BT Group

BT is based in London. Openreach builds and maintains the local access network and sells wholesale products that other internet providers use to reach homes, under equivalence rules that are supposed to give those providers the same inputs BT Consumer uses.

The competitive question on the fixed side is the wholesale price and the installation performance Openreach offers Sky, TalkTalk, and Vodafone relative to the service BT's own brand sells on the same fiber. Virgin Media O2 has its own cable and mobile network and does not depend on Openreach in the same way.

EE is a mobile network competing with Vodafone, O2, and Three. Full-fiber build is the capacity race, both by Openreach and by CityFibre and other alternative networks that give a retailer a second wholesale option in some cities.

Openreach wholesale is the input most UK broadband retailers still need outside Virgin Media's footprint.

Equivalence of inputs is what keeps BT Consumer and rival retailers on comparable wholesale terms.

EE mobile competes as a network owner, a different structure from the fixed wholesale dependency.

A Sky or TalkTalk customer still depends on an Openreach engineer and an Openreach line.

Households in areas with only Openreach fiber have one physical network regardless of which brand is on the bill.