Put fibre in homes, builders told

The Government is under pressure from advisers to make builders lay optic fibre, or at least the trench and duct needed to carry it, into new homes - and to stop seeing wireless as a viable alternative.

The call comes from the DTI's Foresight Project, which has £150m to spend on 'money-spinning opportunities for new cutting-edge technologies'.

And it comes more than 20 years after the launch of Britain's first grand plan to 'wire Britain'. In 1982, IT Minister Kenneth Baker had six wise men from industry plan a strategy to cable-up UK homes within four years. He said TV would be the initial attraction but people would start using fibre to work from home.

Shortly afterwards, licences were awarded to 11 companies to provide cable TV services. But to save costs, companies used coaxial rather than fibre for the link from the kerb to the house. 'We have to grasp opportunities, not let them slip away,' said David Hughes, director of the Foresight Project that targets optical switching as a research area.

Former Alcatel chairman, Peter Radley, an advisor to the project, said: 'Copper cannot deliver the speeds that people now want. In the future, broadband will have to deliver 200 times today's speeds onto every desk, bringing more broadband to more people any time, anywhere. The demand on local networks will be up to 30 terabits, which is equivalent to the whole of the US Internet demand today.'

Does this mean Britons will finally get fibre into their homes? 'Definitely,' said Radley. 'Developers need to start providing for fibre when they build new homes. Every other service - gas, water, electricity - is piped into a new house. Telecoms is the only service not installed.'

He said Deutsche Telecom found when upgrading East Germany's phone network that it was cheaper to rip it all out and put in fibre than to improve the existing mix of cable and wire. 'I am not saying that the UK is as bad as East Germany, but where there is justification it will be done. We have the opportunity in the new building development zones the Government is planning, for instance at Milton Keynes and Ashford in Kent.'