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The ironic thing is that if NTL didn't keep trying to merge with other companies, they would probably have most of the money needed to carry fibre to the home themselves.
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Um - if they hadn't merged, they wouldn't have particularly large areas to do FTTH in...
The real problem goes back to the daft idea of small franchises in the 1980s, which lead to small cable companies with incompatible systems. Throw in idiotic beancountery (hello, Barclay) in the telecoms rush of 2000 and resultant large debts (run up buying overpriced companies rather than unifying what you've got) and cable has never really been in a position to move to second-wave broadband technologies - paying for the first lot in a highly competitive market is hard enough.
Regulation is unfortunately necessary in privatised industries with dominant players, as otherwise they'd revert to the previous monopoly, which is worse.