[Turkey Machine]

The problem with consumers is two-fold.

Residential customers only used to know BT and cable but thanks to TalkTalk, Sky, BT and Virgin Media are getting better products cheaper than ever before, even with the somewhat ludicrous limits and contracts placed on those products. Who has the majority? BT. Score 1 for them.

Business customers for years and years paid over the odds for BT's lines, analogue and ISDN. Then Ofcom forced them to sell wholesale and now everybody undercuts BT but still BT have the massive majority in this market which is slowly but surely decreasing. Score 2.

VoIP telephony is now making a headway in this country but businesses are still slow on the take-up based on 2 things - internet access and the call costs. Most businesses can't justify the expense of installing a couple of data lines for redundancy, and replacing the telephone system with IP phones. The advantages are numerous (portability being one, you can move offices at the drop of a hat and still retain the setup), but businesses won't see or don't want to see the difference because they only know BT / Opal / COLT etc. Score 2.5.

In residential and business, everybody buys from BT Wholesale and everybody uses Openreach for the maintenance and installs. Even Virgin Media buy from BT for some of their services. The problem comes when there's a monopoly and no way to split it fairly.