Posted: 27th Jul, 2003 By: MarkJ
In today's Sunday Independent newspaper the chief executive of telecoms company Energis, John Pluthero, has blamed BT for holding back UK broadband and demanded regulatory changes:
Mr Pluthero believes the current regime "is not encouraging genuine competition", threatening the aim of Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt to make Britain the most competitive broadband market of the G7.
In a strongly worded report to telecoms regulator Oftel, he says: "Energis is concerned that even the most optimistic forecasts for 2005 still put UK broadband penetration considerably behind the 2003 level of the best-performing G7 countries. We believe the government target can only be reached through a step-change in the level of competitiveness in broadband."
Mr Pluthero is concerned that BT, which sells broadband services to resellers, has a 99% market share of so-called DSL wholesale broadband through the telephone lines. He warns that this will remain "static" unless the Government steps in.Energis would like to see
Oftel (shortly to become Ofcom) regulate BT's margin on wholesale broadband, although this is unlikely to happen.