By: MarkJ - 14 April, 2010 (8:07 AM) - Score: 6648 - Fixed Line Broadband
Residents of Lyddington UK, a small rural village that BT deemed not economically viable for faster broadband services, have banded together and raised £37,000 to setup their own 'up to' 40Mbps Fibre-to-the-Cabinet ( FTTC ) based next generation broadband network.The service is managed by community ISP Rutland Telecom and claims to be the first provider in the UK to develop FTTC combined with fully unbundled ( LLU ) copper phone lines to deliver superfast broadband services. Average download speeds in the area have now increased from 0.5Mbps to 25Mbps.
The process of deploying Lyddington's new network was not an easy one, taking two years from concept to today's deployment, and required intervention by Ofcom. At present some 50 customers are already using the service, which reaches a total of just 200 homes.
David Lewis, MD of Rutland Telecom, told BBC News Online :
"We found that any company could do, on a smaller scale, what Carphone Warehouse has done and take over BT's network. For the first time in UK telecommunications history the telephone lines of customers are completely cut off from the local BT exchange."
"We found that any company could do, on a smaller scale, what Carphone Warehouse has done and take over BT's network. For the first time in UK telecommunications history the telephone lines of customers are completely cut off from the local BT exchange."
There are currently a multitude of similar schemes taking place in rural and semi-urban locations around the country. Lyddington's experimental service will now also be deployed to a number of other isolated rural villages in Rutland.
However BT has warned that the area risks developing a local monopoly unless it allows rival ISPs access to the new network. That might be fair comment to make against a big provider, but perhaps not in an area where the residents themselves paid to develop their own tiny network because BT refused to do so.
UPDATE 10:51am
BT just sent us their full statement.
Olivia Garfield, Group Strategy Director at BT, said:
"This is a positive development as, to date, BT has been alone in investing in rural areas. This isn't ideal if fibre broadband is to be widely available in as short a time frame as possible. We are delighted to help Rutland Telecom reach the homes in the village and we wish them success with their programme. We hope they will offer open access to their network, in the way BT does, as otherwise there is the risk of a local monopoly developing which is never good for consumers."
"This is a positive development as, to date, BT has been alone in investing in rural areas. This isn't ideal if fibre broadband is to be widely available in as short a time frame as possible. We are delighted to help Rutland Telecom reach the homes in the village and we wish them success with their programme. We hope they will offer open access to their network, in the way BT does, as otherwise there is the risk of a local monopoly developing which is never good for consumers."
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Comments: 6
timelessPosted: 14 April, 2010 - 10:31 AM
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Funny, BT is the first to jump onto someone who installed their own FTTC network about opening it up to other providers, yet when other providers ask BT to do the same BT seems to refuse allot, granted there has been some interesting trials going recently with Virgin and BT but there is still this weirdness between providers and sharing their ducts...
l dunno if l should laugh or not... all l have to say is if BT consider this a monopoly then they should re-examine their own position before labelling a community who took it into their own hands to do something BT wasnt willing to before they start making comments like that.. especially considering up till the last few years we were stuck with BT
that being said, l believe all providers should be forced to share ducts, it makes sense as it allows for more competition, which in essence fuels innovation!!
TedPosted: 14 April, 2010 - 11:53 AM
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I hope they are prepared for the costs of complying with the Digital Economy Act.
timelessPosted: 14 April, 2010 - 12:29 PM
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good point, l never thought about that one..
boggitsPosted: 14 April, 2010 - 2:40 PM
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Openreach are providing the copper, there is no monopoly here as any ISP could build a cabinet in the village and compete.
LiamPosted: 14 April, 2010 - 3:13 PM
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I think this is great, this should be happening in more places! If it happened where I live I would be even willing to get a spade and get stuck in too!
timelessPosted: 14 April, 2010 - 3:54 PM
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Openreach are providing the copper, there is no monopoly here as any ISP could build a cabinet in the village and compete.
yeah well obviously, BT wouldnt let nobodies loose on their phone system, the would have needed someone who knows what they are doing to install it, but l bet its still owned by the village, tho thats not the issue here.. whoever its owned by BT think they have the right to complain when their track record regarding network sharing etc isnt entirely clean either.. they should practice what they preach before they complain (and by that l mean for some time.. its only recently that there has been some changes...)
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