Just read it on the BBC. It is ironic that BT sold it off to consolidate and now want to buy it back again! I agree with the OP, at some point BT will push through changes that will ensure CS is outsourced or overshored which inevitably means a mass customer exit. Its in their nature to do as BT have been prominent in offshoring and especially as the term "shareholder value" will be thrown about 2 years after integration has kicked in, it is their only option.
Then again, if the current consensus of moving call centres back to the UK works out better then they may keep it within the outsourced UK call centres. However the likes of Capita are going to be squeezed even more to keep their contract going.
Lets see what OFCOM will say as BT bought an interesting slice of the 4G spectrum in the last auction and I don't think the other networks are going to let it go through without some sort of compromise on BT's side.
On a side note, it looks like part of BT's master plan to be a sole provider of data/media/phone which was only to be expected once they acheived their aim of getting TV over broadband. With Vodafone now owning a large network via their purchase of Cable & Wireless, we're seeing another consolidation within the networks. EE needs to come up with something else they'll be a minority player and as for 3, they could end up being a niche operator with a decreasing user base as people migrate to better all inclusive offers as it makes more sense to have one bill than several. With the ability to port numbers/broadband its not going to be a highly complex task to port the entire service of to another provider (blue sky thinking, they've not exactly proved its a smooth task to do it now!).
Not yet mentioned but TalkTalk recently dropped Vodafone for o2 for mobile services. That's spanning "multi-years" and if BT buy's o2 then its going to be interesting given TalkTalk is BT's main competitor!
