Vodafone on Thursday aligned itself with the U.K.’s structural separation crowd, calling for Openreach to be fully split from BT in a response to Ofcom’s ongoing strategic review.
The mobile operator claims that splitting up the incumbent is the only way to stimulate investment and innovation in the market.
"BT’s Openreach business needs to be structurally separated from the rest of BT and provide access to its ducts and poles to encourage and enable effective multi-operator network investment," Vodafone said.
"Only then will U.K. consumers and businesses have easier access to fibre, which will stimulate the innovation which will not be possible if the U.K. remains stuck with today’s elderly copper network," it insisted.
Vodafone concluded by questioning why BT is so opposed to structural separation, given its insistence that it gains no advantage over rivals from the current system.
Doubtless BT will have more to say about that in the near future.
The incumbent i s indeed fighting hard to keep its hands on Openreach though.
It has taken every possible opportunity over the past six months or so to talk up the investment it has ploughed into its infrastructure arm and to defend the current regulatory set-up.
But BT stands alone against its detractors, the most vocal of whom include retail broadband service rivals TalkTalk and Sky.
Ofcom confirmed in July that its Strategic Review of Digital Communications will examine the possibility of splitting Openreach from BT. It is accepting comments on the subject from interested parties.
