Broadband lines near 10 million

BT's new Openreach division could further speed up unbundling

The UK now has more broadband users than France, and substantial growth is likely this year, according to analyst firm Point Topic. It estimates that at the start of this year the UK had 9.8 million broadband lines while France had 9.7 million.

Point Topic's chief executive, Tim Johnson, said that BT's new Openreach division should speed up the unbundling of the local loop this year - allowing rivals to offer more services via BT infrastructure, and further encouraging broadband growth.

"[This] could be the UK's 'year of unbundling'," commented Johnson. " [Unbundling] will encourage a major innovation in telecoms services - there is nothing quite like [the access offered by BT] anywhere else in the world, and both theory and experience suggests that by opening up the market it will further stimulate broadband take-up and growth."

Currently the number of local loop unbundled (LLU) lines in the UK is far behind that of France, despite a large increase in wholesale broadband connections here after 2003. Point Topic's research shows France has about 2.5 million unbundled lines - 20 times the current figure in the UK.

Point Topic said that if UK ISPs show the same commitment as their counterparts in France, then the Ofcom trigger level of 1.5 million LLU lines could be reached in late 2006, allowing BT to cut its wholesale prices further, sparking more competition. The NTL/Telewest and BSkyB/Easynet mergers should also increase competitiveness in the UK ISP market.

One of the benefits of having access to unbundled exchanges is that it makes it easier for ISPs to set up new services.

ISP Be launched a 24Mbit/s service late last year, and it is now finalising plans for a "Be lite" service which will offer up to 24Mbit/s - though with some restrictions - for under £15 per month.

Aimed at users who do not normally make hefty downloads, the "lite" service offers an initial usage allowance which Be spokesman Paul Smyth said "could be topped up as needed, but won't put you back into the price bracket of Be's normal 24Mbit/s service".