Another grilling for BT Group CEO by DCMS CommitteeToday saw the BT Group CEO Gavin Patterson and Kim Mears, Managing Director, Infrastructure Delivery answer questions put to them by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee in an almost two hour long session.
The most useful item to emerge perhaps was an indication of what BT believes it may be able to do with regards to the 10 Mbps Universal Service Obligation. Two initial offers have been presented to Ofcom and will obviously be up for discussion along with what other operators believe they may able to do to help meet a legally binding USO that should take place this Spring.
1. A fibre rich deployment would cost up to £2bn and should reach around 99% of UK premises. Fibre rich meaning a mixture of VDSL2, G.Fast and FTTH/P, with other tech helping the remaining 1%.
2. A cheaper option likely to cost £100's of millions using a much wider range of technology including long reach VDSL and we presume this might include other options like fixed wireless, 4G and satellite broadband.
Summary of current BT USO offers
BT Take Flak for Missed Appointments, FTTP and UK Broadband MapsThe on-going cross party Culture, Media and Sport Committee inquiry into UK digital infrastructure produced another interesting evidence session yesterday after BT and sibling Openreach were both grilled over the country’s broadband quality, 1,000 missed appointments per week and USO plans etc.
Culture, Media and Sport CommitteeCulture, Media and Sport Committee
Tuesday 15 March 2016 Meeting started at 10.31am, ended 12.30pm
