I wouldn't agree with that. I live in a large town (Bournemouth), on the outskirts where I was getting a variable ADSL service of between 0.5 and 2Mbps dependi

I wouldn't agree with that. I live in a large town (Bournemouth), on the outskirts where I was getting a variable ADSL service of between 0.5 and 2Mbps depending on the weather; my cabling is not copper but aluminium back to the exchange (about 2 miles away), and was often troublesome, and unlikely to be replaced in the near future. I now have Infinity, running at a rock solid 38Mbps down and 12Mbps up, for a decent price (almost the same as I was paying for ADSL), and it's been totally reliable. Bournemouth had FibreCity which promised fibre to the home, and 100M/1G service. The original delivery mechanism (in sewers, with minimal digging) didn't work out, and instead lots of micro-trenching was done. It cost them much more than they anticipated, and the company went bust (more than once, I believe), and provided a sub-standard IPTV and ISP offering (I had it for a month on trial, and it was patchy), so while the numbers would look great, there's more to it than the raw figures. FTR, my postcode always showed that my area was going to have infinity, but my specific address wasn't going to get it, and even though I registered to be told when it would be available, I was never told - it was only bored clicking one night when stuck at 0.5Mbps that led to me getting upgraded. BT and openworld definitely need more separation, however, IMO.