Openreach today announced that the UK has achieved an important milestone in the telecoms market as the number of unbundled lines reaches the one million mark. This represents a 420 per cent increase in the number of unbundled lines since the creation of Openreach in January 2006. This tremendous growth means that Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) is now a critical component of the highly competitive UK broadband market, providing an alternative route to market for those companies who wish to install their own equipment in BT exchanges.

On average, Openreach is currently fulfilling almost 30,000 LLU orders per week, with more than twenty operators providing unbundled services from more than 1,000 local exchanges across the UK. This tremendous progress is the direct result of ongoing collaboration between Openreach, industry and the Office of the Telecommunications Adjudicator.

Steve Robertson, CEO, Openreach said, “This is a fantastic achievement for the whole of industry and demonstrates that the UK has one of the most competitive broadband markets in the world. This progress has been underpinned by price reductions and the introduction of new product and systems capability to make it simpler for operators to migrate their end customers onto unbundled services. Openreach is committed to making sure that this positive trend continues.”