Back in September last year when BT (British Telecom - the UK incumbent telecoms operator) announced that having reached agreement with Ofcom, the UK regulator, on the establishment of a separate infrastructure division, it would be called OpenReach, I thought, "Here we go again!" 

Nobody is more masterful at redefining the English language than British Telecom and I take my hat off to them.   Back in the early 1980s when the UK led the world in public policy aimed at fostering the development of ‘next genus’ broadband networks – the term ‘broadband’ was universally used to denote a minimum of 2 M/bits symmetrical capacity.   Thanks to the drip, drip, drip persistence of BT (and the rest of the global telecoms cartel)and their remarkable success in influencing public policy and regulatory frameworks to shape the tempo and form by which the disruptive digital technologies of abundance are to be deployed, they have managed totally to redefine the term 'broadband' over the past two decades.  It now means something that suits 'them' with their outdated copper local networks and not 'us' as end users.  Broadband now equates to ADSL which offers (in whatever flavour) a mere fraction of the upstream capacity of that regarded twenty years ago as constituting 'broadband'.
 
ADSL is no more ‘broadband’ than their newly created access division is “OPEN”!   There is a growing understanding and appetite for truly ‘open public local access networks’(OPLANs).  Communities of all shapes and sizes around the world are beginning to plan and build OPLANs offering outrageously abundant bandwidth – access to and control of which, is not confined to the telecoms sector but is ‘open’ to all.  If BT’s plans were to develop a truly ‘open access’ network – then the UK would lead the world but we all knew that was not their intention with either OpenReach or their 21st century network - which will do wonders for their shareholders and very little for users.

When I recently saw my first OpenReach van, I was interested to see the paint job and was shocked to find that it was blatantly promoting the brand of one particular service providing customer - BT!  I am sure this is a mistake and I suggest a new paint job like this!




But I suspect we must come to expect that at some point in the future, we will end up using the word 'open' in some new way.  Come to think about it, those WiFi 'hot-spots' that BT have set up all over the place which you need to pay an arm and a leg to use to access the internet - they are 'open', aren't they?  After all, they are branded 'Open Zone'