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BT Fiber Infrastructure Plans 'Fatal' To Competition

Posted by samzenpus on 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.'"

2 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. main problem is backhaul by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    BT is willing to charge very little for the fibre to the customer but gouges on the fibre backhaul to the provider network. if the rest of the players had any balls they would walk out too.
    without backhaul fibre is pointless. same thing in canada with Bell charging very little per customer for 3rd party ISPs but charging $22,000 per gigE for backhaul. same set of monopolistic thieves keeping the internet at crappy levels in first world countries.

  2. Re:The spin on this story is a bit silly by Cato · · 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.