Oftel turns up leased line heat on BT

NEWS Oftel has imposed a 10-day deadline on BT to change the terms and conditions of its leased line services for operators in order to drive down prices for business customers. Responding to pressure from operators, Oftel said it has introduced the deadline to increase the uptake of partial private circuits (PPC) through which operators gain access to leased line services. This, Oftel hopes, will increase competition between operators. The telecoms regulator has also insisted BT improve its level of connection with operators within nine weeks. One of the benefits for operators will be a more efficient handover of traffic between networks. Telecoms operators use PPC to connect to BT's network to provide the leased lines. Oftel claims the new demands on BT will remove some of the restrictions to providing more leased lines to business users. The two moves make up phase one of Oftel's plan to reduce the cost of leased lines. In phase two, the regulator will access BT's costing of the services and service level agreements. This phase, Oftel admits will be more complicated than the one introduced today.