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TalkTalk to splash £1.5bn laying full fibre on 3 million doorsteps

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward

"You'd think that investing in the fundamental infrastructure requires to survive as a business would put shares up, not down."

It's much riskier than just leasing parts of BT's network or buying white-labelled wholesale products.

The general expectation amongst investors regarding Telecoms is "Build it and go bust". Infrastructure is hard and there's a very real chance of price declines meaning that it becomes impossible to pay back the original loans - as happened with the cable companies in the 90's. At that point a rival comes along and picks up your assets in a fire sale for peanuts. Better to be an investor in that rival than in the company that did the building.

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