Could Phorm fund a new infrastructure for the UK?
Even the most optimistic forecasts back in April 2008 by Investec (reported in the NY Times) claimed BT might make £85m per year. To contrast, upgrading BT’s UK broadband network to bring fibre close to just 40% of homes in the UK by 2012 has been estimated by BT to cost £1.5Bn (reported on BBC). And only 10% of those homes would actually be cabled with fibre. What about the remaining 60% of UK homes? The Broadband Stakeholder Group (reported in The Telecom and Times) estimate that it would cost £5Bn to provide fibre to all UK street cabinets, or £29Bn to connect all UK homes with fibre. Even using the most optimistic estimates, Phorm would constitute a drop in the ocean of the money required to upgrade the entire BT network. It would take 300 years for Phorm to provide enough money to bring fibre to all UK homes.
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- Could Phorm fund a new infrastructure for the UK?
