BT Openreach Tweaks Unbundled LLU Phone Line Prices for UK ISPs

BTOpenreach, which looks after BT’s national telecoms network, has once again tweaked some of its future local loop unbundling (LLU) prices for broadband ISPs and phone line providers in order to ensure compliance with Ofcom’s charge controls.

The adjustments, which will be implemented on the 1st September 2013 with subsequent changes on 1st March 2013, only affect the fully unbundled (MPF) and shared unbundled (SMPF) phone lines used predominantly by ISPs like Sky Broadband, TalkTalk, Cable & Wireless and a few others.

Generally speaking there’s nothing of too much significance here, although the cost of expediting an unbundled phone line order (accelerate the delivery) will fall from £167.32 +vat for an MPF line today to £145 from September. Meanwhile the Expedite process for an SMPF line will rise from £88.71 to £100.10 in September.

TalkTalk has previously complained that the cost of MPF Expedite was “excessive” when compared with the same solution for SMPF lines. As a matter of practice expedite is not used frequently for MPF single migration by LLU ISPs since there is a minimum 10 day lead time (for consumer protection purposes). However, when MPF single migration lead times are long there would be reason to use the expedite service.

Openreach Pricing Notifications
http://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/products/pricing/loadPricingNotifications.do