Communications Bill - Clause 69 - Permitted subject-matter of access-related conditions
Communications Bill
4:30 pm
Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon and East Chelmsford, Conservative)
At the end of the sitting this morning, we were talking about ways of achieving the roll out of broadband. There was universal agreement among members of the Committee that one of our key challenges was to achieve wider access. Another challenge is to try to achieve a more competitive market. In some ways, those challenges may conflict. In other ways, however, it can be argued that achieving a more competitive market may increase the availability and, hopefully, the take-up of broadband.
There has long been discussion that such an increase in availability and take-up can be linked to local loop unbundling, which has been around for some time. However, it is fair to say that not much progress has been made to date. The local loop is, in effect, the pipe between the exchange and the home, and is the final stage of the telecommunications journey. It can be used to deliver various services, and it is envisaged that one way of achieving greater competition will be to open up the local loop—the final stage of the journey—to operators other than BT.
As I said this morning, broadband access may eventually be delivered in various ways, of which ADSL over a fixed wire looks to be the most promising. BT is clearly investing a great amount of money in promoting it. There is also the existing cable network. That is not to say that there are no other potential mechanismsthere is cable, satellite, wireless and local loops. However, in the immediate term, it is fair to say that the mechanism is likely to be fixed-wire delivery.
The purpose of local loop unbundling is to try to achieve a degree of competition in that particular sector of the market. It is unrealistic to argue that we will achieve a competing infrastructure. It would clearly be almost impossible for a new entrant into the market to invest in an entirely new network. It would also be fairly pointless. The sector is now firmly governed by European directives, as are subsequent clauses and a large part of this one.
It is worth noting that the European regulation on local loop unbundling states:
''It would not be economically viable for new entrants to duplicate the incumbent's metallic local access infrastructure in its entirety within a reasonable time. Alternative infrastructures such as
cable television, satellite, or wireless local loops do not generally offer the same functionality or ubiquity for the time being''.
For that reason, the European Union has attached great importance to the success of local loop unbundling.
It has been argued, particularly by BT, that it is perhaps unfair that it should be singled out to be required to unbundle its local loops. It has pointed out that the cable infrastructure now passes some 12 million homes—about 50 per cent. of all properties—and that the same condition should therefore apply to cable operators. To date, Oftel has felt that it is not necessary to request cable companies to open up access to the local loop, although we need to continue to monitor the situation. Does the Minister envisage imposing such access-related conditions on cable companies in due course?