Free. A step too far?

Carphone Warehouse are a little upset at the moment that Openreach has been given the green light by Ofcom to raise prices to cover increasing infrastructure costs and develop faster services. This is the problem when you put little value on the infrastructure and give your services away for free – you don’t have any buffer when pricing fluctuates.

From a personal point of view I would be much happier paying Openreach more for a better service and I am sure many businesses out there understand that in some cases it is not necessarily the cheapest service which is the most cost effective in the long-term. Hopefully people will start to realise that if you are consolidating video, voice and data on your internet connection then it really needs to be fast and reliable. Sort of in the same way that owning a Porsche in Germany and being able to use the Autobahns is not the same as owning a Porsche in Russia and relying on their decaying infrastructure.

I am happy for content to be free and subsidised by advertising but when it comes to infrastructure that has a real cost which has to be maintained. Business models therefore that bundle this in for free miss the point and as TalkTalk are finding out hurts.

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