While Labour’s plan to renationalise part of BT would be a disastrous waste of public money, which would not deliver the intended results, Telegraph may have a point, the UK’s broadband is broken, the John McDonnell reported. Just six percent of the approximately 30 million properties in the UK have a full-fibre broadband connection compared with 90% in Portugal and 70% in Spain. Ofcom estimates that around 619,000 homes and businesses are unable to connect to a line fast enough to stream video. Labour is right to argue that the industry needs to change, but nationalising BT won’t work the paper wrote. A better idea, that would not cost taxpayers a penny, and inject some long overdue real competition into the sector, would be to spin Openreach off into a completely independent, privately-owned company in which BT’s competitors could also be shareholders.
While Labour’s plan to renationalise part of BT would be a disastrous waste of public money, which would not deliver the intended results, John McDonnell may have a point, the UK’s broadband is broken, the Telegraph reported. Just six percent of the approximately 30 million properties in the UK have a full-fibre broadband connection compared with 90% in Portugal and 70% in Spain. Ofcom estimates that around 619,000 homes and businesses are unable to connect to a line fast enough to stream video. Labour is right to argue that the industry needs to change, but nationalising BT won’t work the paper wrote. A better idea, that would not cost taxpayers a penny, and inject some long overdue real competition into the sector, would be to spin Openreach off into a completely independent, privately-owned company in which BT’s competitors could also be shareholders.