U.K. local loop unbundling: 6 million lines and counting

At 6 million lines, Ofcom is confident that the U.K. is well on its way to achieving the goal of a achieving the goal of creating a competitive broadband market. According to the regulator, there are 30 competitive broadband service providers such as Talk Talk that are leveraging BT's copper network to deliver services to residential and business customers. Ongoing local loop unbundling has produced two main benefits in the U.K. broadband services market: increased adoption and lower prices.

The U.K. has come a long way since BT started selling wholesale access on its copper network to competitors via the creation of its Openreach division. At the time Openreach was created in 2005, only 37 percent of homes and SMBs were using broadband services. In its recently published annual communications report for 2009, Ofcom said that 68 percent of homes and SMBs had a broadband subscription as of the end of Q1 2009. What's more, the average price of a broadband line has dropped from a high of $38.00 to around $22.00 a month.

"[In 2005] there were just 123,000 unbundled lines in the U.K., and the majority of people could only get their broadband and landline telephone service from one provider - BT," said Ofcom in its annual report.

For more:
- Total Telecom has this article

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