If British Telecom (BT) own the phone lines, how can other Internet companies provide cheaper rates when they need to rent the line from BT? Location: UK

Question

If British Telecom (BT) own the phone lines, how can other Internet companies provide cheaper rates when they need to rent the line from BT? Location: UK

In: Other

Answer 1

BT (the part that will sell you a phone or broadband plan) do not own the lines. Those are owned by OpenReach. The latter is sufficiently independent from BT that they don’t provide BT with preferential rates.

An example more along the lines of your question is mobile phone operators (who do own their masts) being willing to let cheaper phone companies piggyback on their infrastructure.