Openreach Limited

I don't think it would do that, but it's quite likely that it will put some remedy in or put further regulations in to ensure that BT can't use its additional market power to too much extent.

Charlie, that's an interesting point, isn't it? One of the main arguments against this deal being that BT Openreach dominates the market already.

How important is competition for customers?

It's really important.

So it's good that I suppose it's got all these customers for themselves, but they could really do with... using that a little better but I worry I guess long-term about what will happen sort of to the talk talk people who have got their email addresses and things like that because the connectivity is not a problem that can be sort of got from anywhere but it's the email services I think is the is the real concern for most people

yeah if you in fact you know I do a number of broadband surveys of various publications and you often those surveys that you make a comment about why you're with that isp and without foul the majority number one reason why people are still with talk talk is because they've got a talk talk email address that they they don't want to lose um just a just a couple of points on that the um you're talking about i think open reach and its relationship with the other isps but open reach is was separated off as a different company.

So there is limits to what they can do in terms of cooperation.

The other point to make was that BT, or Open Reach, were in fact one of TalkTalk's biggest creditors.

They were owed quite a substantial amount of money by TalkTalk for the wholesale... provision um and so to some extent the wider bt group um had a sort of vested interest in taking over this company because otherwise it was very unlikely to to see any money uh nick what do you make of it all Is this the point where we

need to be really thinking about ISPs as utilities? They may be privately owned, but if your water company went bankrupt, your water is not going to stop flowing through the taps.

And, uh, I'm saying all of this, but we've created National EV Week, which is an online version of, of, of kind of the decarbonization theater that you would see within, um, the Commercial Vehicle Show and also, uh, Installer, where we are getting to talk to people that are really delivering.

You know, people from Openreach, and Royal Mail, and Network Rail, and DPD, and, you know, all of the guys that have gone early and have, have faced and tackled the problems of range anxiety within the commercial vehicle world.

And then also, you know, even our own Sam Clark with ZEHID trials, um, you know, getting, uh, large infrastructure trucks, all that kind of stuff-

Mm

The, the underlying infrastructure, you're right.

Openreach has around 60 to 65%, um, of the infrastructure in the country, but let's be clear.

What you've said is, you know, broadband is proving to be critical infrastructure that the country needs, uh, and it needs to be owned and operated in a high-quality, highly resilient way, and I think this situation highlights the need for operators to be-

Mm

So this is quite a big deal in terms of what happens to the customers with TalkTalk.

So BT is quite central to the whole thing because Openreach, which is a division of BT, is TalkTalk's biggest supplier.

So they actually pay £60 to £80 million a month to BT customers.

And TokTok is believed to owe BT more than £100 million.

how do you think that we we've kept you far longer than we said we will so we'll wrap up soon but um last question for me i don't know if you've got any any closing thoughts as well firm but how is it going to change the shape of the loom escape are we going to end up with buyer agents talking to publishers seller agents and everything else in the middle kind of goes away eventually or is it still going to need a dsp and ssp data platform la la la

the agents that are being built right now are brand agents measurement agents signals agents creative agents and seller agents reporting is within that as well so kind of that's the constituents of the transaction you know intent and through to activation uh the technology company whether the stakeholders yeah i think i think it's going to be everything's being built on uh the existing infrastructure that we've just spent the last 20 years building right so think of your fiber optic going into your home it's using the existing infrastructure and then the infrastructure is bit by bit Upgraded by Openreach and BT and whoever else.

Same with the progression of media.

What will probably start to happen is people go, are DMPs full of junk? Do we need DMPs? What does a CDP do? People...

Work is starting to bring full fibre broadband to more homes and businesses in Torrens through the Project Gigabit programme.

Funded by the UK Government and managed in Scotland by the Scottish Government, the work is being carried out by Openreach.

It will give residents and businesses access to some of the fastest, most reliable broadband in Europe.

The upgrades are part of Project Gigabit, a programme to enable communities to access fast, reliable broadband targeting homes and businesses that, because of their location, might otherwise miss out.

Wherever possible we'll use our existing network of ducts and poles to avoid roadworks, new street furniture and disturbance.

There may be places where we need to install new poles, underground ducts and fibre cables because it's the only way to make sure households get included in the upgrade.

Openreach was awarded a £175 million contract as part of a UK-wide framework to deliver gigabit-capable broadband to around 77,000 premises across Scotland.

This includes some of the hardest to reach communities in the Highlands and Islands, Argyll and Bute, and Central and South Scotland.

I won't have a chance to put out an episode next week.

What I will be doing is I'll be really busy contacting the CEO of Openreach and asking why it's so hard to get me a fiber internet connection to my house when there's a box just five feet away from me.

Just put a Y cable in there.

What could