BT are planning on making their cable ducts open to rivals to allow them to lay their own fibre networks in them.

This news would mean that rival’s could install their own fibre optic networks without having to cause severe disruption and reduce the need for disruption caused by digging up of roads.

The Chief Executive of BT said:

“Although it’s unlikely to be the silver bullet to get fibre to every home, open access to all ducts, not just ours, might help BT and others extend coverage and so we would like to see a future government support such a move.”

With BT opening up their ducts they would hope to be allowed access to other companies ducts, such a Virgin Media, the largest current UK fibre broadband provider. A sort of “you show me yours and I’ll show you mine” kind of thing, although Virgin have in the past rejected this.

What it would do is open up where each provider is able to offer their own services, so where BT may lay new ducts with their fibre may be an area that Virgin Media don’t have covered with their own network so it would open up the option for Virgin to extend their network to that area for a hugely reduced cost, and then vise-versa if BT could use Virgin Media’s ducts to install their fibre network to areas covered by Virgin Media but not themselves.

What it would mean however is that it would increase the competition in the area for broadband providers who can offer fibre broadband as currently Virgin Media are relatively un-challenged at the present time.