Britain risks being trapped in the slow lane of the new information superhighway unless curbs on telephone companies are eased, Sir Iain Vallance, chairman of British Telecommunications Plc told a UK Parliamentary subcommittee: he said British Telecom could not risk building a UKP15,000m national fibre optic network unless it could pipe television programmes and entertainment services, the only proven source of revenue from residential customers, into the home; his board has made no commitment yet to build a nationwide grid mainly due to doubts over the regulatory outlook; the government has largely excluded public telephone operators from broadcasting to homes over their national networks until 2001, giving cable operators, in effect regional broadband monopolies; he added that if changes are not made to the regulatory regime it would be difficult to justify use of risk capital to build the network; if things are left until the next century, almost certainly those with broadband regional monopolies will have consolidated their position to the point where it would be virtually impossible to dislodge them.
