This Govt has focused very tightly on competitive markets etc in broadband, and yet, as we have seen, when the competition is so limited that the majority of ISPs are reselling a single company’s “product” – BT’s ADSL – what happens is that everyone is held below the glass ceiling (hmm, fibre – glass- etc) a private company has set.

Worse, we are still operating to a legacy model – charging by distance etc. This is no more relevant today than the idea of a phone call being charged by distance. This model immediately discriminates against those in rural areas for starters.

There is little to no access to affordable backhaul and longhaul for many of the networks currently planned. There is no logical reason for that, except corporate greed. For far too long, the telcos have got away with over-priced products. When the customers looking to purchase it were blue chip and Fortune 500 companies, all well and good, but the world has moved on.

Now, the people who want access to the fat pipes are you and me. Normal families, small businesses, rural primary schools, remote pubs, farms – pick a constituency, they all want a fat pipe. Though some may not know it yet!

This is a problem that needs solving nationally. It is exactly the same as FRIACO and should be dealt with in the same way. That campaign was started by a group of concerned individuals who managed to get FRIACO adopted across Europe. It looks like this one has started with the noise coming first from grassroots, and there is now a need to co-ordinate the action, just like FRIACO, and sit the telcos round a table and explain why, in words of one syllable if necessary, it IS IN THEIR INTERESTS to do precisely the same as with FRIACO.