Phil's corner

Earlier in the year OFCOM ruled that BT needed to remove some cost elements from some of Openreach's charges for sub loop unbundling. Openreach have now notified OFCOM of the revised charges, which result in one price decrease and one increase with effect from 01/12/11.

The saving arises in the Shared MPF sub-loop product, where the price to connect a shared sub-loop to a CP's LLU equipment will fall from £127.61 to £115. This is the cost of hooking up the broadband part of a subscribers service to a local LLU cabinet while leaving the voice part connected to BT's telephone exchange, covering both transfer of existing lines and provision of new ones.

The price increase is in the provision of a new local subloop for the fully unbundled MPF product which increases to £127.61 "so that it properly reflects the costs of provision and thereby aligning it with the price for SLU-MPF transfer (which remains unchanged)".

No changes to the annual rental for shared and fully unbundled paths are proposed, so they remain at £11.47 and £93.96 per annum ex VAT respectively.

I was under the impression that OFCOM identified cost elements in the fully unbundled loop pricing that related to the E side from exchange to cabinet and argued that these should not be included in the rental of a fully unbundled sub-loop, but this hasn't passed through as a reduction in rental or connection charge.

None of the changes will satisfy current or potential sub-loop unbundlers, they are still left looking at a competing Openreach FTTC product where the connection charges are £80 for all flavours of FTTC and FTTP ! How can a fully costed shared sub loop connection charge for LLU come out much higher than connecting the same sub loop to an Openreach DSLAM and providing that DSLAM port and backhaul ?

When it comes to disconnection, you can cease an Openreach FTTC circuit for £5.37 but ceasing a shared sub-loop costs £100.67 !

Labels: broadband, FTTC, LLU, Openreach, pricing, SLU, sub loop

# posted by PhilT @ 2:09 AM