Slashdot Mirror
UK Broadband Plan Set To Clear EU Approval
judgecorp writes "The British government's plan to subsidize rural broadband in the UK is about to get approval from the European Union, even though every contract so far has been awarded to BT, according to sources. The Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) project has been examined under EU state aid rules, but apparently has passed despite all the money going to one dominant telecom operator"
I think it's very important to spread the dosh around, because everywhere else that this has been done, governments have relied on robust competition between scrappy telecoms companies to provide rural broadband service...
Well except in Korea, where it was all done by Korea Telecom, but then again, they finished their 100 Mbps rollout 5 years ago and are now providing 1000 Mbps service to rural areas, so what do they know about this stuff?
The real story here is that the UK govt isnt giving money to communal rural broadband programs. That is what this story is about. BT(wholesale) owns the vast majority of the UK's phone lines and internet access(with the exception of cable where you can get it). The systems in place only seem to acknowledge broadband extension programmes from big companies so as apparently to avoid communities setting up their own broadband networks etc. This is pretty disgraceful (but old) news from the British govt. It was on radio 4 about a month ago...
Someone feel free to correct me, but from memory the only other company bidding on the rural broadband contracts was Siemens, and they've hit the government's blacklist due to repeated failures to deliver.
As I understand the situation, the councils that want to get part of the rural broadband money have to use "approved suppliers" and there are only two of them.
There is really not that much competition with only two companies available, though I am sure other companies could also do some of the projects.
The problem is thus that because it is a national program with only central authorization of suppliers with pretty high barrier of entry given the types of documentation and other things required to "prove" that you are capable to doing such on national level, this leads to companies that have only a regional presence not really being able to be suppliers...
Someone feel free to correct me, but from memory the only other company bidding on the rural broadband contracts was Siemens, and they've hit the government's blacklist due to repeated failures to deliver.
Fujitsu. http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/fujitsu-blacklisted-government-92249
they've hit the government's blacklist due to repeated failures to deliver.
When did they change the procurement practices? Traditionally, repeated failure to deliver means lots of experience with government contracts, move to the top of the list.
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Fujitsu. http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/fujitsu-blacklisted-government-92249
Same company. They just dropped the Siemens suffix in 2009 when they finalised the takeover.
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"Actually, BT is probably in bed with the people who actually run the country"
TFTFY.
On an only sightly less cynical note, you have to wonder if "the current government" are (as a conceptual entity rather than the specific case we have at the moment) any better at administering such a large/long project than a benign coperate monopoly (if such a thing exists)?
Regards, Phil