Cable Forum - BT braces for regulatory blow on superfast broadband pricing

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BT braces for regulatory blow on superfast broadband pricing

Torygraph link.

Quote:

BT is braced for a blow to its dominance of superfast broadband, with regulators poised to unveil a test of whether its pricing means its rivals and wholesale customers, BSkyB and TalkTalk, are unable to make reasonable profits in the burgeoning market.

Ofcom is expected to publish proposals imminently that will gauge whether the difference between BT’s wholesale and retail pricing of superfast broadband is narrow enough to amount to a “margin squeeze” on competitors.

For me this is a massive advertisement to completely split Openreach off from the rest of BT. A lot of industry watchers think that part of the reason Openreach's network ambitions were scaled back was to fund free footie for BT's Retail customers.

It'd be awesome to see BT Retail have to stand on its own feet, and would eliminate any accusations of it receiving subsidies from the two units within BT beneath it in the chain.

That it would also mean that to really grow revenues BT would potentially have to invest more at a network level rather than on sports rights is a bonus.

Re: BT braces for regulatory blow on superfast broadband pricing

It's interesting when looking at NGA lines , after VM 57.4 % BT Retail seem to have 33.6 % market share when it's nearest FTTC competitor is Talk Talk with a 3.2 % share followed by Sky with 2.7 %.

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php...e-q4-2013.html

Why is this the case ? Surely it can't purely be down to free BT Sport ?

Re: BT braces for regulatory blow on superfast broadband pricing

Complacency, habit, and the fact that BT Retail gives FTTC for free.