The Telecommunications Adjudicator (OTA) has released its latest monthly (August'08) report on the status of UK local loop unbundling (LLU) - HERE. Some 4.961m telephone lines have now been unbundled from BT, which compares with 4.874m during July 2008.

We haven't covered these reports for awhile because they've become quite mundane, although it's interesting to note this month that, "the rate of growth has reduced significantly in recent weeks."

This is hardly surprisingly given that the Office of National Statistics (ONS) recently reported a 0.3% decline in new Internet connections, while many ISPs have now more or less completed their internal moves to cheaper unbundled (non-BT) broadband platforms.

There’s still work to be done but we wouldn’t be surprised to see the rate of newly unbundled lines continuing to slow towards the end of this year. Factors such as the credit crunch, competition from Mobile Broadband and natural market saturation mean that most of today’s customer movements now stem from migrations between providers.