Re:Viewing 2002 - A year in broadband (Part 2)

May to August: 'milestones and millstones'

May began on a positive note with Oftel's director general Dave Edmonds announcing the UK had 500,000 broadband connections (see http://www.silicon.com/a53075 for more). Ecommerce minister Douglas Alexander spoiled the party a little by insisting on referring again to the "building of 'Broadband Britain'" - a misnomer which the government wasn't yet ready to surrender. The truth of the matter was cities and heavily urbanised areas of the UK were indeed experiencing a broadband revolution but in geographical terms it was still a revolution that was bypassing the majority of the country. Also being by-passed were a few important competition laws, according to Freeserve. The ISP complained to Oftel about BT Retail's plans to bill users of its 'no frills' broadband service via their standard 'blue bill'. Freeserve said BT's monopoly of its 'blue bill' was further freezing out rival ISPs and a clear abuse of the dominant position gained through landline provision (see http://www.silicon.com/a53450 for more). Despite Freeserve's reasoning, Oftel decided against taking any action in this instance - a move which sparked a war of words between the ISP and the regulator and created discontent on the part of Freeserve which would resurface again and again throughout the year. Come June Freeserve was still gunning for Oftel - adding an accusation of "laissez faire" regulation to the previous month's accusations of spin doctoring and a pro-BT bias. And this time the ISP exercised its democratic right to take its complaints to Whitehall. Freeserve issued a warning to the government, telling MPs and Lords - and presumably anybody else who would listen - that Oftel's lax regulation of the ISP market could scupper the future of Broadband Britain (see http://www.silicon.com/a53784 for more). BT also came over all democratic in June, with the announcement of its controversial trigger levels (see http://www.silicon.com/a54003 for more). BT challenged rural Britain to register interest in broadband and promised that once interest hit pre-determined levels it would roll out a DSL-enabled exchange. "If BT wants to offer a service, offer it to EVERYONE not just the most financially viable. Sorry BT but that's the price of being a monopoly," wrote silicon.com reader Sean Williams (see http://www.silicon.com/a54064 for more). However, other comments we received were starting to show appreciation for BT's vision and even its business sense. "I fully support BT's position on rural broadband. BT are not in the business of losing vast sums of money converting exchanges when only a handful of people would actually sign up," wrote Dave Knowles. Mark Nicholls wrote: "While I agree with the concept that BT is not a charity, it does have the corner on a service that many people rely on. It is expected that in such cases it is possible to have lines that make less than others." But that's privatisation for you. So, with Labour still fighting to right some of the wrongs leftover from the darkest days of Thatcher's Tory government, Tony Blair announced new measures in June to try to promote the roll out of broadband in the regions. Blair appointed a number of dedicated broadband advisors to ensure every area in the UK is represented in its fight to secure high-speed web access (see http://www.silicon.com/a54198 for more). In July there was only one place to be. Wales. While the UK government was feigning deafness whenever the word subsidy was used, on 12 July the Welsh Assembly announced a scheme to promote broadband in the country through £100m of investment to be spent on providing cheap high-speed internet to 310,000 homes and 67,000 businesses. The move was intended to remedy the particularly poor state of affairs in the country where only two per cent of businesses had broadband web access (see http://www.silicon.com/a54551 for more). In a separate move Welsh doctors were also given a hand-out with £3m to pay for 230 GPs' practices and other NHS sites to be connected to fat pipes. In August BT provided further surprise when it announced its intentions to carry out a number of rural broadband trials which could lead to the launch of broadband on exchanges where as few as 16 customers had shown an interest. However, this was not pure 'heart of gold' benevolence - the schemes were funded by local bodies, including county councils, to the tune of £7,000 a piece (see http://www.silicon.com/a55116 for more). But for all the improvements to date, the UK was still progressing at a slower speed than much of the rest of the world. Analysts firm Point Topic revealed on 27 August that the total number of broadband users worldwide had reached 26 million. While there were still major towns in the UK which were not connected to broadband, the news reached us that outside the UK the high-speed web revolution had spread to all four corners of the globe. Worse still the UK failed to even register on a top 20 list of broadband nations which included countries such as Austria, Canada, Estonia, France and Israel (see http://www.silicon.com/a55288 for more) - as well as other European countries Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. The absence of the UK from this list served as much as an embarrassment as it did as a reminder that there was still a long way to go with 'Broadband Britain'. Click here for September to December: A happy ending? http://www.silicon.com/a56874