Unbundling trundling on under BT 'speed restrictions'

NEWS Companies who currently want to offer DSL have two options. Option one is to resell BT's own wholesale DSL product, using BT's existing infrastructure from end to end, which is what Freeserve, AOL and other a number of other companies are doing. Alternatively, companies can get involved in the local loop unbundling - installing their own DSL equipment in or near BT's exchanges - as Energis, Global Crossing, Easynet and six other companies are hoping to do. Now, the latest flavour of DSL offers a mixture of the two. Rival telcos will be able to use BT's network for half the journey to the consumer's home, but their own networks for the rest. Rival operators with their own backbone networks will be able to take traffic off BT at two different points. In six weeks, they'll have to agree the rules for taking traffic off at part of the network, called an ATM switch, and in three months BT will have to agree terms for connecting rivals directly into its own DSL equipment in the local exchanges - the DSLAM. Energis and Thus will be the first two beneficiaries of the new rules. However, BT has been dragging its feet over the connection of wholesale DSL customers. While BT connects 1,000 customer per week for its OpenWorld service, it is connecting just 200 for each of its rivals. AOL, Freeserve and others have launched an official complaint with OFTEL over the unfair advantage BT is affording itself, which is still being investigated. The local loop unbundling process has also proved complicated, expensive and slow, with all but nine of the 20 or more companies who began the process pulling out - many citing BT's obstructive tactics as the main cause of their dissatisfaction. If BT continues to play an obstructing role, the new flavour of DSL is unlikely to speed up the painfully slow roll-out of DSL services.