Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Bowdon]

BT Openreach Publishes First UK Dark Fibre Reference Offer for ISPs

Openreach (BT) has today published the first Draft Reference Offer for their new Dark Fibre Access (DFA) product, which is designed to give rival ISPs “physical access” to the operator’s fibre optic cables (i.e. allowing them to “take direct control of the connection“).

Under this Passive Remedy rival ISPs would be allowed to install their own equipment at either end of the optical fibre within BT’s ducts, which Ofcom hopes will result in more market competition and may even help to speed-up the roll-out of new broadband services around the UK.

The new product was demanded by the regulator as part of their recent 2016 Business Connectivity Review. However the move also marks a dramatic reversal from their position during the last review in 2012, when Ofcom warned that such a solution could “carry significant risks of worse outcomes, both for consumers and for effective competition, including adding costs and encouraging inefficient entry.”

Never the less the new DFA product is due to be introduced on 1st October 2017 and as part of that Openreach has now published the first Draft Reference Offer. The service itself will be available on a national basis in the regulated areas, which includes the whole of the UK with the “exception of Hull, Central London, Core routes and Data Centres“.

[Weaver]

Ofcom contradicting themselves ?