NDM: Weekly News Article - W/C 5th December (25)

BBC awards £100m network deal to BT

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/media/12128365/BBC-awards-100m-network-deal-to-BT.html

Summary

BBC award £100m contract to BT to replace current deal with Atos. The work has been broken up into several sections under a delayed works programme called Project Aurora.BT's win comes as a blow to their biggest rival Vodafone whom are the current broadcast network supplier via Atos. The two telecoms giants are already at logger heads with BT acquisition of mobile operator EE and Vodafone's vocal role in calling for BT's Openreach infrastructure to be made fully independent. However, the row is really going to heat up next month when Ofcom are to publish reform proposals which are calling for a spilt. BBC say that their deal with BT will not only save money for them but it will also provide extra data capacity and ultra high definition pictures among other things.     

Key Statistics

• Deal with BT comes with plans to overhaul controversial £2bn technology outsourcing arrangments. 
• BT under fire from 121 MP's calling for a spilt. 
• Seven year deal with BT
• BBC claims that deal with BT will save 10's of millions 
• BBC already agreed to carryout cost of free licenses for over 75's at an estimated annual cost of up to £750m

My Opinion

I think that the BBC have made a good move awarding their network deal to BT, as they are the biggest telecoms provider in the UK. However, because the change over has been spilt into a number of different sections there in my opinion is bigger room for error, this could affect the daily operations of the BBC. The BBC have awarded the deal to BT but they are being held in the firing line for a lot of things such as the Openreach infrastructure being called to be independent. I think that the BBC should be careful that there name doesn't essentially get dragged through the mud with BT as well. The BBC claim that this swap to BT will save a lot of money and bring loads of pro's as mentioned in the summary. This is good because then the BBC can use the money they are saving from their outsourcing arrangments to make the overall experiences for customers better and maybe rethink this stuff about the licensing fee and readjusting the terms of who has to pay it. This is because there are still so many people who feel that nobody should have to pay the fee as well as people speaking up who say they can't afford to pay the fee.