Posted: 24th Jul, 2008 By: MarkJ
Following a little later than most, IDNet's Director, Simon Davies, has kindly issued us with his comment on BT's recently announced rollout of fibre optic broadband services to the UK:
"We think this is great news. A big step forward for consumer connectivity, on a par with the leap from dial-up to ADSL. ISP networks need to be continually upgraded to cope with increasing demand. As long as the pricing model is sustainable then the finance should be available for the investment needed to cope with fibre-to-the-home.
Any ISP promoting a fibre connection with "unlimited" download usage will probably want to upgrade their advertising. But then this is an issue that the regulator should be addressing today."
In related news, we've been able to confirm with some other UK ISPs what those taking BT Wholesale's Broadband Managed Connect (WBMC) product may not be able to introduce 'up to' 24Mbps ADSL2+ services until early 2009 or late 2008 at best.
Some providers are also uncertain as to how long it will be before BT allows them to migrate their broadband subscribers (in bulk) from the older IPStream ADSL platform to the newer WBMC ADSL2+ one.