and they'll wish they'd put a bit more investment in, I suspect.
Don't believe the media, or that things will be rosy if the Daily Fail and the tart from Talk Talk get their way and OR is spun off. Its all 'dangle berries', designed to outrage and sell papers. Or mask over the fact all your customers are leaving because you felt the need to distribute all their personal information to the globe.
Most localities, > 90% of the population can get fibre to the home if they want it. In fact that's a lie, everyone can by ordering Ethernet products, but lets stick with residential/soho type products.
We have remarkably cheap, fast Internet in the UK, and that's all thanks to OR. Who else will make that investment to provide near universal coverage? Nobody. Well, not at the prices we want to pay. Other companies will, obviously, only go for the very profitable areas.
The government proposed a universal internet service to provide a minimum speed to everyone (12Mb from memory, but might be wrong). Absolutely no takers, as everyone knows its not financially viable.