SCOTTISH Enterprise’s broadband phone strategy has gained approval from Europe’s competition regulators following a series of concessions from the agency.
The European Competition Commission has told SE that its £30m plan to wire up business parks can go ahead, opening the door for a flood of similar schemes across Europe.
But SE only gained approval for Project Atlas - which has been on hold for a
year - after removing a key part of the scheme.
The original plan was to install high-capacity broadband phone systems in 13 business parks across Scotland, and then to link them to an exchange in Edinburgh.
The agency will now ask companies to tender for the first part of the project, leaving the cross-country links to be provided by the market.
Frank O’Donnell, SE’s director of e-business, said: "It has been an evolutionary thing. [Project Atlas] has been modified slightly, but the overall objective is exactly the same."
SE’s concessions are likely to cut the amount it needs to spend on Project Atlas by at least half, releasing an estimated £15m for other activities. The agency declined to put a precise figure on the savings.
Mario Monti, Europe’s competition commissioner, was asked to investigate Project Atlas by Thus, the Glasgow telecoms company. Thus complained that SE’s scheme would distort the market and that local telecoms companies had not been invited to tender for the work.
Companies such as Thus will now be able to bid for those contracts. Bill Allan, Thus’s chief executive, welcomed the changes to SE’s scheme. He said: "The decision gives Scottish companies the opportunity to co-operate with SE in the future to further Scotland’s national interest."
Bob Downes, director of BT Scotland, said last month that it would be better for all parties if Project Atlas was allowed to "fade away".
That now seems unlikely, as O’Donnell said SE was still committed to the idea. But SE may take a gradual approach, wiring up one or two parks at a time rather than attempting to do them all at once.
Thus is now expected to bid for some of the work on the 13 sites which include Strathclyde Business park in Bellshill, the Alba Campus in Livingston and Dundee Technology Park.
ADVENTI, the Scottish IT support company run by Jim Spowart, has signed a deal with BT to provide support services for broadband business customers.
BT has asked Adventi to set up a programme to provide support services for SME customers in Scotland ahead of a full roll out across the rest of the UK in September. Spowart, who helped found HBOS’s online banking service Intelligent Finance, joined Adventi as chief operating officer in March.
