Saturday, May 11, 2013

UK Accuses EU of Delaying Urban Broadband Funding Approval

UPDATE UK Accuses EU of Delaying Urban Broadband Funding Approval - ISPreview UK: "Iain Bennett from DCMS manfully defending the increasingly sticky wicket that is the Urban Broadband Fund. He explained that the competition authorities in Brussels won’t sign off on state aid approval for the DCMS plan without a long and no doubt tedious examination. This would take the programme out of time. A key sticking point is open access with the Commission insisting that any state aid should go only to open access providers, leaving DCMS worried that this would mean the exit of BT. As a consequence cities are left with a need to urgently find Plan B.“ So what is Plan B? Bennett apparently told the audience that the government was looking at some sort of “end user vouchers” that wouldn’t fall foul of EU state aid rules"
All this because BT and Virgin won't build wholesale networks - charming! 'via Blog this'