Carsberg to join BT's watchdog committee

BT Group has appointed Sir Bryan Carsberg, the former head of Oftel, the previous telecoms industry regulator, to sit on the supervisory board that will oversee Openreach, the new business created by the telecoms group to offer rivals access to the company's main network.

The Equality of Access Board (EAB) will monitor BT's compliance with the undertakings it has given Ofcom, the current telecoms watchdog, to grant access to its network to other telecoms companies that supply residential and business services in competition to BT Retail. The EAB will be operational from 1 November, four-and-a-half months ahead of schedule.

The board will be chaired by Carl Symon, an existing BT non-executive director, and will also include Sally Davis, a BT executive. However, there will be three non-BT directors on the EAB led by Sir Bryan, a former director general of the Office of Fair Trading who ran Oftel from 1982 to 1994. Sir Bryan was also secretary general of the International Accounting Standards Committee between 1995 and 2001.

The other independent directors will be Stephen Pettit, a non-executive director of the National Grid and a former Cable & Wireless executive, and Peter Radley, the former chairman and chief executive of Alcatel UK, part of the French telecoms group. Sir Christopher Bland, the chairman of BT, said: "The creation of this board is a central plank of the new regulatory settlement. The fact that it will be operational several months ahead of schedule is evidence of BT's firm commitment to the settlement and the delivery of equivalence."

BT has been criticised for giving BT Retail favourable treatment compared with rivals who need access to the network.