Companies news February 2017

BT/Openreach developments this month:

• The Telegraph reported that the Government is urging Ofcom and BT to settle their dispute over the future of Openreach to avoid rural broadband delays. In November 2016 Ofcom announced it would proceed with a formal notification to the European Commission to require the legal separation of Openreach from BT, after BT failed to offer voluntary proposals that addressed Ofcom’s competition concerns.
• The Telegraph also reported an admission by Openreach’s chairman Mike McTighe that the company had underinvested in broadband for several years and also calls by O2’s chief executive for Ofcom to ensure that BT’s new structure stimulates competition in the wholesale market, particularly in relation to delivering a greater choice of fibre backbone providers to connect mobile masts.
• The Financial Times and ISP Review reported that BT has appointed two more members to a newly formed Openreach board of directors (also see last month’s update). Ofcom responded that the move did not go far enough to address its concerns.
• BT and Huawei announced new research into how “network slicing” (a method of carving out specific “slices” of an IP-based network for dedicated purposes) may be used to support services delivered over tomorrow’s 5G networks. This allows individual services to remain unaffected by bandwidth demands on the network as a whole, and to have specific policies applied to the traffic being carried over that slice, especially relevant when those services are mission-critical. BT also announced collaborative research with Nokia into the use of 5G for future virtual reality applications. BT also announced a partnership with the Telecom Infra Project and Facebook to “accelerate research into disruptive telecoms technologies”.

• Ericsson announced a partnership with BT and King's College London on the development of 5G projects in support of mission-critical services, commercial and consumer markets.
• ISP Review reported on a number of BT service developments. A new Digital Mapping Tool is intended to make it easier for other providers to plan and build their own fibre optic broadband infrastructure using Openreach’s existing network of ducts and poles. It also provided an overview of forthcoming BT Wholesale product and service developments and updates on BT’s long reach VDSL and SOGEA standalone FTTC broadband trials.

Other companies news this month:

• Further concerns were expressed this month over the Government’s business rate revaluation of fibre networks: the Financial Times reported that the heads of BT, Virgin Media, Gigaclear, Hyperoptic and CityFibre have written a joint letter to the Chancellor Philip Hammond to complain that the regime is not fit for purpose and will weaken the UK’s ability to attract inward investment. More background on this here and also see coverage from ISP Review and The Register.
• Three announced the acquisition of UK Broadband Limited, which holds 124MHz of spectrum in the 3 and 3.6GHz bands and provides broadband access to 15,000 customers in the UK. In 2014 launched a LTE network in London under the name Relish.
• O2’s plans to float on the stock exchange depend upon whether Ofcom agrees to make it more difficult for BT and Vodafone to dominate the sale of spectrum, according to the Telegraph.
• ISP Review reported that Gigaclear had won a contract to deliver gigabit services as part of the Gloucestershire and Herefordshire County Councils’ FasterShire initiative and also on the operation of a gigabit dark fibre network in Colchester by County Broadband.
• Hyperoptic announced that its gigabit broadband service is now live in a number of developments across central Newcastle; ISP Review reported that the company is also to bring its service to 865 premises at Battersea Power Station.
• CityFibre announced that it has concluded an access agreement with Gamma to connect 15 data centres and exchanges across the UK over CityFibre’s long-distance and metro networks.