Regional Telco

Further to the debate we had at the regional strategy meeting the other week I have followed up the opportunities on offer.

At the regional ICT foresight meeting I spent 30 minutes with the rep from Fujitsu (one of the keynote speakers)….he confirmed that BT had no intention of creating broadband connectivity in Shropshire (I used this as an example)…and that, if we had a model for developing demand (over a 3-5 year period), we would be able to create a local telco following the local loop unbundling, in June 2001. He suggested that at least 3 providers of DSL equipment would install what was needed at the exchange end for 3% of revenue for 3 years. This suggested to me that the cost would be manageable.

Last Friday I spent 2 hours with Andy Hvass, exploring the idea in detail…he confirmed that the cost of the equipment was not a major issue, nor would backbone bandwidth be a problem in a rural area. However we would be in a direct competition with companies with a substantial track record (few in the rural areas at first!). He suggested that there were 3 options for us at this stage:

• Cost a full service (and decide how we would manage the service (billing etc)
• Do a deal with an existing player on premises (for exchange access) against future capacity
• Enter a JVC with a friendly intermediary

I'm not sure where this takes us….but Andy believes that the model Klitos Andrea was proposing would seriously disadvantage the rural areas of the WM..(fine for me in the met. areas).

He suggests that we take a position on the above…and follow up with a meeting in early November to pursue the matter with him(in whatever capacity we wish).

What do you think?

Graham