15th Oct 2020 10:29
(Alliance News) - A British regulator on Thursday said it will open up a probe into BT Group PLC to assess whether the telecommunications firm is meeting its responsibilities as a universal broadband service provider.
Back in 2018, the UK government introduced a "universal service obligation" law, allowing homes and businesses the right to request a "decent broadband connection".
Regulator Office of Communications selected BT as the universal service provider. Under the law, customers with can request a broadband service with speeds of at least 10 megabits per second and upload speeds of at least one megabit per second.
"Upon receiving such a request, BT must assess the costs of providing that connection and, where this is less than GBP3,400, BT must provide the connection. Where the assessed costs exceed that amount, BT must also provide the connection if the customer is willing to pay the excess costs," Ofcom explained.
"While the cost of some connections will be high due to the remoteness of many of these premises, we are concerned that BT may not be complying with the regulatory conditions correctly where it assesses excess costs for a given connection. This could result in some customers' quote for a connection being higher than necessary."
Ofcom said it will now "gather evidence" and will set out the next steps of its probe before the end of 2020.
BT shares were down 2.9% at 102.90 pence each in London on Thursday morning.
By Eric Cunha; [email protected]
Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Related Shares:
BT