Broadband guru says less is more

A leading advisor to the government on the future of broadband Britain believes there should be fewer - not more - operators in the UK.

However, the views of Peter Radley, chairman of the Broadband Stakeholder group, are unlikely to find favour with those who have been urging telecoms regulator Oftel to speed up local loop unbundling to ensure BT faces competition in the provision of DSL services.

Speaking to the Financial Times, Radley who is also chairman of Alcatel (UK) said local monopolies and duopolies were accepted to satellite and cable TV services and the same thinking should be applied for other communications technologies.

What was important, he added, was that customers had the widest choice of broadband technologies to choose from rather than dozens of firms to supply the same thing.

On Friday, silicon.com reported the demise of OnCue Communications, a DSL provider. The company blamed BT for hindering its attempts to place equipment into local exchanges.