I don't see the problem. The same companies that competed when BT owned OpenReach at the same time as the ISP BT Internet. In the early days before LLU they pai

I don't see the problem. The same companies that competed when BT owned OpenReach at the same time as the ISP BT Internet. In the early days before LLU they paid a damn rental to BT Wholesale (as I think it was back then), yet loads of ISPs managed to grow via essentially second class access, and second class service speed (early repairs and provisioning were essentially down to "Ask BT Wholesale nicely"). Well how the hell did the others get large enough to push for LLU? The choice of giving access here is a different measure - to give access to the infrastructure arm for those companies who have built out smaller, competing fibre networks like the couple of city services that sprung up. It's unclear if that will encompass the tiny regional additions to add internet to far flung rural villages. In essence, that is no difference to local loop unbundling, except this time it's going the other way and requiring the national provider be given access to infrastructure. There is still no reason not to provide a commercial retail ISP service. Maybe Talktalk will still be able to offer something in place of merely being cheaper by being the shittest in the market. Maybe Zen or Andrews and Arnold will be able to carry on charging more by offering a markedly better standard of service, or faster internals, or a robust stance on blocking and censorship. The compulsory part is -- from what we have been told -- only the infrastructure access. Sky and Virgin will probably include TV as part of the package. It will be similar to how private medicine ceased to be in the UK after the NHS was instantiated -- except it didn't, did it? BUPA and others found a niche. Whether it works, is a success, or a mega-project mega-failure remains to be seen. The idea of a nationalised infrastructure in a world where the net is required for so much makes sense, particularly when national rollout of FTTH has been so dire. It has become as much a natural monopoly as water. I'm less convinced the retail side makes quite so much sense... 5G is, for the time being, completely irrelevant as it's a mobile tech.