Britain gets a new broadband divide
Published: 19 Apr 2005 15:30 BST
Easynet's 240 unbundled exchanges allow it to reach around 4.4 million homes and offices, but to offer an unbundled service to everyone in the UK it would have to unbundle all of BT's 6,000-plus local exchanges, a bill that could run into the billions of pounds.
According to Ian Fogg, senior analyst at Jupiter, LLU gives operators more choice in what they offer to users. "It's up to the ISPs whether they decide to offer the same speeds for less money, faster speeds, or services such as voice-over-IP," says Fogg, who pointed out that in France unbundling has led to the rollout of innovative broadband services such as VoIP and IP television.
Fogg believes that urban areas will continue to benefit from better broadband services in "at least the short and medium term", but insists that this wasn't as negative a situation as a few years ago when high-speed services weren't widely available.
"Rural areas can get broadband, but if you live in urban areas you get more choice," says Fogg. There are many other factors that are considered when a business picks a location, including availability of land and transport links, where some rural areas could have an advantage, he explains.
Lindsey Annison, broadband activist and founder of the Access to Broadband Campaign, believes that public funding is needed to address the broadband divide.
"This Labour government encouraged a competitive broadband marketplace. Whoever is in government next needs a strategy that takes account of what's happened abroad," says Annison, pointing to South Korea where government intervention played a key role in boosting broadband availability and take-up.
Annison adds that local communities are still playing a vital role in providing broadband in areas where it isn't otherwise available, despite BT being on track to offer its ADSL service to 99.6 percent of homes and businesses by this summer.
"Community networks were expected to fall by the wayside, but that's not happened at all," says Annison.
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