Ok a few things:

First of all not that long ago you guys said that this wasn't going to happen as shareholders where against it? Seems like a complete U Turn.

Seconds WTF are you talking about interested_party - BT was privatised ages ago moron so how the PUBLIC is funding is beyond me. Or maybe Shareholders and their crazy ideas count as the Public. Are you a shareholder? This isn't some National Iron Sickle Communist Party Network its a Fibre optic network built bye a telecoms company. What the HELL ELSE ARE THEY GONNA DO? I DON'T SEE THE GOD DAMN CONNECTION GET A FREAKING BRAIN MORON

Anything that means I can finally ditch NTL er.... I mean Virgin Media for good is good news.

I've already replaced their lousy phone package with BT's offering, and their cable TV was replaced with Sky's marvellous package yonks ago.

I can't tell VM to shove their "fibre optic" broadband where the sun doesn't shine because the only ADSL equivalent I can get is state-of-the-ark and reminds me of surfing bulletin boards in the early 90's in terms of speed (or lack thereof).

Even if I can only get 40Mb from BT's new scheme compared to 50Mb from Virgin Media, I'll be happy enough with that and will take great delight in telling VM what I really think of them and their pîss poor customer service.

and so it begins ...the not so well off will be stuck with terrible broadband speeds on wire while the rich enjoy fibre optic

ah... privatisation was the best thing to happen to bt *cough* *splutter* the cutomers will benefit etc etc...

sounds like it was all for the benefit of the shareholders

may they rot in hell for all eternity the greedy unscrupulous scum!

Lets hope this works out well, my shares in BT could use a boost.

As far as I understand your story and the business arrangements involved, it seems that Openreach can charge unrelated service providers ten times what the service costs, providing they charge BT Retail the same, and the end customer with no choice is willing to pay. If BT is separate from BT Retail, why should BT worry about having such a monopoly? And if they are not totally separate, why should they worry anyway, as the arrangement could be so profitable? Would it matter if BT Retail failed and shut up shop?

BT's commercial arm that handles the network should be broken apart from the retail arm, leaving the retail side of things as just another 3rd party.

"on equal terms and without favour"

As long as the wholesale price IS IN FACT the same charge from BT Wholesale to BT Retail and ALL OTHER providers!!!

We should have this new network infrastructure open for bidding. Any decent firm should be able to submit a bid to buy and build a piece of this network.

It's about time we got rid of the publicly funded, government backed, BT moonopoly, and all the bad practices and high prices it brings with it.