Openreach may be about to give the government and broadband providers what they wanted. The recently spun-out company has proposed plans to provide superfast broadband to 10m UK homes, which is said would cost between £3bn and £6bn. The digital network business owned by telecoms giant BT (BT.A) said that the proposed set-up costs would need “to be recovered fairly through wholesale pricing”, which would require close co-operation between Openreach, communications providers, Ofcom and the government.
BT and Openreach have been widely criticised in recent years for prioritising investment in fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) broadband, which requires an old copper cable to take the connection the final step to the home. Elsewhere in Europe, telecoms companies have focused on fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) connectivity, which offers speeds up to 10 times faster than FTTC.
Now Openreach has said that FTTP connections “would future-proof Britain’s digital infrastructure”. In its first announcement as an individual company – although it is still wholly owned by BT – management said that big communications providers such as Sky (SKY), TalkTalk (TALK) and Vodafone (VOD) were supportive of its large-scale FTTP network proposals.
