Cable Forum - View Single Post - OFCOM warns rivals over infrastructure share pricing......

**Chris** · 05-05-2011, 20:00

Virgin won't expand their own network to rural areas but they are prepared to buy wholesale carriage on Fujitsu's network, when and if it gets built.

The threat to BT, from Ofcom, is that it should consider lowering its sights a little as regards the price it wants to charge per pole connection or metre of duct, to somewhere closer to the price Fujitsu (and by extension, VM and TalkTalk) are prepared to pay. On the other hand, the threat to Fujitsu/VM/TalkTalk is that they should stop dragging the process out in the hope of getting a better deal when Ofcom gets involved, due to the very lengthy time frame Ofcom's involvement will bring with it.

Fujitsu will have in mind that the cash the Government has available for rural broadband is not reserved for Fujitsu's use, and if one or more other projects come along and start successfully bidding for chunks of it while Fujitsu is sat waiting for Ofcom to consult, set a price and then get taken to court over it by BT, soon enough there will be no funding and therefore no Fujitsu rural network.

05-05-2011, 20:00	#5
Chris Trollsplatter Cable Forum Team Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: North of Watford Services: Humane elimination of all common Internet pests Posts: 38,384	Re: OFCOM warns rivals over infrastructure share pricing...... Virgin won't expand their own network to rural areas but they are prepared to buy wholesale carriage on Fujitsu's network, when and if it gets built. The threat to BT, from Ofcom, is that it should consider lowering its sights a little as regards the price it wants to charge per pole connection or metre of duct, to somewhere closer to the price Fujitsu (and by extension, VM and TalkTalk) are prepared to pay. On the other hand, the threat to Fujitsu/VM/TalkTalk is that they should stop dragging the process out in the hope of getting a better deal when Ofcom gets involved, due to the very lengthy time frame Ofcom's involvement will bring with it. Fujitsu will have in mind that the cash the Government has available for rural broadband is not reserved for Fujitsu's use, and if one or more other projects come along and start successfully bidding for chunks of it while Fujitsu is sat waiting for Ofcom to consult, set a price and then get taken to court over it by BT, soon enough there will be no funding and therefore no Fujitsu rural network.