It seems that Ed Vaizey’s letter box will be full today, as quite a few UK telecoms firms and ISPs, including Virgin Media, TalkTalk, Geo, Vtesse Networks and Fujitsu have joined forces to compose a joint letter to the Communications Minister.
The companies hoped that their letter would influence Vaizey to push BT to make prices for access to its infrastructure (for example cable ducts and telegraph poles) reasonable, fair and cheaper.
The first draft pricing proposal put together back in January 2011 has not left ISPs happy with the charges for BT’s Physical Infrastructure Access (PIA).
Ed Vaizey is to read the following:
“We are unanimous in the belief that the BDUK competitive procurement process will lack a credible alternative to BT, should BT fail to make substantial revisions to PIA product pricing.
“PIA will be a commercial and policy failure if Openreach does not revise its prices. Moreover, we are united in the view that the product is unfit to proceed into commercial use.”
It has also been said that Sky Broadband has gone solo this time and written a similar letter straight to BT, voicing its concerns regarding the pricing.
Last month, a BTOpenreach spokesperson said:
“We know that some customers have expressed concern about the elements of the Draft Reference Offer pricing, specifically of poles and lead-ins.”
The letter also said that rolling out high-speed broadband across the country would be increasingly difficult if BT Openreach did not lower its rates.
