Sir Christopher Bland guaranteed today that he will exit as BT chairman with a flourish. He has transformed the old-fashioned “lines and calls” business into a “new-wave” success story .

Time for more blue-sky thinking. It will not be enough for BT to pat itself on the back for becoming — at least for now — top of the fiercely competitive broadband market, commanding 26.5 per cent of the total UK connections.

That market will become ever more brutal and BT’s new television service, which could play a critical part in helping it to win and retain customers, is nowhere close to proving its worth and as convergence takes off, a strategy for mobile — in which BT is currently a bit-part player — is looking ever more urgent. More than enough for the new team to ponder.

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