Comment by consp
8 hours ago
We've had the same issue in the Netherlands as the UK (telecom getting free infrastructure), and the end result is them blocking every fiber connection for years and then buying up all of the ones trying when it suited them. And the cable companies had a freebie for decades because they got most of their infra for free without the "share space" requirement (because only a major part, and not all, was funded by municipalities and it took a while to get them all in one company), and the cable companies decided not to invest in anything. And now we have the fiber-to-the-bottom where they are installing as fast as they can, but only with a governmental monopoly in place with dubious sharing agreements.
Due to "competition" and "fare ride" my soon to be (it's taken over 4 years and likely will take forever..) fiber will cost me 22 euro/month more than if I would have gotten the cable from across the road ... but the companies have "exclusive" rights since they would not have "financed" it otherwise (the quotes are all marketing bs).
In the UK, they split the infra provider (Openreach) from the consumer company (BT). So it's no longer BT giving access to the other providers.
In theory, BT has no special access to the infra at all, and they're on a level playing field with other providers.
That may not be perfectly true in practice, but my impression is there are no large differences between providers on the same infra. Choosing between providers mostly comes down to packaging and customer service in the end.