis. In areas like Reading, I would have thought the demand would arrive very quickly if it isn't there already.
Where there's a will there's a way.