LLU Exceeds One Million Lines in the UK
Openreach announced, in November, that the UK had achieved an important milestone in the telecoms market as the number of unbundled lines reached the one million mark. This is a 420 per cent increase in the number of unbundled lines since the creation of Openreach in January 2006. The number of unbundled lines continues to rise rapidly. By the end of 2006 it had reached 1.3 million. This tremendous growth means that Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) is now a critical component of the highly competitive UK broadband market, providing a route to market for companies wishing to install their own equipment in BT exchanges.
On average, Openreach meets almost 30,000 LLU orders per week, with more than twenty operators providing unbundled services from more than 1,000 local exchanges across the UK. This tremendous progress reflects the cooperative working between Openreach, industry and the Office of the Telecommunications Adjudicator.
Steve Robertson, CEO, Openreach said, “This is a fantastic achievement for the whole of industry and demonstrates that the UK has one of the most competitive broadband markets in the world. This progress has been underpinned by price reductions and the introduction of new product and systems capability to make it simpler for operators to migrate their end customers onto unbundled services. Openreach is committed to making sure that this positive trend continues.”