Building Broadband Britain

1
Building Broadband Britain

• David Edmonds
• Director General of Telecommunications

2
Oftel strategy

• Focus of Oftels work is consumer
• Competition most likely to deliver consumer
  benefits
• Regulation necessary to encourage competition
• But recognise too much regulation can deter
  investment and innovation

3
Broadband strategy aims and objectives

• Goal to achieve markets which are effectively
  competitive in absence of regulation
• Promoting competition at all levels
  infrastructure needed to deliver services and
  provision of services
• Delivering choice, quality, value for money in
  broadband access and services for consumers

4
Delivering broadband

• BTs wholesale DSL services - over 100 DSL
  service providers
• local loop unbundling
• broadband interconnection
• cable modems
• leased lines
• 3G, satellite, broadband fixed wireless access
• means UK has one of the widest range of choice
  for broadband services in Europe

5
Competition over BTs DSL network
6
Availability how are we doing?

• 60 of UK consumers business within DSL enabled
  exchange areas.
• Cable networks pass nearly 50 of UK households -
  cable modem services available to around 38 of
  all households
• Digital TV offers one-way broadband - available
  to 99 households. Two-way satellite developing,
  although still relatively expensive
• LLU available to meet demand. All exchanges open
  to competing operators
• Leased lines (symmetric broadband) available
  throughout country.

7
Take-up Growth of UK Broadband connections, Dec
2000 to Dec 2001
Total broadband customers 335,000
Total cable customers 196,000
Total DSL customers 139,000
8
Take-up DSL connections since launch

• UK DSL take up in line with take up in other
  countries at a similar stage of deployment

9
The narrowband experience

• UK has one of EUs most advanced markets in
  Internet access with numerous service providers
• Both flat-rate and metered available at some of
  the lowest prices in the world
• Unmetered availability may have delayed take-up
  of broadband
• But also provides migration path to broadband

10
Broadband pricing - residential
Kbit/s
60
1,000
50
800
40
all
600
pm
30
DSL only
400
Bandwidth
20
200
10
0
0
Sweden
UK
US
Germany
France

• UK cable modem prices close to cheapest - but DSL
  expensive

11
Broadband pricing - SME
350
300
Bandwidth
250
Low
200
pm
medium
150
high
100
50
0
Sweden
US
Germany
UK
France

• UK prices broadly in line with elsewhere - wider
  range of services seen in Germany / US

12
Competition plus other initiatives

• Work on broadband backed up with detailed
  research - regular benchmarking studies
• Consumer awareness also important - Oftel study
  into consumer attitudes to Internet use/broadband
• Supporting Government in projects to wire
  schools/libraries remote regions

13
Broadband in contextcomparing other technologies
14
Conclusion

• Oftels objective is competition at all levels of
  value chain. Beginning to show results.
• Roll-out later than other countries, but catching
  up. Take-up increasing significantly but still
  early days.
• Regulatory framework in place to support further
  development, but Broadband not just a task for
  regulators and Government
• Industry and consumers will play greatest role in
  determining future of Broadband Britain