BT Wholesale launched a special offer to make it cheaper for service providers to move customers onto unbundled local loops. Under this variant of unbundling, the LLU operator chooses to unbundle just the broadband channel on the line with either BT or a wholesale line rental operator providing the narrowband voice service. Line sharing is made possible by installing ‘splitters' in the end user's home or office and another within the LLU operator's network equipment. Under line sharing, the end user has contracts with both the narrowband provider and the LLU supplier for the services each provides.
For LLU operators, BT is offering a 42% reduction in the price for migrating their customers from BT Wholesale's other broadband products to its shared LLU offering.
From 1 July, the price for migrating end-customers from BT Datastream and BT IPstream to shared LLU with the same operator will be reduced from £34.86 to £20.00 (ex.VAT). This offer will apply to LLU operators migrating end-customers in bulk per exchange and will be available for a period of 12 months. This special offer follows the 70 per cent reduction in total charges for shared LLU introduced by BT Wholesale in September 2004. With the introduction of these price reductions, the UK is now ranked third in Europe on price comparison for shared LLU.
Paul Reynolds, CEO, BT Wholesale said, "We are fully committed to seeing LLU a success. Industry interest has grown significantly since BT delivered price reductions of up to 70% on shared LLU in 2004, and we are confident that the special offer announced today will further boost demand."
BT's vision is that by January 2006, LLU operators will have the operational capability to deliver more than one million unbundled local loops a year.
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- According to the Office of the Telecommunications Adjudicator, the total number of unbundled lines in the UK is currently just over 47,000 and is increasing at 2,000 lines per week.
