It make sense to me. If BT installed it as a part of the commercial rollout it is commercial and needs no subsidy so should not be included in the BDUK cost model as it is Gap funding.

True enough, but there is more than the initial capital funding to consider.

BT will also be looking at the expected ROI compared to the commercially viable areas, to recover what they do spend and to make a profit.

I'm totally against any government money going into faster broadband.

However, my thoughts are, this ain't no gravy train. Nobody else is at the party. Big players like Virgin, Fujitsu and any mad council with empire building ambitions. Clearly the Openreach solution is long term payback that nobody else is willing to punt on.

Only Openreach have the players on board that punters want to buy from. Give the money to altnet and they will not have the retailers and will prolly go bust or walk before the investment payback.

Continued delays and dithering by BDUK quangos will mean that Openreach will have the countries most experienced and cost effective fibre rollout workforce without work and on the bench pretty soon as the commercial rollout is nearing completion.This will hit Openreach costs.

Edited by deleted (Wed 17-Jul-13 21:55:32)

The small niche players I would expect to be looking to cover the areas BD UK does not . What is needed is a second wholesale supplier in the non cabled areas

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

True enough, but there is more than the initial capital funding to consider.

BT will also be looking at the expected ROI compared to the commercially viable areas, to recover what they do spend and to make a profit.

Err that's what the gap is, Bob?

Those are some good points, costs dropping because Openreach are better at deploying.

However again this does beg the question why that economy isn't going into more coverage rather than BT paying less per home passed.

I'd rather see government money go into nationwide faster broadband than HS2(for instance).

I entirely agree that there will be efficiency gains, surely however these shouldn't be reaped by BT in lower unit costs?

If paying for that hardware as part of the commercial deployment gave a feasible ROI per home passed shouldn't BT be paying the same costs as part of a government programme?

Obviously BT have done what any other company would do, so nothing on them, it's just somewhat curious.

Does the BDUK funding include ongoing revenue gaps then? I assumed it was merely for the capital outlay that was not regarded by BT as recoverable on a commercial model.

To serve the people not covered by BDUK will cost the country more money than we are already spending providing health, education and rubbish collection badly to them. Small niche players serving this market should be left to go bankrupt without the aid of taxpayers.

There is already a host of wholesale providers throughout the land. Within five miles of my none LLU, FTTC or BT ADSL2 house is fibre tubes dug in by BT, Cable and Wireless, Viatel, Scottish and Southern, Virgin. Level 3, NTL, Global Crossing and Vodafone.