Virgin Media CEO Tom Mockridge this week called on the U.K. government to end subsidies for broadband rollout, but comments he made in a radio interview on Wednesday suggest his company will not step out of its comfort zone to help spread access to high-speed Internet services.
"BT doesn’t need the subsidy," he said on BBC Radio 4’s Today show, referring to the public funding the government distributed via its Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) project. The first phase of BDUK allocated £1.2 billion in funding, with the incumbent being the only recipient, largely because it was the only applicant.
"If the government steps aside there are other companies, not only Virgin," ready to roll out broadband networks, Mockridge said, listing the likes of Gigaclear, Hyperoptic, Zayo, CityFibre and others.
However, it quickly became clear that "the others" will be charged with deploying infrastructure in the less profitable parts of the U.K., while Virgin sticks with the network in-fill plan it announced earlier this year, that will see it spend £3 billion to add 4 million premises to its footprint by the end of the decade.
"Most of the Virgin Media ones will be in towns and cities which are already a part of our network," Mockridge admitted, while being pressed on his company’s own plans to improve connectivity in the U.K.
But there are "plenty" of other providers rolling out network elsewhere, he insisted.
Under phase two of BDUK the governm ent intends to commit £500 million of public money to providing superfast broadband to 95% of the population by 2017. It is still exploring its options for phase three, which will cover rollout beyond 95%.
Mockridge is not averse to public funding for genuinely hard-to-reach areas though.
"There’s an argument to subsidise the final 5%," he said. "We’re not talking about that. We’re talking about urban areas. We’re talking about large towns, small towns, villages," he added. "There’s a range of companies willing to do this."
As a result, "the U.K. could end up with two competing privately funded networks instead of the state having to give BT this money," Mockridge said.
BT is a highly successful company, turning over £18 billion a year and generating EBITDA of £6 billion, he pointed out.
"[It] spends that money disproportionately on football rights through a system which allows the Premier League in this country to exploit fans," Mockridge said.
