British Prime Minister Demands Broadband Details from ISP

David Cameron is claiming that the British ISP BT has to give more detail of their roll-out plans. Perhaps, Prime Minister is miffed that rival Internet service providers can’t see whether there are different ways to fill a gap in the planned broadband coverage.
At the moment, the government’s initiative dubbed Broadband Delivery UK is working with BT to provide fast broadband available to 95% of the UK by 2017. However, the critics of the initiative are frustrated by both the apparent lack of competition or alternatives to BT’s infrastructure. They complained that operators lack detailed broadband rollout plans which could have allowed them to create conditions whereby alternative suppliers may be crowded out.

Although smaller broadband providers can’t afford to bid for Broadband projects, they still can apply to the Rural Community Broadband Fund. But this means that the smaller providers have to understand whether their plans will conflict with the superfast broadband initiative or BT deployment. This is what BT keeps silence about.

One of the Liberal Democrat MPs asked Prime Minister for help at his question time, pointing out that his constituents were very frustrated that BT can’t tell them when, or even if, they could be connected, which undermines the very idea of alternative planning.

David Cameron replied that he had a chat with BT on this matter and can have it again. He confirmed that they have asked the Internet service provider to provide more detail in their roll-out plans about which areas would get broadband so that others could see whether there are other gaps they can fill.

Nevertheless, Prime Minister didn’t agree with the critics who believe that BT has somehow not been putting its shoulder to the wheel: David Cameron claimed that the ISP was putting a massive investment into broadband, with 10,000 homes and businesses being connected every week.