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BT hits out at criticism of pole and duct pricing
The telecoms giant said its proposed pricing structure for use of its infrastructure compares favourably with the European average.
An alliance of telecoms firms - including Fujitsu, Geo, TalkTalk, Virgin Media and Vtesse Networks - wrote a letter to communications minister Ed Vaizey to issue a warning about BT's planned rates, terms and conditions.
The group claimed the proposed pricing structure makes it commercially "unviable" for any other ISP to compete for some of the government's £830 million set aside to encourage the rollout of super-fast broadband.
They also argued BT is looking to charge between four and five times more than its underlying costs to open up its network of poles and ducts.
Responding to the complaint, BT hit out at the members of the alliance, claiming they seem keener to talk about the deployment of next-generation broadband than to start working towards it.
A spokesman from the telecoms giant insisted its planned charges measure up favourably to the infrastructure sharing rates in countries such as France and Germany.
"The fact is our proposed prices for duct access compare very well with European averages, whilst our plans for pole access have been held up due to others delaying our trials," the source stated.
"Once those trials are underway we will be in a far better position to understand the costs involved and so we would encourage these companies to start trialling with us as soon as possible."
According to BT's rivals, the high costs could present a risk to the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition's target of delivering the best super-fast broadband network in Europe by 2015.
They argued the pricing structure actually makes it more cost-effective for ISPs to create a duplicate network of poles and ducts, rather than paying to lease BT's infrastructure.