Thursday 03 February 2005, 11:19:00
United Kingdom
Written by Net 4 Nowt
BT Wholesale today announced plans to deliver higher speed
broadband services throughout the UK together with a range of wholesale
broadband pricing initiatives. The changes include more competitive
wholesale broadband pricing in response to service provider requests to
support the continued explosion of end user take up of broadband
connections.
BT plans to deliver higher speeds from its wholesale ADSL products
to meet increasing demand for more bandwidth-hungry applications such
as video. Trials are scheduled to begin in April 2005 with a view to
launching higher speed services nationally from the autumn.
Firstly the company plans to trial upping the speeds on lines that
will currently support existing 2Mbit/s ADSL services to deliver speeds
between 2Mbit/s and 8Mbit/s dependant on line characteristics. In
addition BT Wholesale plans to run initial trials of ADSL2+ technology
to support higher speed services of up to 18Mbit/s. Further details of
the timing, scope and location of the trials will be provided over the
next few weeks.
From April 2005, BT Wholesale plans to reduce the wholesale cost to
service providers of BT IPStream ADSL products by an average of about 8
per cent in areas where there is a combination of high customer demand,
high take up and lower costs. The reduction will be delivered as a
rebate to the service provider of £1.10 per BT IPstream Home end user
and £1.40 per BT IPstream Office and S product end user.
The company announced it will also reduce the costs for BT
Datastream ADSL service providers at the same time to ensure continued
compliance with the regulatory margin rule. Given current market and
regulatory conditions, BT said it does not expect to make any further
significant price changes to the existing ADSL IP Stream rental charges
over the next 12 months, other than potentially some changes to support
the take up of higher bandwidth services.
BT Wholesale has also announced it plans further price cuts for
Local Loop Unbundling operators. BT would hope to cut the monthly
rental on the fully unbundled local loop product by a similar
proportion to the BT IPstream reduction. This will be subject to the
speedy and satisfactory conclusion of two related Ofcom consultations
and the wider review as well as following normal regulatory processes.
BT Wholesale chief executive Paul Reynolds said: "At more than
four million ADSL broadband connections and growing, and close to two
million cable broadband users, broadband in the UK is rapidly becoming
a mass market service. Broadband service providers want a choice of
broadband service delivery and the ability to differentiate their
services to end users. The broadband volumes we see today allow us to
address both issues of cost and choice, and will help maintain a
sustainable, competitive broadband portfolio.
"Ultimately our 21st century network programme will deliver the
speed and functionality service providers want for the future.
Today's news means we are bringing improvements on-stream more
quickly to give wholesale customers the choice of the wholesale
delivery mechanism they adopt for broadband; be it the end-to-end BT
IPstream option; end user access via BT Datastream; or by local loop
unbundling.
"We are fully committed to seeing LLU a success. Industry
interest has grown significantly since BT delivered price reductions of
up to 70 per cent on shared LLU over recent months. We've also
recently introduced a range of new products that allow simpler
migration between operators and a further range of other industry
requested products and automations will be launched progressively in
the coming months. We are committed to continuing our work with the
industry to improve the operational processes surrounding LLU".
By the end of March 2005 LLU operators will be providing service
from more than 600 exchanges with many of them having multiple
operators providing service. New LLU deployments, in many cases, will
be the simpler, cheaper new range of co-mingling products launched in
October 2004. BT has agreed an LLU Industry Plan that will provide a
platform for operators to grow towards their forecasts of 1million
total LLU lines by December 2005.
Paul Reynolds said: "In a highly competitive market all service
providers need competitive input prices and flexibility to
differentiate their products. These developments strengthen the
broadband portfolio for all wholesale customers - including local
loop unbundlers and service providers who do not wish to become
infrastructure operators."
Earlier this week BT revealed details of the next 500 exchanges to
be upgraded to provide symmetric broadband (SDSL) service. By April
2006 a total of 1300 exchanges covering more than two thirds of UK
businesses will be able to provide SDSL.
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