BT Openreach unbundling up 640 per cent on last year

BT Openreach - which manages broadband and telephony connections to UK homes and businesses - will hit 1.5 million local loop unbundled customer connections this week, an increase of 640 per cent since last year's launch.

The service was created in January 2006 after BT was required to unbundle local loops, allowing other telecommunication firms to use BT infrastructure to provide their own services.

Local loop unbundling (LLU) means other internet service providers - including heavyweights Sky and Carphone Warehouse, but also hundreds more - invest in and use BT's exchanges and connections to provide broadband to their customers, allowing competition in the market that couldn't happen otherwise.

Steve Robertson, chief executive of Openreach, said: "I'm delighted to announce that the LLU market in the UK has officially taken off. It is a tribute to a great deal of hard work and investment, by the whole Openreach team and by our LLU customers, that we have achieved this number."

He added that investment was set to continue. "We're going to spend around £1bn this year on improving the access network still further," Robertson said.

The biggest surge in LLU takeup was in December this year, with 200,000 new connections.

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