In reply to a post by godsell4:

BT Retail buys from BT Wholesale surely not from BT Openreach, somebody will set me right if I am wrong

You're right - but to include it makes the English more complicated without adding much to the argument. Anyway, BT have asked permission to merge BTW and Openreach, IIRC.

BTW owns the backhaul from Openreach locations to the core. But I'm not sure who owns the core network. BTW? or TSO?

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

the 8,000 pubs last January and I presume more now must make some dent in the rights fees

Good point.

The last investor day reported >25,000 "commercial customers" for BT Sport.

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

In reply to a post by godsell4:

BT Retail buys from BT Wholesale surely not from BT Openreach, somebody will set me right if I am wrong

You're right - but to include it makes the English more complicated without adding much to the argument. Anyway, BT have asked permission to merge BTW and Openreach, IIRC.

BTW owns the backhaul from Openreach locations to the core. But I'm not sure who owns the core network. BTW? or TSO?

I also believe the core network, colossus as it's known (or was when I was in that area a few years back) is owned by Wholesale.

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

BTW owns the backhaul from Openreach locations to the core. But I'm not sure who owns the core network. BTW? or TSO?

As I understand it the core network is BTW owned, running over Openreach fibre.

Absurd, isn't it?

I saw a suggestion that BTW should be absorbed into Openreach before the split.

Edited by deleted (Wed 27-Jan-16 19:02:52)

Wasn't there one yesterday saying the exact opposite? That OR should be merged into BTW?

Neither is going to happen. However Consumer and BTW need separating more in some way. It's all too cosy, whatever Chinese walls exist due to the Ofcom requirements.

BT have mooted the possibility of BTW being merged with OR with Ofcom. I've no idea what you mean by "too cosy" between BTW and Consumer. That just sounds like groundless speculation without the slightest actual evidence to back up your inference that BT is breaching the undertakings. Perhaps you could supply some.

I am not suggesting they are breaching the undertakings.

I am suggesting the Ofcom requirements are at least as leaky as the corporation tax and income tax laws in this country.

BT Group breaching undertakings would equate to tax evasion, which is illegal. Being too cosy as I put it equates to (aggressive) tax avoidance which is upsetting George Osborne so much.

BT Group have excellent lawyers. If there are ways round any Chinese Walls they will have found and exploited them long ago.

The last line of your reply is the key here.

e.g. Openreach rolled out FTTC when BT retail decided they want it, not any of the other openreach customers.

Now I have always considered it that BTw is a customer of openreach and the isp's using BTw are a customer of BTw. So the only isps dealing direct with openreach would be the LLU isp's such as sky and talktalk.

But then I read on the plusnet forums the staff say they in direct dialog with openreach which would suggest what I just said is wrong.

Openreach is a massive disappointment, despite what BT may claim, their investment in local loop infrastructure is peanuts compared to the revenue it generates and their install/fault service is abysmal.

Those 2 things you claim fund the sports rights no way add up to the billions they have cost.

Edited by Chrysalis (Thu 28-Jan-16 05:24:04)

That's incredibly vague. Just what are the real-world effects of this degree of being too cosy that you allege? Some sort of illustrative examples would be nice. For example, if you were to give an example of how BTW are giving undue emphasis to the development of a product to meet BT Consumer's requirements, bearing in mind than BTW are meant to consider such issues purely on their commercial merits. BT Consumer are, of course, BTW's largest customer so it's hardly surprising that some products are notso widely used by other SPs (particularly products at the top end of the scale).

I'm just confused about what the manifestation of this state of being unduly cosy has been. BT Consumer don't generally buy through OR, they buy packaged products from BTW who, themselves, use OR products. It was a split which was defined at the time of the undertakings to essentially differentiate two layers, one (roughly speaking) being the physical network and the other abstracted added value services to do with voice, broadband, interconnect etc. which are important to non-LLU SPs (and to extend the range of LLU SPs beyond unbundled exchanges). BT appear to want to collapse this into OR (largely as a cost-saving measure to reduce duplication in OR & BTW). This has, apparently, been viewed with suspicion by some major SPs For BTW products there are often alternatives at the wholesale level (e.g. TalkTalk have wholesale products that parallel some of the BTW ones).

So just what remedies are you proposing? In what way would BTW's relationship with BT Consumer change?