BT boss dismisses broadband critics as ‘copper luddites’

Ian Livingston blasted its critics as “copper luddites” for trying to hold the UK back from fibre, which can be four times faster than existing networks.

BT is spending £2.5bn of its own cash to connect two-thirds of the country to the new network by the end of 2014. But it plans to tap government help to reach rural areas that are less commercially viable.

Recently, Sir Charles Dunstone, the billionaire founder of mobile phone retailer Carphone Warehouse, which owned BT rival TalkTalk until 2010, called for regulatory intervention to ensure this state help remains in the public interest.

TalkTalk chief executive Dido Harding has also waded into the row, adding that more needs to be done to avoid propping up a “monopoly provider”.

She pointed to how Fujitsu recently left a £680m bidding process for Government-backed rural broadband contracts, leaving BT as the “only eligible competitor”.

But Mr Livingston shrugged off claims that BT was rebuilding its former monopoly, highlighting rules that force it to pay the same cost to access its network as competitors such as TalkTalk.

“These criticisms are coming from people I can only describe as copper Luddites,” he told The Daily Telegraph.

“They don’t want to see the UK getting fibre. BT fibre is open to any provider in the UK on the same terms as BT – there are 50 or 60 of them, that’s not what I call a monopoly.”

Back in 2006 the company was forced to split itself up to create Openreach, which manages the country’s telecoms infrastructure and treats the rest of BT on an equal basis to other operators.

BT is also not the only player rolling out super-fast broadband services, with Virgin Media currently covering a vast swathe of the country with its own fibre network.

Together they are estimated to cover roughly 95 per cent of the UK superfast broadband mar- ket.

Harrogate-born Liv Garfield, chief executive of BT Openreach, has told the Yorkshire Post that Britain is developing its digital infrastructure at a greater pace than any other nation in the world.

She said superfast fibre broadband can put the region at the front of the economic recovery and will make the UK “a much stronger nation”.

Ms Garfield added that the UK is now second in the G8 group of countries in the number of households with access to superfast broadband, behind only Japan.

The United Kingdom is ahead of rivals France, Germany, Spain and Italy, she added.