Ofcom calls for business broadband infrastructure upgrades

Ofcom has called on BT to open up access to its fibre networks to improve business broadband connections across the UK.

The watchdog stated that the move is necessary in order to add innovation and competition to the UK's business broadband industry.

Proposals revealed by Ofcom include that BT should begin to supply ‘dark fibre’ in areas outside of central London.

Jonathan Oxley, Ofcom competition group director, explained that the high-speed, fibre optic leased lines are "invisible" to most people.

"But they form a critical building block in the UK's infrastructure that underpins people's personal and working lives," he said.

"Today's proposals should help businesses across the UK who rely on high-speed data lines. We want to see more innovation, faster installations and more competition, by providing operators with the opportunity to deploy the technologies of their choice."

Ofcom pointed out that in the last year, Openreach completed around half of the leased line installations it had planned to by the initial date it promised to its customers.

The watchdog is also proposing the introduction of a second rule that would require Openreach to meet the original dates it promises its customers in 80 per cent of cases by 2016, before going on to reach 90 per cent by 2018. In recent years the time it takes Openreach to install leased lines has increased from 40 to 46 working days.

Some areas of the leased lines market are set to be deregulated by Ofcom in a bid to boost the UK's business broadband industry, the organisation announced.

Supply and pricing requirements are set to be lifted on all but the oldest services in central London, a decision Ofcom explained has been made as competition is "now sufficient to make this unnecessary".

The new proposals from Ofcom are subject to a consultation period, which ends on 31 July.

Businesses looking to move services into the cloud should evaluate the performance of their existing network and consider setting up a leased line or MPLS network.