Wholesale Leased Lines Consultation Held December 2005 - January 2006
The BT Undertakings require BT Wholesale’s Value-Added Network Services (VNS) product group to develop, manage and offer variants of the BT Retail leased line portfolio to meet the reasonable requirements of its customers who are Communications Providers. The first step in this exercise was to seek the views of our customers through a consultation process which was run between December 2005 and January 2006.
Following a good response, a number of actions have been identified that will form the basis of activity for the portfolio moving forward.
Positive feedback was received about the functionality and range of the existing retail portfolio. However, it was felt that a review of the current pricing and discount scheme would be welcomed by all. To this end, the Wholesale Leased Line Product Manager appointed by BT Wholesale as required by the Undertakings is working with BT Retail to agree changes using the BT Retail Statement of Requirements (SoR) process. BT Retail is conducting a specific ‘Review on Discount Packages’ which will create responses to some of the questions arising out of the consultation.
The consultation also generated customer requirements on a range of other topics. BT Wholesale will therefore work with BT Retail on the key areas of product development, billing, service wrap & resilience and separation.
By the end of June, we will share with customers the details of the various requirements (both pricing and non-pricing) that we have and will pass to BT Retail.
In addition, comments regarding specific Service Wraps for the portfolio have been passed on to BT Retail. These comments will be utilised to direct the BT Operational Teams to focus on their Programme for Performance recovery.
Having assessed all the feedback, BT Wholesale considers there is no specific requirement, at present, to create a dedicated BT Wholesale portfolio of Leased Line products. It feels that customers' requirements can be met by the introduction of new pricing packages for the BT Retail portfolio. The BT Wholesale Product Manager will serve as the primary contact with BT Retail to ensure this happens.
Customers will be kept fully informed of the outcome of any of the issues raised in the usual way via your Account Manager.
BT Wholesale would like to thank all those who took time to participate in the consultation.