BT Chief Executive Gavin Patterson has told a London conference that its committed to supporting government in delivering a new universal minimum broadband speed of 5-10Mbps.
In the wake of calls for its Openreach division to be broken up, Patterson promised BT’s Delivering Britain’s Digital Future conference in London BT would.
- tackle slow speeds in hard-to-reach parts of the country;
- achieve a step-change in speeds overall, with ultrafast rollout starting next year;
- improve customer service, through a number of commitments unveiled by Openreach
“For the past five years, the UK has been the largest digital economy in the G20, by percentage of GDP. We think the UK has an even brighter future ahead if we make the right decisions today,” said Patterson. “We want to forge an ultrafast future for Britain and stand ready to help government deliver the broadband speeds necessary for every property to enjoy modern day internet services, such as high definition TV streaming and cloud computing. To achieve this, we need a collaborative effort across industry and government.”
New technologies developed at BT’s Adastral Park research laboratories are expected to help boost slow speeds for many hard-to-reach premises.
Going beyond comments made earlier this year, Patterson said BT’s new services of 300-500Mbps would reach 10m homes and smaller businesses by the end of 2020, and the majority of premises within a decade.
A 1Gbps service will be provided for those that want even faster speeds.
The connections would be delivered through a combination of Fibre-to-the-Premises technology, as well as new G.fast technology, which uses existing Fibre-to-the-Cabinet technology.
Paolo Pescatore, Director, Multiplay and Video at CCS Insight said the announcement marked the latest tussle between BT and its rivals. “BT is putting up a strong defence. Its latest pledges will address some of the shortcomings raised by its rivals, notably investment and service quality. However, this is unlikely to satisfy its rivals as they will still call for full separation, lower prices and greater access to BT’s network. While there are merits of BT’s acquisition of EE and retention of Openreach, regulators will be duty bound to listen to the comments of their competitors who will feel less positive about the transaction and the increasing monopolisation of the telecoms sector.”
He said BT needed to come out fighting ahead of formal announcements from Ofcom and the Competition and Markets Authority.
