I think VM are just going to be asset-stripped by Liberty Global.

I agree which is unfortunate for VM users. When contacted VM were not in the slightest bit interested, couldn't see any anomaly and terminated the conversation saying there was nothing THEY could or would do.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

I agree on the stop gap tho. They deploying tech which is considered already obselete elsewhere.

That's a matter of context though. Deploying expensive things because they are shinier doesn't make good sense. My mother uses her (mobile) phone to receive one or two calls and make a text every few months. Should she buy an iPhone? Uh, no, probably not. The phone she has is "obsolete" but it does what she needs perfectly fine and didn't cost hundreds of pounds.

I've said before that this is not a remorseless march to ever higher bandwidth. I've had always on Internet access for almost twenty years now (24/7 free dial-up via a legacy cable TV provider in the 1990s, then DSL) and we are running out of reasons (beyond "wow, that's cool") for higher per-person bandwidth. Live interactive video is about the most intensive use that has any noticeable number of customers, and even that's only a few megabits.

Now, if you're getting 15/2 from a mediocre FTTC setup in the sticks and you've got half a dozen adult kids then I feel for you, 15/2 doesn't go very far when several people are trying to download different things and another person is trying to make a Skype video call. But for most households, in most places, the speeds which are being and plausibly will be delivered from FTTC are totally fine.

There is a more subtle argument that FTTP might mean reduced last mile overheads (reduced maintenance, improved reliability) longer term, which could be good for the country. It would not necessarily be in BT Group's interests to have lower overheads, because the overheads are chargeable and many things operate on a "cost plus" basis where you're expected to profit proportionally to your overheads. Thus, a last mile network which costs £1Bn to run and earns you £1.5Bn in revenue is "worse" in some sense than a network which costs £2Bn to run and earns you £3Bn in revenue even though the former is better for everybody other than BT. But judgement calls about that sort of thing need to come from OFCOM and certainly aren't about whether FTTC is "obsolete".