BT Criticised for Approach to Devon and Somerset Broadband Contract

A new report suggests that the recently announced £45.5m extension to the Connecting Devon and Somerset project, which will make superfast broadband (24Mbps+) speeds available to even more local premises, very nearly didn’t go ahead after BT initially refused to bid. The move gave the council little option but to sign an exclusive deal with BT, instead of pursuing a more open tender.

The original £94m CDS scheme was also a BT contract and currently aims to make “superfast broadband” speeds available to over 90% of local homes and businesses by the end of 2016, although back then BT was the only approved supplier remaining in the Broadband Delivery UK programme and thus the council’s choice was perhaps inevitable.

The Government’s BDUK scheme attempted to make the Phase 2 Superfast Extension Programme (SEP), which pushes the national coverage aim from 90% to 95% by 2017, a little bit more flexible. But so far nearly all of the local authorities involved have chosen BT again, with only a few exceptions like the one in West Oxfordshire (here).

A big part of the problem is with finding another suitable large provider, other than BT, that could deliver upon the contract and do so within the limited timescale / funding specified (i.e. without also putting too much risk of failure onto a vote conscious council). Not an easy task and this is where BT’s approach often wins the most brownie points.

However Andrew Leadbetter, a cabinet member for Devon County Council, has noted that the new £45.5m Phase 2 extension was nudged into making an exclusive deal with BT after the operator said they wouldn’t bid on the open market contract (only two other unnamed firms registered an interest for it).

Andrew Leadbetter said (Western Morning News):

“With my hand on heart I can say we were going out to competitive tender but there was hardly a great stampede so there was a risk there wouldn’t be anybody. Circumstances have gone against us – we wanted to run an open procurement process but we have got a critical timescale to get the contract awarded before state aid ends in June.

We could have been left sitting there with millions of pounds and unable to spend it – we would have been criticised for that. With that amount of money to offload, (Culture Minister) Ed Vaizey told us he was happy for us to go back to the BDUK framework.”

Apparently only the Dartmoor and Exmoor national parks will now be opened up for bids to install the service, although this represents just 3% of the local population and the work is expected to cost around £6 million. Meanwhile BT has apparently refused to comment on the above claims and passed the buck back to councils.

The situation highlights the problem with having a single primary / dominant infrastructure supplier, but it also reflects the UK’s current regulatory model and the way that infrastructure outside of urban areas is still broadly dominated by BT. Rivals have admittedly also struggled to build an alternative (except for Virgin Media.. in urban areas), albeit largely because investing in areas that BT currently covers is exceptionally challenging.

Ultimately we can’t blame BT for being a commercial company and using all of the tricks in its book to win new business, fair enough. But clearly today’s market and regulation, particularly at the infrastructure level, is still far from perfect.