Openreach are safer than most from takeover, their pension fund and liabilities is a dead weight.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

There is one notable exception which could realistically challenge OR on geographic scale and numbers. The rest will be subsumed at some point.

To me this is just a repeat of what happened with cable networks.

The US shows it is bad to have a single operator running the network and ISP services without any choice. If you dislike the product you have to move town to change ISP. (Maybe 5G will compete in time).

much deeper pockets thatn BT that invested close to 5 - 6bn since 2011 - really


problem is they want a return on their investment and not having to wait 20 years for it

In reply to a post by ft247:

There is an argument that the funds being ploughed into competing fibre networks (in London near me OR is likely to be overbuilt once in many areas and twice in some, not counting Virgin) would be better spent on a national infrastructure that could have greater reach due to the removal of overbuild.

The trouble is, in areas covered only by Openreach, there is no business case for them to invest. Existing customers may have a poor service, but they have no other choice. If Openreach roll out FTTP then every customer gained on FTTP will be a customer lost on copper; there will be a few who pay a premium for ultrafast services, but most won't, so there is very little revenue gain.

Hence it needs the likes of Virgin and Cityfibre to give them a kick into action. Rolling out FTTP to regain lost customers back is gained revenue.

You're not going to get national coverage from those though. Even Cityfibre's long-term ambition is for only 30% coverage. They will cherry-pick the 30% of the UK which is cheapest to build to, and they will compete by undercutting: regulated pricing means that Openreach can't sell below the price set by Ofcom, and this is explicitly so that other operators have an incentive to overbuild.

Sure, the government could pay to build a national network. But what then? Will they be left holding and running a national network? Or will they gift it to Openreach, which is basically a gift to BT shareholders? Or will they lease it to Openreach, which is really no different to Openreach borrowing the capital and investing themselves? Or break it into franchises, like the great success of national railway?

At least Openreach *are* building out fibre now, much faster than any other operator. Cityfibre recently announce 500K properties passed in total; Openreach build that much every 3 months.

Government. National network……???!!!! Ahhh the horror, the horror. Shudder no. Definitely 100% no sir.

So many failed examples of that. In telecoms cast over the big pond at how badly the Aussies (recently .. if you count 2009 to 2020!) fudged that lot up with NBN - it became a decade long political football. And the end result is basically homogeneous [censored].

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Government. National network……???!!!! Ahhh the horror, the horror. Shudder no. Definitely 100% no sir.

I agree!

In reply to a post by candlerb:

The trouble is, in areas covered only by Openreach, there is no business case for them to invest. Existing customers may have a poor service, but they have no other choice. If Openreach roll out FTTP then every customer gained on FTTP will be a customer lost on copper; there will be a few who pay a premium for ultrafast services, but most won't, so there is very little revenue gain.

Hence it needs the likes of Virgin and Cityfibre to give them a kick into action. Rolling out FTTP to regain lost customers back is gained revenue.

This is very much the problem. My area is heavily covered by VM, and Community Fibre are almost on sale - so is relatively far up the list for FTTP, the build is about half complete. Competition works well for urban areas.

There are no easy answers to sorting rural areas. A public national network is theoretically the right answer but Australia have not had great results. The UK railways, or US communications, should tell you all you need to know about a franchise model.

I'd argue that the current strategy works for urban areas - I would tweak it a bit and force Openreach (and every other operator) to make up their mind quickly on what areas are 'commercially unviable'. There would be an obligation to deploy service in areas deemed viable relatively quickly.

The government could then fund a public utility service in those areas, and others would be forbidden from deploying their own infrastructure for mass market services in those areas for a number of years. Reseller access could be provided but the state would retain ownership of the plant, so if demand went up they would recoup some investment.

I don't run the government so that's just a wild idea. And yes, the pace of Openreach build is impressive. Arguably it needs to get faster, but that is easier said than done.