BT's luddism must have been a ploy to have the last laugh on NGA, says Giles Cottle

摘要

BT's announcement this month that it will spend ￡1.5 billion (E∪D1.9 billion) on a fibre rollout in the UK was one of those events that is simply impossible to ignore. The fact that the UK incumbent waited so long to reveal its NGA plans has made the story the broadband industry equivalent of Apple unveiling the iPhone, albeit without the needless queues. For this reason, BT's plans were always going to be subject to extreme scrutiny. Yet the announcement poses more questions than it answers. How much of the network will be fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) and how much will be fibre-to-the-cabi-net (FTTC)? How does BT plan to build the network for just ￡1.5 billion when its Spanish counterpart, Telefonica, has pledged to spend E∪D9 billion on FTTH? What kind of access will BT s competitors get to the network?