Re: I somehow find myself siding with BT on this one
"but splitting it off is throwing out the baby with the bathwater, and is unlikely to achieve the stated aim."
Changing the ownership of a near monopoly doesn't make the new business not a near monopoly - so yes, I also fail to see how this is a remedy of any sort.
In fact it's not even a change of ownership. Openreach, like all of BT, is owned by shareholders. If Openreach was split from BT it would still have the same owners and would still have BT as its largest customer.
I can't envisage any situation where a conservative government forcibly takes a private enterprise from its owners and hands it to another lot, who - unbelievably - are somehow less concerned with profit and income than the existing lot. Even less likely is nationalisation of a profitable private enterprise. The whole thing is nuts.
The remedies to the broadband problem are, I think, fairly straightforward;
1-Ofcom defines an acceptable performance standard, backed with fines for non-compliance.
2-UK gov gives rural infrastructure rollout some form of tax incventive to encourage competition.
-3 If BT decline to serve an area and a competitor moves in, BT are barred from rolling out in the same area for 18 months.
-4 To attract incentives and/or potential subsidy rural rollouts must comply with a set of technical standards that ensure the service is fit for purpose and can be adopted by another organisation if the ISP goes belly up through lack of demand.
-5 A USO fund is established jointly funded by all ISPs with >5% of the market, according to their market share. If commercially viable provision of an acceptable bandwidth isn't possible, the fund is used.
Point 3 gives a competitor a chance to get established without then sitting on a village without doing anything.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
