[davidthornton]

Originally Posted by Charliedontsurf

Can anyone answer

So virginmedia can use BT's network in some areas

It's OpenReach's network, owned by BT Group. Originally a state monopoly. Any qualifying telecom company can access it, provided they meet the criteria. That includes BT Retail, Sky, Virgin Media, IDnet telecom, TalkTalk and many others. All of these, if they meet the criteria, can offer many Wholesale products offered by OpenReach including ADSL, LLU ADSL, FTTC and telephony.

can have access to content sky fought hard to get

Ask OFCOM and the Competition Commision. Sky don't have to supply all their content to anyone. They choose to supply some of it because it makes commercial sense to sell it via multiple sources. They don't currently offer Sky Atlantic but in the future they may well do.

but it doesnt need to let anyone use any of its own assets.why?

Virgin Media doesn't have a monopoly on anything. Here's an article about Sky Sports appearing on BT Vision. Sky have the monopoly on some sport so they are prevented from only selling it via their own delivery system (i.e. Sky Digital Satellite TV) because if they weren't they could use their sports acquistions as a hook to get more customers to sign up for their delivery system. OFCOM consider it sensible for there to be multiple viable delivery systems of media in the UK.

---------- Post added at 19:16 ---------- Previous post was at 19:11 ----------

Originally Posted by Charliedontsurf

Sky was built with private money but its still FORCED to give VM its content. Why isnt VM forced to open its network. In a fair world sky keeps its channels OFF virginmedia and VM keeps its network closed.

Sky isn't forced to sell (i.e. not give) all of its content to anyone it doesn't wish to sell it to. Sky Atlantic is an example. However Sky doesn't own some content (e.g. Premiership Football). It simply has the rights to air it and the conditions of anyone owning those rights is that it has to sell it to delivery platforms, including ones it doesn't own, at a fair price. It doesn't have to sell its movie channels to Virgin Media but it choses to do so because it make commercial sense.