London — Britain’s biggest telecoms group BT has reached an agreement with the regulator to finally resolve a two-year row over how the national broadband network is run, agreeing to a legal separation of the business. BT has come under fire after rivals including Sky, TalkTalk and Vodafone accused Openreach, the division that supplies broadband to millions of homes and businesses, of delivering a poor service. BT’s rivals say Openreach does not invest enough in the network, particularly in fibre optics, which currently connect only 2% of premises, and is run to serve BT’s bottom line rather than the interests of Britain’s broadband needs. On Friday BT said it had agreed to legally separate its broadband unit, Openreach, moving 32,000 staff into the new company, which will have its own brand without the BT logo. The Openreach CEO will report to the Openreach chairman, while keeping accountability to the BT CEO with certain legal and fiduciary duties. "This has been a long and challe...
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