21 November 2002 -- UK Government advisory forum the Broadband Stakeholder Group (BSG) has told the Government that telcos must share the same physical infrastructure in order to extend broadband coverage across the UK.
Chairman of the BSG Keith Todd will recommend in his annual report, published this week, that the UK needs a "civil utility infrastructure", whereby local authorities or private sector organisations take responsibility for constructing nationwide, high capacity fibre networks.
Next-generation broadband specialist company, PacketFront, applauds this recommendation, and now calls for the broadband debate to focus on the delivery of competitive services rather than competitive infrastructure.
With a nationwide broadband utility network in place, consumers and businesses should expect to be able to choose between multiple service providers and their content rather than be tied into a single infrastructure/service provider such as BT (as is the case at the moment).
This Operator Independent Network (OIN) model has already begun to have a significant impact on the Swedish market. PacketFront's latest OIN project is in the Stockholm suburb of Hammarby Stojstad. Hammarby is Sweden's largest 'wired city', and when completed, over 30,000 homes and businesses will be connected to a fibre network with a choice of at least two competing TV providers, three IP telephony streams and three ISPs.