Although the bottom chart shows more than 3 million non-cable broadband connections in the UK, the rate of so-called local loop unbundling is much higher in European countries such as France.”There is no crises in the telecoms sector, it delivers good outcomes,” Mr Carter said. “However, there is fundamental change coming in infrastructures and technologies that will require substantial investment flows. They have held back the roll-out of broadband internet because of difficulties in rivals gaining access to local BT exchanges at an economic cost in order to install equipment. The most serious of these have undermined the provision of carrier pre-select services, where rivals such as One.Tel or TalkTalk provide domestic phone services in competition to BT.

They have held back services that allow consumers to receive one bill from a rival provider rather than a separate bill from BT for line rental. In effect they are still talking about that now.”To Mr Carter they are essential to clearing “economic bottlenecks” where BT has dragged its feet in allowing rivals to hook-up to BT’s network and provide new, better value-for-money services to increasingly sophisticated consumers. Tom Wheadon, telecoms partner at the lawyers Simmons & Simmons, said: “We’ve had this option for 20 years. Previously you would talk about ‘no undue discrimination and no undue preference’ imposed on BT Wholesale.

It will have to prove it has reformed its ways through greater transparency and disclosure and allow rivals the same access to the same sort of information that BT Retail enjoys.The idea is that BT Retail will become an arm’s length customer of BT Wholesale, along with a host of rivals, with all able to influence the wholesale arm equally.To some veteran industry observers, Mr Carter’s plans are little more than a fancy repackaging of the old rules, which everyone agrees have failed. Roger Urwin, the chief executive, makes a good case for being allowed to reinvest at least a part of this money in US expansion. Unlike most British companies that go shopping in the US, he’s so far achieved an impressive track record. All the electricity distribution companies he’s bought are growing strongly with the opportunity for generating further improvements in return on capital.Yet in these markets, even Mr Urwin couldn’t get away with reinvesting the whole lot, so in short order there is to be a £2bn capital distribution. The dividend is also being jacked up – by 20 per cent this year with the promise of 7 per cent a year growth thereafter. If the free cash flow keeps growing as anticipated, the company will face calls from shareholders for even more cash back.Capital return is very much the investment mantra of the moment.