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Broadband universal service and TalkTalk LLU backlog

Broadband universal service an EU requirement?

A universal service obligation for broadband in the UK could be closer than we realised.  Speaking at the ISP & Broadband Forum in London on 24 April, Mike Conradi, a lawyer with Kemp Little LLP, directed the delegates’ attention towards the European Union’s Universal Service Directive issued in 2002 (2002/22/EC).  The Directive sets out what services should be available to all end-users.  One requirement is for “functional internet access taking into account prevailing technologies used by the majority of subscribers and technological feasibility.”

Up to now Ofcom  has interpreted that to mean that everybody should have access to at least dial-up internet.  But now that more than half the homes in the country have broadband, and only 10% or so rely on dial-up, it seems a bit backward to say that dial-up satisfies the condition of being “the prevailing technology used by the majority of subscribers”.  How long before some of the “not-spot” campaigners start beating a path to Brussels to get what they want? 

TalkTalk still has a 260,000 LLU backlog

Charles Dunstone, Chief Executive of Carphone Warehouse, has told the Financial Times that there was a “high-level of failure” by BT Openreach in migrating his broadband customers to local-loop unbundling last autumn (24th April). As a result many of Carphone’s customers found that neither their phone or their broadband was working.  “Catastrophic” was Dunstone’s word for it.

Partly as a result, Carphone Warehouse is left with a backlog of 260,000 loss-making TalkTalk customers still being supplied by reselling BT’s wholesale DSL offering.  It will take at least until October and perhaps until the end of the year to transfer them all to Carphone’s own LLU network. 

Ben Verwaayen defended BT’s performance although he did admit that Openreach had experienced problems last September.  Both parties seem to agree that things have improved since then.  Dunstone says it has made “enormous strides” since December and Verwaayen said “we are doing terrific”, according to the FT.

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