Reply to post: Well gosh

Openreach needs to snap that BT umbilical cord, warns Ofcom

Alan Brown Silver badge

Well gosh

Not-separated company is still beholden to mummy's apron strings.

Who'da thunk it?

Not the New Zealand Commerce Commission, obviously

Lesson: One needs to cleave the lines equipment (and management) from the dialtone company (and management), or else the one can leverage the other to enforce its anticompetitive behaviour.

This is what the New Zealanders thoroughly documented about the UK market when Telecom NZ tried to rollout the BT model - showing that BT was still a monopolistic player - and told Telecom NZ that they had to split the company entirely in two, not just flip off the lines servicing company and keep the copper.

Documented here: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/25/tnz_split/

The effect on the market was STARK and shows what happens when a regulator grows some bollocks - the NZ commerce regulators documented how much damage the telco monopoly was doing to the national economy (about 10% of GDP) and said "enough is enough"

It also shows that the CORRECT regulator is the monoplies and markets side of the government, NOT Ofcom. They're utterly incompetent to regulate business operations (as was the NZ version of Ofcom) and should stick to their core competencies.

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