COMMUNICA | Issue Five
COMMUNICA: Final Thought
INDEPENDENT
VOICES
Matt Hancock declared that the
future is ‘Full Fibre and 5G’ and
so took a decisive step away
from the previous status quo,
supporting incremental upgrades
to BT’s copper infrastructure.
INCA’s members, the companies
building new full fibre and wireless
networks, had already advocated
this approach in our report
‘Building Gigabit Britain’ with a
series of recommendations that
Hancock and his team accepted.
When Hancock spoke at the
2016 Broadband World Forum
and INCA Conference, our world
changed; the ‘altnets’ had arrived,
moving from the fringe of the
digital infrastructure debate to
centre stage.
INCA was set up in 2010 to
advocate a more competitive
approach to delivering new digital
networks. We argued that the
country needed to significantly
upgrade our digital infrastructure
and by enabling competition the
job would get done faster and
more effectively than simply
supporting the incumbent.
Consequently we were
disappointed that the BDUK
process subsidising rural
50 |
superfast broadband ended up
with BT as the only bidder.
We raised the issue in Parliament
through the Public Accounts
Committee which led to significant
criticism of the existing regime.
It didn’t make us popular with
officials (or indeed with BT), but
it did lead to changes that made
subsequent BDUK funding rounds
more accessible to altnets.
By the time Matt Hancock was
appointed Digital Minister, Ofcom
had shifted its stance markedly
in the Digital Communications
Review from support for
retail services competition, to
favour fixed line infrastructure
competition.
In part this reflected the
development of the altnet sector
with companies like Hyperoptic,
CityFibre and Gigaclear forging
ahead and demonstrating their
capabilities.
It also reflected a growing
frustration with the slow pace
of development by BT and
Openreach.
Clearly government and the
regulator were hoping that,
spurred by competition, the
incumbent would be forced to
move more quickly.
Policy and regulatory recognition
led to much greater interest from
the investment community and
funding started flowing into the
sector.
With around £1bn committed to
the altnets in 2017 we wanted to
know what impact this was having
INCA Chairman
Malcolm Corbett
shares his thoughts
on the growth of
Alt-Nets in the
United Kingdom
for COMMUNICA
Magazine
^
In Autumn 2016,
Government’s
telecoms policy
changed in a big
way.