Reply to post: Re: If BT can lower their prices........

Ofcom proposes ways to stop BT undercutting broadband rivals

Alan Brown Silver badge

Re: If BT can lower their prices........

"some other altnets are now complaining that that will deter their plans to build new nets as they won’t get their money back"

More to the point, based on past form, as soon as XYZ altnet announces plans to provide commercial broadband in any given village within 3 months after laying in the comms links and running tests to ensure every house can be covered, BT tells Openreach to suddenly decide it's economic to provide xDSL after all and sends a team of 500 people out to doorstep every house and get signups for contracts with BT broadband services.

When the Altnet then tries to get people who've expressed interest to actually sign a contract, they find that "Oh, we've signed a contract with BT and they've promised installation within a month"

BT then sit back knowing they've nobbled the altnet and can take as long as they like to actually _install_ that broadband - in Cranleigh the actual installation took more than 2 years and it was about 3 before any connections went live, with large portions of the village taking 6+ years to get connected.

And of course to do this kind of tiger-team installation takes Openreach away from the areas where it's being paid by the government to roll out broadband, so things get delayed there too.

THAT is the kind of anticompetitive behaviour that BT is getting away with.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon