I got up yesterday morning questioning why it was that BT will take at least another five and possibly ten years to upgrade my broadband from 2MB to 10 or perhaps even 40 (on their current unpublished, un-thought-about plans). \u00a0I run an information intensive business from home and I need faster broadband – now. \u00a0And I am not alone! \u00a0Why should I wait? \u00a0And I thought who owns this problem anyway?<\/p>\n
It triggered a thought. \u00a0A Thursday Thought!<\/p>\n
In the early days of Telecoms deregulation, BT was forced to move the ownership of the (plain-old-bog-standard-you-can-have-it-in-any-colour-so-long-as-it-is-black) Telephone to the person owning the number. \u00a0Standards were created and innovation thrived with new types of telephone being connected to the network – so long as they conformed to standards.<\/p>\n
When Openreach was created, \u00a0management of the equipment on the end of the line was handed over to other so-called “Service Providers” and (a little known fact), BT was forced to auction-off the actually ownership of about 60% of their lines – which were predominantly won by the French company, Orange. \u00a0However, for those in the Final Third, this line ownership trick is irrelevant. \u00a0We are still at the beck-and-call of BT Openreach’s exchange upgrade programme.<\/p>\n
A few weeks ago I had lunch with the Chief Engineer at BT Openreach (George Williamson). \u00a0I asked him how it was possible to unlock BT’s investment bottleneck and accelerate the rollout of broadband to the final third. \u00a0But he simply said the current plans for upgrading would take all of BT’s resources in the next three years and that the programme put BT’s implementation teams at maximum stretch. \u00a0So there is an implementation capacity problem here too. \u00a0Which is why more local infrastructure building (with or without BT) looks interesting. \u00a0There is a market for it, if only BT Openreach were prepared to publish their plans of where (and where not) they intend to go.<\/p>\n
So I thought, what about me<\/strong> owning my own line – like in the days when I ownership of the telephone passed from BT to the private sector? \u00a0What if I could then do a deal with BT (or another service provider) to pay them double to upgrade the line (rather than pay Sky to watch football). \u00a0What if I paid them treble (and not buy a new car)? \u00a0What if I bought new shares in a community bond scheme which would partner with BT (or another builder) to accelerate the rollout? \u00a0What if (like in some parts of Europe) a mortgage company will extend a mortgage to include the cost of a Next Generation connection? \u00a0What if there were people in my community who would underwrite the scheme? \u00a0What if….<\/p>\n So I leave the question hanging – why shouldn’t I be able to by and own my own line? \u00a0I don’t want it owned by some service provider or some company that themselves are totally dependent on a part of BT Group that is not the slightest bit interested in my line – until about 2108 if I am lucky!<\/p>\n Time to re-think “home ownership” and what a connected home really means in the connected kingdom!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I got up yesterday morning questioning why it was that BT will take at least another five and possibly ten years to upgrade my broadband from 2MB to 10 or perhaps even 40 (on their current unpublished, un-thought-about plans). \u00a0I run an information intensive business from home and I need faster broadband – now. \u00a0And … <\/p>\n