Despite the fact that British Telecom has grabbed the headlines in the broadband industry over the last few months with regards to funding issues and the opening up of the company’s broadband network, it looks as though the spotlight may soon be turning on Virgin Broadband. Only a few weeks after announcing it was in talks with Ofcom to negotiate access for competitors to BT’s underground network the company has now called on Virgin Broadband to operate under the same stipulations.
The Virgin Broadband network has been up and running for some time with a 50 Mb per second service now available and work already progressing on a 100 Mb per second package. As BT continues to roll out its nationwide superfast broadband network it believes that access to Virgin Broadband’s underground ducts would save time and money and ultimately benefit the UK broadband arena. However, Ofcom has ruled that because Virgin Broadband does not hold the same market influence as BT at the moment it will not be forced to open up its own network to competitors in the short term.
This is a bitter blow for BT but many believe it is only a matter of time before the same conditions are placed upon Virgin Broadband regarding access to its network as look likely to be placed upon BT.