[Ignitionnet]

This thread is interesting. In the same thread we've had tvtimes say how well VM are doing, fantastic quarters, loads of investment in new services, and then saying what a dire state they are in, must be protected from network being opened up else they'll fold, etc.

Just to make a point the Openreach run copper plant was originally built by the taxpayer however it was then sold, not given for free. Since privatisation BT have spent tens of billions on network upgrades and continue to spend multi-billions a year, presently on replacing the legacy switch network (which by the way was funded privately, there were no digital exchanges pre-privatisation as the Govt just leeched the money BT made rather than investing) with an all-IP network.

BT PLC have paid for that copper plany many times over by now. They aren't demanding a high return on any fibre investment they are quoted as wanting a 'reasonable' one whatever that might be and are discussing terms with Ofcom. For anyone to say that they want a high return you are either privvy to these discussions or wrong. Given that no-one else has shown willingness to make this investment and the current economic climate I would say that some reasonable expectation of a return on the investment is pretty wise. If BT just threw fibre at the entire country and let Ofcom do as they pleased with it, and some ISPs have very unreasonable demands of BT's fibre network including wanting every home to have a fibre from the exchange and the ability to unbundle each fibre to their own switch which doesn't happen anywhere in the world, their board would be fired immediately.