BT celebrates giving up control of 1 million telephone lines

BT is allowed to cut broadband prices when it reaches 1 million

8 November 2006 14:41 GMT / By Amber Maitland

BT has announced that it has now unbundled a million lines, which is a 420% increase since January 2006.

What this means is the BT has handed over control of 1 million of its lines to competitors so that they can offer broadband service. Ofcom compelled BT to give up control of some of its exchanges so that consumers would have more choice of broadband service.

BT is now two-thirds of the way to the 1.5 million lines it needs to unbundle before being allowed to cut its own broadband prices. Then it will be able to compete with companies like Carphone Warehouse.

So what does unbundling lines actually do? It gives other companies control over the last mile of copper wiring from the exchange to homes.

Openreach, which works on Local Loop Unbundling (LLU), has said that it’s fulfilling about 30,000 LLU orders a week, with 20 operators providing unbundled services from more than 1000 local exchanges.

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