Yes sir.
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LONDON, Feb 8 (Reuters) - British telecom carrier BT (BT.L) plans to allow its competitors to use its underground tunnel network to run high-speed broadband, the Financial Times reported on Monday.
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The key part for Virgin is this:
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"Open access to all ducts, not just ours, might help BT and others extend coverage and so we would like to see a future government support such a move," he said.
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Be interesting to see how Virgin react to the now inevitable pressure. BT opening up their duct network leaves Virgin in a precarious place of looking like the 'bad guy' for trying to keep their ducting and network to themselves. Indeed in Paris ducting is open and there are multiple fibre operators. European law is gearing towards requiring open ducting and Virgin are dead set against offering wholesale access let alone access to their physical assets.
The obvious defence is that BT's network was built with public money which in the case of a lot of the ducting is true, but also true is that that network was purchased with private money. VM cannot claim to be impoverished, they are paying down their debt, have a great debt - EBITDA ratio, and are a profitable company now in terms of actual cash flow.
I can't see a problem with this and would very much like to see VM along with BT and other operators open up their ducting to one another. It would inevitably improve choice and the quality of our services as in some areas at least operators would be diving into VM's ducting with fibre optics and supplying full fibre to the home giving some real competition.
Thoughts?