View from City Road: BT's day-dreams are dashed

Things don't seem to be getting any easier for BT. The hope was that the Government would relent and allow it to offer broadcast television and other entertainment services over the telephone wires in 1998 when the ban is due to be reviewed - thus allowing the company to compete on an equal footing with cable. All such day- dreaming was firmly dashed by Don Cruickshank, the telecommunications regulator, yesterday. Nothing will change until 2001 at the earliest, he insisted, and even then there's no guarantee BT will get what it wants. If nothing else, Mr Cruickshank has served to underwrite the flood of cable flotations coming to market over the next year.