Before BT was privatised, we (the taxpayer, via government) dictated what development of the telecoms network took place - or rather we didn't and it was very slow and unresponsive. Privatisation and competition were supposed to deliver choice, service and investment, which they did to a degree, but mainly in short-term price arbitrage, and you cannot say that 25 years on we have a thriving and competitive marketplace - just BT, the mobile operators and a few struggling and ever-consolidating fixed line operators.

Unfortunately the strategic asset, which is BT's local loop and duct network, was given away at BT's privatisation and we have been dancing around the handbags since then, trying to get it back. Openreach is just another fig-leaf in the long process of prising BT's fingers off the local loop.

There is no incentive for BT to invest in fibre in the short-term oriented market which pervades the industry. The only way to get fibre investment is to remove the local access network from BT's ownership and to place it in a form of common ownership - perhaps like that suggested below. Yes taxpayers will pay, but perhaps we're just returning the money we took out of the industry in selling our BT shares....