Posted: 04th May, 2010 By: MarkJ

The boss of Rutland Telecom (RT), a UK ISP that specialises in providing Next Generation Access (NGA) services to rural areas, has today highlighted the "
situation of discrimination" that exists with BT Openreach and called for Ofcom to ensure reduced costs and a "
level playing field" for all.
Openreach is, under Ofcom and BT's pre-agreed undertakings, responsible for ensuring that all rival ISPs have equality of access to BT's local UK network. However, speaking exclusively in an interview with ISPreview.co.uk today, RT's Managing Director David Lewis warned that Openreach was in some cases "
moving more towards being a wholesale ISP".
Rutland Telecom's MD, David Lewis, told ISPreview.co.uk:
"We are a customer of BT Openreach who are also now our competitor - we have raised this with Ofcom, the fact that potentially we have a situation of discrimination, particularly in any area where we both install a cabinet due to the lower costs for BT to deploy using their own infrastructure compared to the prices charged to subloop operators who are their customers.
So what we have is a unique situation - to have your regulated supplier competing with you - something of a conflict of interest. We welcome the latest Ofcom consultation which looks to lower the costs for subloop operators to make it more of a level playing field with BT FTTC."
A BT Spokesman told ISPreview.co.uk in reply:
"Openreach supports the efforts of our customers such as Rutland Telecom to bring greater broadband speeds to areas where competitive commercial roll-out is more challenging. Our open access product set, including our innovative fibre access products and our regulated Sub Loop products used by Rutland, underpins a very competitive marketplace for telecoms services in the UK both nationally and locally."
Rutland Telecom recently gained notoriety after it banded together with residents of Lyddington, a small rural village that BT deemed not economically viable for faster broadband services, to be the first to deploy an unbundled ( LLU ) 'up to' 40Mbps Fibre-to-the-Cabinet ( FTTC ) broadband service in such a remote location.
Soon after BT's Group Strategy Director, Olivia Garfield, caused uproar by calling on Rutland Telecom to open access into their network "
in the way BT does", adding that otherwise there "
is the risk of a local monopoly developing which is never good for consumers".
Rutland Telecom warned that such comment treated the "
millions of people who find themselves on the wrong side of the digital divide with contempt" and added that "
companies like ours could make a living from the crumbs that BT leave on the table". Follow the link below to read and pass comment on our full 4 page interview with Rutland Telecom's MD, David Lewis.
Interview with UK Rural Broadband ISP Rutland Telecom
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/articles/10_UK_ISP_Rutland_Telecom_Interview/