"Can anyone explain to me why reporting of BT here appears always to ignore the EXISTING FIBRE NETWORK in this country, owned by Virgin Media?"

That'll be the existing fibre network which covers a few bits of the country which give easy access to large customer bases, has no obligation to provide service outside the comfort of the largely Metropolitan enclaves currently covers, and hasn't been extended in living memory...

I think there's a clue there as to why BT (and their shareholders) aren't too keen to dig holes in the ground without some assurance that they're not just going to be throwing money into them - if Virgin don't see any return from extending their fibre network outside the areas they currently service why should BT, and given that why should they do it?

Now, someone remind me why it was such a great idea to prevent BT from offering entertainment services over their network back in the early days of cable/satellite TV and broadband internet, because. looking at where we've ended up in terms of competition between content providers and the infrastructure we've ended up with I'm damned if I can see it now...

Paris, because she probably thinks that handing the whole shooting match over to Murdoch, Branson. et-al while leaving BT hamstrung by its license conditions was a stroke of brilliance too...

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JG