Cue the trumpets flaring. BT Openreach, the UK incumbent carrier’s wholesale arm, this week announced that more than one million unbundled broadband links had been sold.Not to be outshone, BT Retail (which, unsurprisingly, is the UK incumbent’s retail arm) followed up by announcing that its total broadband customer base has passed three million.

Are such figures worthy of applause, or scorn? Do we laugh, or do we cry? Is BT’s 3:1 dominance of UK broadband evidence of a high-performance telco, or just a sign of an effectively obstructive one?

Steve Robertson, chief executive, Openreach said, “This is a fantastic achievement for the whole of industry and demonstrates that the UK has one of the most competitive broadband markets in the world. This progress has been underpinned by price reductions and the introduction of new product and systems capability to make it simpler for operators to migrate their end customers onto unbundled services. Openreach is committed to making sure that this positive trend continues.”

His counterpart, Ian Livingston, chief executive of BT Retail, said: “the broadband market is consolidating and customers are increasingly choosing between basic broadband and a total service that can deliver far more. BT believes that customers deserve broadband that makes available a range of new exciting new services’:

He continues: “the broadband market of the last few months has been similar to a gold rush with companies falling over themselves to offer so called “free” broadband. It is pleasing then to see that more than three million customers share our vision that broadband is far more than a pipe into the home.”

For a unique insight into the role of BT in UK broadband and its attempts at self-regulation, click here for an exclusive interview with Jon Furmston, Director of BT’s ‘Equality of Access Office’. This is the body charged with mediating between BT and its competitors.
Jim Chalmers