ISP Vtesse Networks UK, a provider of national fibre optic networking services, has joined others in welcoming a recent speech by the governments Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics and Media (Jeremy Hunt) in which he confirmed plans to make BT and others "open up" unused portions of their infrastructure to rival telecoms operators (here).

The move is designed to make it more cost effective for private investment to deploy superfast fibre optic broadband services ( e.g. 100Mbps FTTH ) around the country. Vtesse claims that the implications could be far reaching, adding that the cost of digging trenches for fibre optic cables represents the largest element of Final Third broadband deployment costs and is thus the greatest barrier.

However Vtesse warns that the effectiveness of this plan would depend upon BT’s commercial and operational terms for access. It could have an extremely beneficial effect on the cost of super-fast broadband deployment for many Final Third communities, though it could equally become too expensive.


Vtesse Networks are currently implementing super-fast broadband pilot projects for Final Third communities in Wiltshire and Hertfordshire, where access to BT underground ducts and BT telephone poles could help to significantly defray the high costs and accelerate progress. Vtesse has already made enquiries for pole and duct sharing in these areas and have been are encouraged by early feedback from BT.