Commenting on Ofcom’s update on the future of Openreach, published today, Richard Neudegg, Head of Regulation at Uswitch.com, says: “A complete separation of Openreach and BT has been put on the back-burner – for now at least. The regulator has given it the chance to make improvements to avoid potentially losing Openreach forever.
“Quite frankly, consumers – too many of whom are familiar with delays incurred by Openreach even when BT isn’t their retail provider – don’t care how it’s done. They just want and deserve a better service.
“Too many of us don’t currently have the speeds necessary for a decent online experience. Despite the wide availability of fibre, we aren’t yet seeing widespread take-up – 30% of broadband users still register actual speeds of less than 5Mbps while just 10% are logging speeds above 50Mbps.
“The broadband market is at a crossroads. The big question is how we achieve the right kind of competition and investment in the UK’s broadband infrastructure – and a proposed re-structuring of BT Group doesn’t answer that question by itself.
“With today’s proposals on more independence for Openreach within BT Group, Ofcom is trying to give the network-arm more incentive to invest its money in the right places and boost other providers’ ability to compete on more aspects of broadband service. BT Group needs to get on with delivering some progress, and fast. We’ve seen Ofcom and Government state clearly if we don’t see significant improvements, other options need to be considered.”
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FOR MORE INFORMATION
Claire Jones
Phone: 020 7148 4663
Email: Claire.Jones@uswitch.com
Twitter: @uswitchPR
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