| Posted: Thursday 13th May 2004 by
Sam |
This morning BT have announced that they will be reducing LLU (Local Loop Unbundling) charges by up to 70%.
In a series of phased price cuts, due to start June 1st, BT will significantly reduce the cost of LLU connection and line rental. The June 1st price cuts will see the monthly line rental charge fall from £4.42 to £2.26, and the connection charge from £117 to £83.33.
LLU services are offered by the likes of Bulldog, Easynet and HomeChoice. They allow the providers complete control over what is delivered to the customer. For example, Easynet have been offering 8Mbps lines for some time now, and HomeChoice are now offering 1.5Mbps DSL along with digital TV - all down the phone line. Wanadoo (Formerly Freeserve) have also expressed a big interest in LLU over the past year.
Further on in the press release BT also mention that prices will be adjusted to ensure "adequate margins between BT DataStream and BT IPStream Home 500". No further details of this particular change are available at present.
The number of unbundled lines in the UK is still quite low (at under 10,000). Hopefully this announcement should encourage a few more ISP's to join the LLU bandwagon.
A list of LLU exchanges can be found here, here and here. A map detailing their locations can be found here. |