Chris

I do feel a little sorry for ntl, although not nearly so much for BT. BT were handed a telephone infrastructure at a knock-down price that was effectively built for them by the State. It would be unreasonable for them to just do whatever the hell they liked with it, hence we have a communications regulator and rules guaranteeing competitor access to the system.

NTL, on the other hand, has bankrupted itself trying to build a new network from scratch using private money. I think it's a little unfair that other companies should be allowed to reap the rewards of that, and a little unfair of NTL customers to be expecting that they should be able to. BT has a universal service obligation, there is no reason why you can't have a BT line if you want to place your calls through a 3rd party.