When did the local loop start being a source of profit?
"If you plan to make OpenReach a totally separate company, BT would need to be compensated for that."
Hmmm. Not sure about that. It doesn't seem that long ago that BT were forever whinging about how much of a loss they made on the local loop. Since all the local loops losses now live in Openreach, why would BT not want to *pay* someone to take those losses away, PFI-style?
The gentleman who said Openreach were a standalone company may want to look at the BT Corporate website:
http://www.btplc.com/Thegroup/Ourcompany/Groupbusinesses/index.htm
Openreach don't look to be any more standalone than BT Woolsale or BT Retail (the well known default provider of often poor quality and overpriced telelphony and broadband to the ill-informed and naive).
As has been frequently suggested, the answer is to (re)nationalise openreach, and then regulate it properly.
Meanwhile, I'm waiting for the authorities to spot that Big BT are using BT Sheffield (the ISP formerly known as Plusnet) to drive coach and horses through the regulatory rules. Big BT are for regulatory reasons not supposed to do predatory pricing, but Plusnet apparently are, which makes life awkward if you are an ISP or telco foolhardy enough to want to compete against BT. No wonder Fujitsu gave up.