BT ordered to legally split from Openreach by Ofcom

[elsiegee40]

BT ordered to legally split from Openreach by Ofcom - BBC News

[speckytecky]

To me that seems bonkers. Ofcom merrily allows the biggies from Europe and afar to come in purchase the shares of once Great British companies and absorb them so why on earth are they so stringent on one of our few home companies the Institutional investors haven't taken a quick profit on - yet?

[Andrew_C]

No doubt they will claim "it is to increase consumer choice", whereas, in fact, it is to enable corporate investors to asset strip and sell off Openretch. (No necessarily a bad thing based on their level of competence)

[localzuk]

To me that seems bonkers. Ofcom merrily allows the biggies from Europe and afar to come in purchase the shares of once Great British companies and absorb them so why on earth are they so stringent on one of our few home companies the Institutional investors haven't taken a quick profit on - yet?

Easy one to answer. Openreach are basically sat on top of the assets they were given when BT was privatised. This gives them a monopoly in a significant percentage of the country. Being a monopoly introduces a new set of extra stringent rules on top of how other companies are treated.

[sparkeh]

Anything that gives them a kick up the bum, improves service and opens up the broadband market is alright by me!

[zag]

Good Idea I think, they need to be separate to invest in full fiber solutions.

[crc-ict]

To me that seems bonkers. Ofcom merrily allows the biggies from Europe and afar to come in purchase the shares of once Great British companies and absorb them so why on earth are they so stringent on one of our few home companies the Institutional investors haven't taken a quick profit on - yet?

 

Totally agree. I can see all that doing is ending up with the majority of the connectivity infrastructure in this country becoming in the hands of a company probably ending up majority owned by one of the foreign telcos which is still nationalised. Good for Britain on the verge of Brexit? I doubt it.

 

You only have to look at the rail franchises and see how many of those are run by companies where large stakes are held by foreign national rail companies. It'll be the same again. Large amounts of UK cash from vital services going to business outside of the UK. No wonder our economy doesn't look so good.

Edited November 30, 2016 by crc-ict

[Blue_Cookeh]

Anything that gives them a kick up the bum, improves service and opens up the broadband market is alright by me!

 

This won't make any difference.

 

BT as a company already go into Openreach exactly the same way external companies do. In my short stint at BT we had Openreach employees working at desks literally opposite us, but we'd get into trouble for even mentioning business in conversation with them. They take regulation inside the company extremely seriously (three hours of my life I'll never get back after the regulation presentation I was given...).

 

I honestly think it'll make things worse. No one bid on government funding other than BT, no one else can be bothered extending rural networks, and Sky/TalkTalk/Virgin etc all have their own agendas and use BT as a scapegoat for anything.