News

BT reported to Ofcom - "thwarting rural broadband plans"

At this week's WiFi & 3G Summit, an Irish "DIY Network" called IrishWAN revealed that they have been able to avoid prosecution for "illegally" selling wireless broadband to third parties, by setting themselves up as a chartered Co-operative Society, with members. The news may help other self-help communities - but won't be much use to Berkshire based FDM Broadband, which claims it is being obstructed by BT.

The Irish project is still very much in its early stages, said Robert Fitzsimons, chairman of the Dublin node of IrishWAN - DublinWAN. But the Berkshire project should be commissioned and working.

Berkshire-based FDM Broadband describes itself as "one of a handful of small companies that are bridging the digital divide" by using wireless Internet in parts of rural Britain where there are no cable services and where BT's local telephone exchanges have not been enabled for ADSL service.

But to connect its village base stations to Internet points of presence, FDM has no option but to lease a private line from BT, a potential competitor.

"So far in every village that FDM has offered its service, BT has failed to supply this network link on time. As a result, FDM loses revenue and its wireless roll-out has been constantly impeded," said the group today.

IrishWAN has more regulatory problems, because in Eire, it is still illegal to share broadband with your neighbours, said Fitzsimons at Osney Media's WiFi & 3G Summit today. So he's been forced to work illegally - even to the extent of using "experimental" power levels which would be frowned upon by the regulator.

In Berkshire, however, legality isn't in question and, says the group, "FDM customers are delighted by the wireless service when the BT link works."

But in Lambourn, disruptions on the BT link "have subjected FDM users to no fewer than six interruptions in service since it was launched in October, the most recent being for several days this week. I am finding BT's delays intolerable," said Karl Crossman, managing director of FDM Broadband.

BT apparently has explained what went wrong, but Crossman is unimpressed: "I have no way of assessing the validity of BT's excuses, but I do know that the users who have worked with me to bring broadband to their villages are now being denied service," he said today.

Crossman continued: "In nearly every community served by FDM, BT has been late in delivering our link. The delay was four weeks in Hungerford, six weeks in Kintbury, and nearly two weeks in Kingsclere. As a result of the six-week delay in Kintbury, we lost approximately two-thirds of our pre-registered customers."

The killer is that he feels this was piracy by BT. Crossman accused: "These customers probably took up the ADSL broadband service, which became available in the area during the delay."

He called for other rural WiFi ISPs who had similar complaints to contact him.

FDM has lodged a complaint with the new telecoms regulator OfCom.