NETWORK PERSPECTIVE
Phil Scott’s
Network Perspective Phil Scott, Chief Sales Officer at Technetix, shares his take on the fast-changing world of telecoms and how it intersects with technology. With a wealth of industry experience, he brings fresh, insightful and funny perspectives on the people, ideas and innovations that shape our industry. Openreach: Hero or Villain? “O Openreach, thou builder in the street, To some, a saint; to others, bitter cheat. Thy ducts run deep, thy margins under siege; Are you the cure, or merely the disease?”
power source to multiple pieces of critical infrastructure. It’s easy to disagree with the decree if you know something about lithium battery chemistry. It’s even easier to disagree if you’ve ever waited for a vendor’s “48 hours” to mean anything less than a fortnight. Safety may be non-negotiable, but process is rarely neutral and this is a classic incumbent macho reflex. Charge two: unfair pricing in a supposedly competitive market. Openreach finds itself both setting the tempo of national fibre rollout and competing aggressively on price. Wholesale discounts, pricing flexibility, and the infamous Equinox debates (Openreach’s long-term wholesale pricing scheme designed to accelerate adoption
I graduated with a law degree and briefly entertained a career at the Bar where Shakespearean theatrics are commonplace. But something drew me to the arguably more theatrical profession of telecoms. Now, as debate around Openreach grows ever louder, it feels appropriate to dust off the courtroom metaphors and invite you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, to pass ultimate judgment on where Openreach sits on the moral spectrum. The Case for the Prosecution The prosecution, led in spirit if not in fact by INCA and its members, brings three charges.
Charge one: abusing incumbency under the guise of safety.
Openreach, like I’ve previously written about TalkTalk, is not afraid of courting controversy. Most recently, it decreed that all lithium batteries be removed from its network estate. This was pitched as a health and safety emergency, sparked in part by images of first edition Teslas burning at the roadside. After all, “fire and explosion” do not mix well with shared infrastructure. What was couched in the strongest possible safety language casually ignored the manner of enforcement. Anyone familiar with telecoms infrastructure knows that 48 hours is barely long enough to raise a change request, never mind remove the
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MARCH 2026 Volume 48 No.1
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