I'm not sure you know the subject very well. By 1986 Cochrane had already overseen fibre installation in the long lines network - leading to a dramatic drop in maintenance and staffing costs - and had installed fibre to his home. He had a clear understanding of the tech and the costs involved. You don't end up on as big a list of boards and directorships as he has without being savvy with both tech and economics.
Your faith in the British establishment is touching but misplaced. Being given a long series of fake (sorry, "visiting") academic roles and board seats is exactly how you'd expect them to protect a former government official.
He wasn't savvy with tech. I just demonstrated that. He claimed it was "patently obvious" you couldn't deliver data over copper just a few years before the tech to do it was invented.
He wasn't savvy with economics either. BT was a basket case when he was running it, which is why they had to lay off over 100,000 employees the moment they were privatized. And again, he claimed you could make FTTH cheap by scaling up cable manufacturing, which is not only economically nonsensical but is obviously nonsense to anyone who thinks about it for a moment.
The moment BT had to actually deliver value matching the prices they charged, they could no longer justify FTTH nor could anyone else, because it was irrational. That's why the project got cancelled. Stop trying to force a left wing narrative where none fits: if FTTH was such a great idea in the 1980s other companies would have done it. None did, because it was the wrong call.
