BT Launches Fibre Broadband Competition

BT has launched a competition designed to assess the demand for fibre optic broadband in different areas of the country – by gathering votes from potential subscribers.

Known as the “Race to Infinity,” the five exchanges that show the greatest demand will be provided with fibre broadband by early 2012, according to BT. It will also help the company to identify “hot spots,” where demand for fibre broadband is high.

“The Race to Infinity is an opportunity for the country to make its voice heard,” said BT Retail chief executive Gavin Patterson. “BT will have rolled out fibre to more than four million homes by the end of 2010 but it’ll still have more than 12 million premises to pass by 2015. We want to hear from towns and villages across the UK and so I would encourage people to take part and register their interest.”

Fibre broadband investment

Back in May, BT pledged to invest £2.5 billion in rolling out fibre to around two thirds of UK homes by 2015. The company still plans to manage this deployment within its current level of capital expenditure. However, BT executives have stressed that public sector support will be required for exchanges in the “final third” of the UK, where deploying fibre is not commercially viable.

The Labour Party, when in government, sought to fund fibre rollout in rural areas with a broadband tax, which would have seen every household with a landline pay an extra 50p per month on fixed phone lines. However the plan was heavily criticised by members of the industry, many of whom said the government’s figures didn’t add up, and it was scrapped shortly before the election.

The coalition government originally labeled Labour’s commitment to universal 2Mbps broadband as “pitifully unambitious”, but was soon forced to admit that there was a funding shortfall and has delayed the rollout until 2015. However, the coalition still favours a market-driven approach to fibre broadband investment, and has provided no budget to get the last remaining ten million Brits online.

“Whenever I travel around the UK I hear the same message: people want access to superfast broadband in their communities,” said Communications Minister Ed Vaizey in a statement. “I warmly welcome any initiative that will lead to private sector investment in fibre networks, and applaud the way BT are engaging consumers to ensure that investment reaches the people who want it the most.”

Race to Infinity

The Race to Infinity will run from early October to the end of December 2010. Participants can register their interest in fibre broadband at www.bt.com/racetoinfinity. The website will also show the number of votes received for each exchange and will display the top five exchanges leading the race as exchanges hit 1,000 votes.

As well as the five winning exchanges, BT is pledging to engage with any community that gathers 75 percent of possible votes for their exchange but does not win the competition. These exchanges will either be included in BT’s future commercial phases – if the exchange is deemed commercially viable – or enabled as a result of public sector or community support.

Last month, BT introduced a new incentive for signing up to its Infinity fibre-based broadband, promising free Infinity upgrades to users who sign up now for one of its conventional broadband packages.

The offer means that users who sign up for BT Total Broadband broadband and telephone bundles will be able to upgrade to Infinity at no extra monthly charge when the service arrives in their area.

Virgin Media as well as smaller operators such as Vtesse Networks, are also looking to compete with BT in the fibre market, but the government recently ruled out a review of business rates on fibre networks, seen as a major barrier to fibre rollouts.