LONDON, March 17 (Reuters) - Britain said on Tuesday it

would regulate BT Openreach's national broadband network

for another five years, with a price cap on a wider range of

speeds, to drive competition and extend fibre connections to the

final fifth of the country's premises.

The competitive framework put in place by watchdog Ofcom in

2021 has resulted in nearly eight in 10 homes having access to

full-fibre broadband, up from less than a quarter fives years,

in a rapid turnaround.

Around three quarters have a choice of two providers -

generally Openreach and Virgin Media or an alternative smaller

network - but Ofcom said Openreach still retained significant

market power and it could not remove regulation entirely.

It said it would cap the nominal price that Openreach can

charge retail providers like Vodafone ( VOD ) or Sky - who lease its

infrastructure - for download speeds up to 80Mbit/s, rather than

40Mbit/s at present.

The prices of higher-speed products will remain unregulated,

so providers had an incentive to invest in networks that can

deliver faster speeds, it said on Tuesday.