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BT lauds its broadband plans to PM and cabinet
Monday 05 December 2011 14:43:11 by John Hunt

The CEO of BT has outlined its broadband vision to the Prime Minister and members of the cabinet as they visited BT's research headquarters at Adastral Park in Ipswich today. Ian Livingstone spoke of the company's plans to roll out fibre-based broadband using fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) and fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) technology. More than 90% of UK premises will get access to the services, with the majority supposedly being able to access at speeds of 100Mbps or more.

"I'm delighted to be able to welcome the Prime Minister and the cabinet to Adastral Park. This is the home of the research and development that supports progress in many areas of technology - from broadband in the UK to global communications networks in the 170 countries in which BT operates.

Super-fast broadband can be a catalyst for economic growth. We have recently recruited a further 800 engineers to help deploy it but it is what it can do for business that is so impressive. The Government has been a great supporter in recognising that this type of infrastructure investment can drive the UK’s long term growth."

Ian Livingstone, (CEO) BT

Livingstone also told the Prime Minister that the number of homes living in broadband not-spots and slow-spots is due to fall from the current level of 12% to less than 2%. BT will use new technology such as TV White Space and Long Term Evolution (LTE) to help fill in these gaps where fixed-line options are not viable.

Of course, BT are not the only company striving to improve broadband within the UK. Rival operator Fujitsu have vowed to deploy a fibre broadband network that will offer speeds of 100Mbps or more to 5 million rural homes, should they get funding from the government's broadband investment vehicle, BDUK. BT's claims of delivering high-speed services to 90% of the country are based on getting access to the same funding, and we will see with time how the money is actually distributed, and what it can therefore achieve.

[ Topic: Internet Service Providers | 27 comments | link to this item ]

Comments

Posted by undecidedadrian 6 months ago
I thought that both BT and Fujitsu both wanted the whole £800M of BDUK money to make this happen?

BDUK have already shot these ideas down bu handing out money piecemeal to councils unless BT is leaning on the PM for some more cash to get it done.
Posted by TavistockSFB01822 6 months ago
I tread to think how much these Local Authorities have creamed off the funding for administration, It is a shade under 3 Million pounds in Devon on a 4 year project.

Not that anything is actually known for a third of the project (16 Months)probably too busy setting up the administration. There has already been a trip to Brussels...
Posted by TavistockSFB01822 6 months ago
'dread' that should have been. BDUK Broadband Delivery UnKnown have a lot to answer for. But no doubt under the quango not being a quango rules - it does not have to tell anyone, particularly the public tax payer - anything.
Posted by themanstan 6 months ago
Even with what's left of the BDUK pot, after BDUk, the local authorities have taken their cut, for BT to say such would mean that FTTC roll-out is cheaper or they're chucking more money into the pot themselves...
Posted by Michael_Chare 6 months ago
So no date mentioned. It would be nice to be able to see who is going to get what by when. I keep reading about a mythical 10% who will not get a decent service, but no one says who exactly is in this 10%.
Posted by otester 6 months ago
I wouldn't mind 10Mbps LTE.
Posted by Bob_s2 6 months ago
Lots of hot air from BDUK but little sign of any real progress with few if any actualy getting connected as a result of these schemes
Posted by andrew (Favicon staff member) 6 months ago
To be honest just lots of talk and no concrete plan or vision in the statement.

Clear would have been BT saying with are putting another £2bn into hitting 90%, so that government funding can be spent on just the last 10%
Posted by timmay 6 months ago
Isn't this BT's plan if they get 100% of the BDUK funding? ... surely they won't get all the money though, that would be against fair competition and Ofcom would have to step in.
Posted by mervl 6 months ago
Photo-opportunity and press release = UK government. No change there, then.
Posted by zyborg47 6 months ago
TV White Space? um the last thing i heard about that is that it can knock out some peoples T.v reception. Great, so broadband or t.V

also the chance of getting anything faster than 4Megabits here is slim, but at least we got broadband, which is more than some people have

Posted by andrew (Favicon staff member) 6 months ago
TV white space, relies on spectrum release from the switch off of analogue TV, which happens soon for whole UK.

CBN in cambridge are big on it.
Posted by GMAN99 6 months ago
Yeah just looks like a photo op :)

I don't believe BT have ever said they want all of the BDUK money, I'm sure they do but its not a mandate that was Fujitsu
Posted by fastman 6 months ago
Andrew -- BT is already investing 2.5bn to do 66% -- i think this is saying acutally what additiaonal money BT was successful under a bduk procurement can can now go further in deployment that previously understood due to innovation and technical understanding
Posted by shrimper1 6 months ago
Our (EARAY) planned FTTC date has recently slipped from March 2012 to Dec 2012 - hardly progress.
Posted by Aqualung 6 months ago
I had a vision too based on what BT told me they were doing and 2 years ago i should have had 21cn that has now been shelved and i'm not in a rural area as such.

Thats the problem with visions when you open your eyes the reality doesnt match it.
Posted by nickkcin 6 months ago
Ian Livingstone did say earlier in the year that if the entire BDUK budget (£530M) was given to BT they would cover 90% with their "Fibre Based" (such a con desription) NGA.

Notice how that 90% figure magically reappeared in George Osborne's speech.

When he said it all I heard was "Don't bother anyone else trying to get BDUK money to build something new, we are just going to give it all to BT. Yes we'll have some farce of a bidding process but we will set it up so BT is the only one who can realistically win" Or am I too cynical
Posted by themanstan 6 months ago
Don't forget Fujitsu, they've actually started doing some ground work... the only caveat I see is that BDUK may show some bias towards additional risks in the Fujitsu roll-out strategy. It relies heavily on PIA and I still haven't seen any proposals on how they deal with instances where there is little or no capacity in the ducting (Remember BT has a right to reserve some capacity).
Posted by nickkcin 6 months ago
Can you point to where Fujitsu are rolling out, where they have won a BDUK project, where their 'magic' money is coming from, where the 'strategy' is rather than a nondescript press release a long time ago?

Let's forget them until such time as the 'ground work' turns into reality
Posted by themanstan 6 months ago
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/4880-fujitsu-put-live-first-customers-using-openreach-duct-and-pole-sharing.html

The magic money will be from Fujitsu Global... there is obviously commitment from the form of the trial going out. However, the slice from FG will be dependant on how much BDUK they receive.
Posted by themanstan 6 months ago
To my knowledge BDUK funds have not yet been allocated to any ISP for infrastructure roll-out (nothing on the BDUK site). Just allocations to the local authorities or devolved assemblies.

and this:

http://www.culture.gov.uk/images/publications/BroadbandPilots_lessons_learnt-Dec2012.pdf

Which doesn't contain much more info on actual provision.
Posted by Bob_s2 6 months ago
A lot of time and money has gone on BDUK but with little if anthing to show for it.

How many people to date have BDUK aactually managed to get enabled ?
Posted by themanstan 6 months ago
More's the pity Bob, £530m is a lot of money and what is missing from the latest BDUK document is a financial accounts for "work" done to date. Whilst planning is an important part of any project, how much of the capital funds set aside is used in just the planning stage is a key lesson to be learned... and it just isn't there.
Posted by andrew (Favicon staff member) 6 months ago
The funding has been allocated, but not actually given to the counties. They need to get their plan approved before actual funds are released.

In terms of money actually spent, there are the trials and on going staff salaries.
Posted by AspieMum 6 months ago
Since LTE seems to reply on broadband through mobile services and dongles (which I can't use due to not enough signal strength here) I hope I am in the 90% who'll get the faster broadband as an option and I hope it won't be expensive. Other than that I'm stuck on about 1.7MB. I'd be happy with even 5 to 8MB but I am too far from my exchange.
Posted by fastman 5 months ago
no bDUK money can be spent util procurement complete and State aid application completed and approved (this confirms thatspen in only in white / Grey area
Posted by michaels_perry 5 months ago
There seems to be an assumption that braodband users in rural areas will be able to use LTE etc but where I live RF reception is poor, even on mobile phones. FTTC or FTTP will likely be a non-starter due to very low population density so we are left with old copper that is already unreliable and no apparent alternative! All these stories seem to us to be nothing but hype and hot air with no sense of reality outside of towns and cities. Hamlets seem to be left out in the cold - again.
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