Re: @ SImon Hobson
I was with you up to the point where you started appologising for the gouging of the telecom monoply, outside of cities there is zero choice and the price to the customer is the maximium they can get and still profit from BTinternet as well as openreach.
Where was I apologising for it ?
Also, you do realise that compared to many markets, in the UK we do have a relatively highly competitive market even in the sticks - as in you can go and get an internet connection from many providers who will compete on factors such as speed, actual throughput, reliability, customer service, etc. Yes, they will all be reselling BTOR connections - but you don't seem to realise that these connections are NOT "as much as they can get away with". The wholesale prices are set by the regulator, not BTOR - we can argue as to whether the rates set are the right ones, but they are not set by BT or BTOR, and they have been coming down over the years.
Like I say, while in some places they get better connections for much less - you only have to read the articles about the US market to see the difference. Over there you find users who really do face buying from a monopoly, with no regulated prices, and who really can charge as much as they can get away with. And more importantly, impose whatever restrictions they can get away with (like actively throttling Netflix to benefit their own streaming services) - there's a reason the cable industry was so against neutrality rules !
So I repeat. Yes I'd love to get (symmetric) gigabit over fibre and get it for less than I pay now. But knowing what we used to pay at work for direct fibre connections (some of them NOT involving BT anywhere) I reckon that the "up to" 80/20 (actually about 50/16 IIRC) FTTC connection I do get is not bad value.