Looking into BT and UK broadband

I have looked into a few things about BT and UK broadband, and I intend to research the whole thing further, looking at what ISPs are doing (e.g. Virgin) and at what the government policy and actions are. The main inspiration for this is my terrible 0.5Mbps speed that I have today, when the government says it has a Universal Service Commitment to provide 2Mbps for everyone.

BT

BT is organised into a group of companies like this



Here you can see two of the significant ones as far as getting better broadband is concerned: BT Retail is the company that sells end user products, such as phones and broadband. Openreach is the company that installs the equipment for the exchanges and the wires/fibres to bring it to my home.

Race to Infinity

BT Retail has a current marketing campaign running to get us to sign up our interest in having new fibre (FTTH (home) or FTTC (street cabinet)). They are collecting our names so they can then mailshot us with offers... In the mean time they will pass the inquiries to Openreach who will use the interest expressed to decide where to install fibre first. The rules of the game called "Race To Infinity" are:

1 Each exchange needs 1000 votes to enter the lottery

2 The exchange(s) must get into the top 5 in UK, judged by having the most votes as a percentage of the lines served by the exchange

3 Winners will get FTTC by 2012

4 Some local authorities have agreed to co-fund BT and get programs moving early (e.g. Cornwall)

5 If an exchange has less than 1000 lines, 75% of people connected must vote and must contribute money for a service

This is obviously not as exciting as it first sounds, it is of most benefit to Openreach as a marketing survey, but much less of interest for consumers.

Other ISPs as part of the game

Other ISPs can nominate up to 6 exchanges for fibre FTTC. They must give a commercial commitment that 10% of their customers will switch to fibre within one year or pay Openreach for the cost and, what is more, if BT disagrees with the choice of exchanges they have to pay an extra £5000 for BT to conduct a survey of their own...

Pretty much a complete turn-off for other ISPs, and so far non have announced their participation in the scheme.

[About the Cornwall deal. The EU development fund will provide £53M and BT £78M to upgrade all Cornwall to as fast a connection as they can, some outlying areas may just get 2Mbps, most will get fibre (FTTH, take note "H").