Hunt tells the UK comms industry to collaborate

Industry event at BIS tomorrow aims to jump-start low-cost UK optical fibre deployment

Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt has warned the UK broadband industry that it must collaborate to cut the cost of deploying next-generation optical fibre networks across the UK.

Tomorrow Hunt will speak at a government-hosted conference at the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS), to hammer out details on how the UK comms industry might begin to deploy optical fibre in hard-to-reach areas.

Among the presenters at the event will be Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK), the organisation launched by the last government in March.

Ahead of the event Hunt said the UK broadband network was as fundamental to Britain’s economic success in the digital era as the railway network was in the industrial age.

Hunt said: "I hope that by the end of this Parliament, this country will boast the best superfast broadband in Europe and be up there with the very best in the world."

“Tomorrow I will bring together the key industry players – [we all] need to work together on solutions and help make universal broadband a reality,” he added.

A list of those attending has been published on the BIS web site, and includes representatives from the comms industry, including BT and Virgin Media, as well as people from utility power and water companies, enterprise network hardware vendors and rural broadband delivery organisations.

BDUK will launch a research exercise tomorrow exploring how it can remove the barriers to providing a basic level of broadband to the mainly rural communities that are not currently connected.

Broadband providers have been asked to examine some real-life examples and suggest innovative solutions that would work in a number of situations.

BIS will also publish a discussion document on infrastructure sharing between telecoms companies and other utilities, which could potentially reduce the cost of building new networks.

Hunt said that there was nothing to stop telecoms or utility companies sharing their infrastructure, but that very few agreements currently exist.

He announced that three pilot rollouts of next-generation fibre technology would be implemented, at locations to be announced later in the year.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport will also publish its Structural Reform Plan later today. This will set out how the government plans to deliver universal broadband rollout.

BDUK is tasked with taking control of the Digital Britain universal service commitment to deliver a 2Mbit/s minimum broadband speed across the UK.

BDUK also has management responsibility for introducing next-generation optical fibre network infrastructure throughout the UK.