Ofcom’s Chief Executive, Ed Richards, has used the industry trade body Intellect’s conference in London this morning to set out its pro-investment framework for next generation, super-fast broadband networks. He also invited industry leaders to commit and work with it on the rollout:


Richards words appear to hint that Ofcom is more likely to give the major investors (e.g. BT) a greater degree of initial control over such services. However, given the extreme costs involved (roughly 10 to 15 billion pounds), this is probably the only feasible way of doing things.

Public funding would of course help to open any future markets up sooner, although the government has remained fairly opposed to such a notion. However, this could leave rural users in the cold as more economical urban locations would undoubtedly gain the best and fastest services first.

Ofcom now plans to host the first of a series of working sessions focused on practical action and resolution of areas of uncertainty as soon as possible. The full text of the speech will be available at:

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/media/speeches/2008/