UK ISP Entanet Criticises Lords Amendment for a 30Mbps Broadband USO

Communications provider Entanet has criticised the House of Lords for its failure to consult with the industry before deciding to vote through a tough new Universal Service Obligation (USO), which aims to deliver a minimum download speed of 30Mbps (6Mbps upload) to all by 2020.

Prior to last month’s decision the Government had been proposing a legally-binding 10Mbps USO as part of their 2017 Digital Economy Bill. Entanet describes that proposal as being “realistically possible via a variety of technologies that are expected to be delivered predominantly by BT,” although they warn that delivering a minimum service of 30Mbps to 100% of the UK (here) is a “whole new ball game!”

The operator said that they welcomed the “desire to increase speeds” and “encourage network investment across the industry,” although they believe that this should be achieved through technological developments and “not Government-imposed demands“.

Neil Watson, Entanet’s Head of Service, said (blog):

“In our opinion, the Government, as usual, has missed the boat on this and should have had these plans and requirements in place back in the mid 2000’s when the 21C network was being developed and rolled out. If that had been the case we would be in a better position now to achieve this level of USO by the 2020 deadline as the correct technology would already have been implemented. As it stands, by the time we can implement the correct underlying infrastructure to deliver these sorts of speeds to 100% of the UK it will no doubt be overtaken by further technological developments or be irrelevant due to ever-increasing bandwidth demands.

It’s another example of coming up with great headline-hitting and consumer-pleasing ideas but without any industry consultation as to whether it could even be achieved. The estimated price tag for delivering a 30Mbps USO is already being cited at around £2 billion – who is expected to pay for this? Network providers? Tax payers? The Government (and thereby, tax payers)? Unsurprisingly, there is next to no information available to answer this question.

But it’s not just the headline ‘30Mbps USO’ we have concerns over. The new requirements also state every household should have access to an unlimited usage cap and receive committed information rates of 10Mbps. So, network providers are going to be required to build their networks to accommodate this ‘potential’ need for unlimited bandwidth from every user even though most don’t and won’t want or need it, just ‘in case’ it’s needed. Clearly the Lords have no idea how network management works or how much cost this would incur. Why do they have no idea? Because yet again, industry advice has been widely ignored.”

However we suspect that Entanet need not worry too much because there’s a high probability that the Government will simply cast out the amendment at the final hurdle, not least since they’ve so far showed no signs of accommodating it. Once approved there will also be another public consultation on the design of the USO, which is when the final requirements are due to be set.