Full Fibre UK ISP Hyperoptic Joins Broadband Stakeholder Group

Broadband ISP Hyperoptic has today joined the Broadband Stakeholder Group (BSG), which is a think-tank that advises the UK Government on various related areas of policy. The operator is currently working to extend their “full fibre” (FTTP/B) network to 2 million UK premises by the end of 2023 (currently at 750,000).

The BSG is already funded by a core group of sponsors, which include the BBC, BT, CityFibre, DCMS (Government), Ericsson, Gigaclear, Huawei, Openreach, Sky (Sky Broadband), TalkTalk, TechUK, Three UK, Virgin Media (VMO2), Vodafone and the Wireless Infrastructure Group (WIG) as part of their executive (i.e. a committee that meets every six weeks and sets the overall direction for the work of the group).

In addition, Ofcom, the CBI, INCA and the Communications Consumer Panel (CCP) also form part of the executive, although they aren’t listed as sponsors who provide funding for the BSG. By comparison, Hyperoptic has joined the core group of sponsors above, which they see as enabling them to “take a more active industry role in alleviating the barriers that exist to enable the government vision of Gigabit Britain“.

James Fredrickson, Hyperoptic’s Director of Policy and Regulatory Affairs, said:

“Some of the biggest barriers facing the acceleration of full fibre rollout are ultimately the product of an inter-connected patchwork of different policy areas; be that land access, supply chain logistics or labour market access. The BSG is the premier organisation that enables discussion of these issues across industry and government; creating a neutral forum for evidence sharing and analysis. We are delighted to be joining and look forward to participating.”

We should point out that the BSG itself is intended to be a neutral forum for organisations across the converging broadband value-chain to discuss and resolve key policy, regulatory and commercial issues. As well as producing various useful reports, it has also helped to design the current Open Internet Code (Net Neutrality), among other things.