Dr. Matt Yardley:

We looked at the mixes. We were looking at the budget impact so, first and foremost, we were concerned with cost. It is an extended period and I can understand the frustration but there is no guarantee that moving to a mobile or fixed wireless infrastructure would occur any faster. In fact, the ComReg view was that building so many sites could take ten years. It seems a long period and is much longer than what we have from the bidder. The reason it could take so long is that we would need new towers and sites and a lot of these would be on private land. With fibre net, we are building infrastructure down the roads on poles and through ducts which exist. We do not have to build anything new but just deploy new fibre, which is very different from having to deploy a new mobile or fixed wireless site where we have to acquire the site itself and connect it to power and backhaul. We have to deal with private landowners, negotiate wayleaves and get planning permission. Those things tend to be complex and there is no assurance that moving to that mode of deployment would buy us any time. The bidder has put forward the best solution for the project. We did not dictate it.