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IT giant assessing whether new costs for using BT's telecommunications infrastructure makes promised rural broadband link viable

BT's network infrastructure management arm OpenReach has announced new prices for third parties that wish use to its telegraph poles and underground ducts for their own cables.

The announcement follows complaints from rival telecommunications providers that the 'pole and duct' costs were too high.

Using the underground ducts used to cost third parties £1.16 per metre, but OpenReach will now charge them on the basis of how many cables a given duct can contain. "This methodology will see the price fall to as little as 44 pence per metre, a saving of more than 60 per cent, for the largest ducts," it claims.

The cost for using a drop pole – "the most common final pole that can connect multiple premises" – has halved from £21 per attachment to £11.

Analyst firm Ovum has studied pole and duct pricing schemes across Europe, and says that OpenReach's new pricing structure "is up to 21 per cent below the European average in urban areas."

"Crucially, in the more rural areas, [the new pricing] is as much as 38 per cent below average when considering pricing in France, Portugal and Spain," it says.

Earlier this year, IT services provider Fujitsu announced plans to install new fibre-optic cables connecting rural areas of Britain. It promised that this would allow the likes of Virgin Media and Talk Talk to offer 'superfast' broadband in communities not served by BT.

However, the small print of the announcement revealed that Fujitsu's plan would only go ahead if BT lowered its pole and duct prices.

A spokesperson for Fujitsu told Information Age today that the company has yet to make a decision on whether the new pricing makes the fibre-optic cable plan viable, but that it is "examining BT's new prices very carefully".