I will be in London tomorrow (and will witness my first mass scale UK strike; it will feel just like home, I guess!) I just scanned some of the recent press, blogs and other sources of information on UK broadband and FTTx future to refresh my brain on the situation. Since this gives me the opportunity to catch-up on some of the happenings in the UK, I thought I'd share.
The first interesting aspect is that the BBC seems to have decided that UK broadband wasn't cutting it. They are probably right, of course, and they have a vested interest now that the iPlayer has become a medium in its own right, but they are certainly saying it loud and clear and there's been a flurry of articles, news segments and videos on the topic in the last few weeks. Two interesting ones are
- UK Broadband Notspots Revealed which highlights the failings of the current generation of broadband in reaching the (very conservative) Digital Britain targets of universal 2Mb/s
- Britons Say Broadband 'Essential', which presents the results of a survey that suggests that a large majority of UK citizens see broadband as a utility rather than a luxury service.
I find it slightly disturbing that the BBC should try to influence the debate in such a blatant way. Not that I disagree with the points they are making (implicitely or explicitely) but I guess I hold the BBC to such a standard of integrity that I'm surprised. Call me old fashioned...
Interestingly though, as the BBC also points out, BT is moving fast towards providing... ADSL2+. Yes indeed. I can barely remember when ADSL2+ was news in France, and France is not at the head of the pack...
Unsurprisingly, many people and players are unhappy with the situation. It was believed that the generous regulatory framework laid out by Ofcom some months ago would accelerate BTs plans for Next Generation Broadband, but of course BT Group is constrained by its available financial capacity which is, let's say, not great. Hence recent declarations about "what people need" from BT management.
This leaves the door wide open for other initiatives though. Birmingham and Manchester (two of the largest cities in the UK after London) are rumoured to be seriously considering city-wide fiber roll-outs (and in fact Manchester is hosting the NextGen Manchester Euro Conference on FTTH on June 23rd and 24th where I will be speaking, albeit remotely). The CBN is behind a number of community fiber initiatives in the UK. Another interesting organisation is Fiberstream which has been using web 2.0 tools to broadcast their recent activities in rural broadband roll-outs.
This is unlikely to represent a large threat to BT at this stage, the real threat out there is undeniably Virgin. But there's something happenning there that certainly represents a future menace for BT, and I hope they do have a plan B.
My own views is that the window of opportunity for FTTN is closing and I'm worried that BT won't be able to differentiate from a superior technology on the cable side. A solution for them would be to strongly drive a rich service environment to highlight the differentiation and (hopefully) get more years of life out of FTTN before migrating. I have yet to see a sign that they realise this, but I sure hope they do...
