The Independent Networks Cooperative Association (INCA), which seeks to support the development of local superfast broadband services, has warned that the government's approach to funding national rollouts of next gen internet services (through its Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) office) should be reviewed before more operators walk away.

The comments are a reference to Geo Networks (Geo), a dedicated fibre optic solutions provider (i.e. FibreSpeed), which recently withdrew from the BDUK process over economic and competition concerns (here). A day later the Bath & North East Somerset Council (BNESC) gave up on BDUK too (here), describing the process as expensive. INCA notes that Cable & Wireless Worldwide has apparently also pulled out of the Cumbria procurement.

INCA's CEO, Malcolm Corbett, claims that one of the problems is that "all local authorities are being steered towards a gap-funding model based on BT’s business case for rolling out [ FTTC ]," which could be hindering alternative solutions.


Corbett also fears that BT could be placing too many "restrictions" on how their physical infrastructure (cable ducts and telegraph poles) can be used, which makes "the business case in rural areas" far "tougher" to handle.


In fairness BT is a commercial company and is quite understandably trying to protect its assets. Perhaps the real problem here is thus with regulation and a failure to address some of the underlying problems, ideally before allowing the process to proceed.

Corbett suggests that there are other areas at fault too. For example, he points to the governments £1.5bn drive to connect Smart Meters in homes and businesses. This could have been intelligently linked to the next generation broadband plan, except it wasn't.


In reality INCA's opinions probably won't carry enough weight to change the situation, although we're certain that the government would rather be hearing more about the positive side of their efforts. So far there's not much to offer on that front as little actual BDUK related network building has taken place and probably won't do until sometime in 2012.

The BDUK office has at least managed to allocate its initial budget of £530m (could rise to £830m by 2017) to various local authorities, which will now be tasked with ensuring that 90% of people can access a superfast broadband (24Mbps+) ISP service by 2015.

UPDATE 21st November 2011

One of our readers reminded us that Vtesse Networks ( Vtesse Broadband ) also effectively left the BDUK process approximately one year ago due to similar concerns (here).