Posted: 12th Jan, 2005 By: MarkJ
The prices for offering a local loop unbundled broadband service may now have dropped, yet operator Telefonica has highlighted a number of remaining problems. Not least the high investment required to enter such a market:
The first is that BT has no process to transfer customers from BT services to the new operators. The second is that BT's backhaul product, Backhaul Extension Service (BES), provides the only method that operators can use to connect from BT's local exchanges to their own networks.
"You have to build that cost into your offering, and there's no other provider than BT for the backhaul service," said Telefonica UK's James Waterworth. "This is another impediment which again raises the level of investment required."
Sandra O'Boyle, telecoms analyst at Current Analysis, said, "These price cuts are great, but now's the time for alternative operators to put up or shut up - who's going to step up and invest and how much?"Typically several ISP's (such as
Bulldog and Easynet) have already made the leap into LLU and others have announced their intention to do so during 2005. More @
VNUNet.