> Wikipedia has a pretty good overview of the whole issue It doesn't really. Openreach was not broken up from BT, it only created a seperate department within

> Wikipedia has a pretty good overview of the whole issue It doesn't really. Openreach was not broken up from BT, it only created a seperate department within BT that continued to skirt various rules. > It's also possible for Ofcom (gov watchdog) now to monitor and slap either ISPs or Openreach for not behaving well. Ofcom broke up BT so that O2 and BT were seperate entities because allowing BT to have a dominant mobile network too was considered strongly wrong for competition. Ofcom allowed the larger mobile networks t-mobile and orange to merge together to become a mega huge mobile network. Turned around and said no to Three and O2 merging despite being a significant market disadvantage even after merger due to being smaller and having access to significantly less Spectrum. Unlike landlines, mobile networks are heavily restricted by needing radio spectrum to grow. Allowed BT to acquire EE. Allowed BT to acquire one of the larger virtual ISPs PlusNET. Ofcom denied alternate infrastructure provider Virgin from setting up further competitive mobile network infrastructure and forces them to exist a MVNO. Ofcom have ignored the fact that BT have been able to offer FTTH connections through their infrastructure to customers before any other ISP is permitted to use it over OpenReach. "like the UK did it" isn't exactly great. The OpenReach method however is not exactly unlike the FCC, they do requiring a certain amount of sharing through infrastructure via the Wireline Competition Bureau (WCB) and Wireless Telecommunications Bureau (WTB), but one significant difference to offer coverage of other services. Networks operating in the same area have a tendency to reuse the same infrastructure and mutually piggybacking on each other. There is one added difficulty that State laws do exist to frustrate the federal requirements in place.