Response to the coalition agreement and news that Ed Vaizey will oversee rollout of next generation access from Elfed Thomas, CEO of fibre optic infrastructure specialist i3 Group:
5/24/2010"The last few days have been very encouraging with respect to the commitment to superfast broadband that the new coalition Government has shown.
"The i3 Group has long supported that the private sector should deliver town and city super fast access as the market is more than capable of delivering this and i3 Group already is.
"Rural broadband access has long been recognised as the challenge. It is here that we believe the public purse should be used and it will be interesting to see just what proportion of the licence fee will be utilised and how that will start to tackle this huge issue. i3 Group is also currently developing a commercially viable model to rollout to these areas with limited access.
"I still firmly believe that the country needs to embrace fibre to the home rather than fibre to the cabinet otherwise the investment will be outdated relatively soon."
About i3 Group
Founded in 2002 by Elfed Thomas, i3 Group is a pioneer in building dark fibre optic networks using ready-made ducts including the sewer system to enable super fast connectivity. This method is a fast and cost effective way to lay fibre optic cable without the high costs and disruption caused by road digging. The company is using this and other patented low cost methods to connect homes and businesses directly to fibre optic networks across the UK so that they can benefit from next generation access without compromising access speeds as is the case with fibre to the kerb or cabinet. www.i3-group.co.uk
