BT will open up its ducts and pole infrastructure to rival ISPs from this summer.

The telecoms giant said last year that it would grant rivals access to its infrastructure, following pressure from the Government and talks with Ofcom, in order to help improve fibre broadband coverage in the UK.

“Although we don’t view duct and pole sharing as the silver bullet to get fibre to every premises in the UK, these new products represent a positive step, opening our infrastructure to supply industry with an even wider range of different mechanisms for delivering fibre broadband," said Steve Robertson, CEO of Openreach.

BT's Openreach arm has proposed a tariff of £0.95 per metre to let rival ISPs run their own cables through its ducts, and £21 per telegraph pole to string up lines.

Such pricing "compares favourably with similar solutions offered in other European markets," BT claimed, saying its duct access pricing is 15% below the average prices in France, Spain, Portugal and Germany.

Virgin has long pushed for access to BT's ducts, and said earlier this year it would extend its fibre footoprint using that infrastructure - so long as the price was right.

"We’re examining Openreach’s proposed pricing and now need to ensure that BT’s initial demands do not limit the ambitions of getting next-generation connectivity to those people living outside our towns and cities,” a Virgin Media spokesperson said.

The pricing is still subject to an industry consultation, so may change before the summer.

Share and share alike

BT has previously said its rivals - notably Virgin Media - should also be forced to offer such infrastructure access.

"We also think it’s really important that consumers and businesses continue to enjoy a choice of fibre services so we will be expecting others to be as open as we are,” Robertson said.

"With this in mind, we will be seeking that communications providers making use of the Openreach infrastructure also open their own ducts and poles to other operators."

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/broadband/3 ... nd-pricing

Only seams fair.

£580 per mile. The main need for fibre is for people over 10 miles from the exchange when copper pretty much fails. I wonder how many farm houses will pay £6K to BT + another £50K to whoever puts the fibre in

Might help my mate out. For some reason his street is the only one in the area that doesn't have cable. In the past virgin have said it wasn't viable to install. That might not have been an issue if the noisy phone lines weren't limited to 512kb ADSL.

A street that's practically right next to ours can't get cable, but we can