BT Fiber Infrastructure Plans 'Fatal' To Competition

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday November 16, 2011 @06:40PM from the but-do-you-think-it's-a-good-idea? dept.

twoheadedboy writes "BT today revealed it is to start selling its Physical Infrastructure Access (PIA) for fiber broadband product to other providers later this month, but the announcement was met with one particularly cold response. Geo Networks, which is helping deliver superfast networks in Wales in partnership with the Welsh Assembly, said it was going to withdraw bidding for Government-provided BDUK funds and in all next-generation access sales. 'Inadequacies of the current PIA product are fatal to infrastructure competition,' he added. 'The Government's stated desire for a competitive market in the provision of new optical fiber infrastructure is at risk of complete failure.'"

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Re:The spin on this story is a bit silly by Cato · 2011-11-16 19:23 · Score: 5, Informative

It is anticompetitive because Geo and others need to use the PIA fibre from BT to 'backhaul' from a village to a larger town or city. With the backhaul, they can provide local connections, maybe using wireless - without the backhaul, BT actually provides the connections to ISPs for resale, hence there is far less competition.