Home > Consultations > Consultation Documents > Ebbsfleet Fibre to the Home Pilot > 

Summary

The Universal Service Conditions ensure that basic services are available across the UK at affordable prices

1.1 The Universal Service Conditions (‘USCs’) ensure that certain basic fixed line communications services are available at an affordable price to all citizens of the UK.

1.2 Under the USCs BT is required to provide fixed telephony services in all areas of the UK excluding the Hull area in response to reasonable requests from end-users. BT must provide these services at a uniform price throughout the UK (again excluding the Hull area), unless Ofcom consents otherwise.

We proposed that BT Retail should be allowed to charge non-uniform prices for certain telephony services when it pilots the delivery of telephony services over optical fibre cables at Ebbsfleet

1.3 On 9 June 2008 Ofcom (the Office of Communications) published a consultation (‘the Consultation’) proposing to consent to a request from BT for permission under USC 1 to charge non-uniform prices for certain telephony services. BT sought this permission in connection with a pilot of the use of optical fibre cables to deliver telephony services at a housing development in Ebbsfleet, Kent.

1.4 We received 7 responses to the consultation.

Following consideration of the responses, we have decided to grant the request

1.5 Following consideration of the responses, we have decided to confirm the proposal subject to including an additional condition requiring that customer contracts should not contain minimum contract terms that extend beyond the term of the Pilot.

1.6 This document contains the legal notification granting the Consent and also:

• a summary of the responses to the consultation and our comments;
• a summary of our Impact Assessment and our response to comments made by stakeholders about the Impact Assessment; and
• a final review of the legal tests.

Terms of the Consent

The Consent, which takes effect on publication of this statement, gives BT permission to charge non-uniform prices for telephony connection and line rental at no more than 300 homes at the Ebbsfleet Development between 1 August 2008 and 31 December 2009 subject to certain conditions.

The full document is available below

• Ebbsfleet Fibre to the Home Pilot - Consent for non-uniform pricing of retail telephony services under Universal Service Condition 1 [pdf]
  Full Print Version

Back to top