EU leans on BT over local loop delays

BT could face court action if it fails to open its local networks to competitors on 1 January 2001, and has been told that it can no longer use technical limitations as an excuse.

European Union (EU) telecoms ministers meeting in Luxemburg yesterday agreed to pass regulations to open the local loop from January 2001. The regulation, which still needs to be approved by member states, will come into force on 1 January.

BT has previously said it would not be technically possible to fully open its local loops by January. But the EU said this week that telcos will not be able to delay unbundling for technical reasons, unless they can prove there is a problem.

EU spokesman Per Haugaard said: "National incumbents cannot hide behind this technically unfeasible issue, and all claims that [such] issues are preventing opening up local loops will be subject to scrutiny by the authorities."

He added that action could be taken if the deadline was not met. "The proposed regulations are very specific and powerful. What we propose will be directly applicable and new entrants can go to court if the incumbent fails to open up its local loops."

But Haugaard left the door open for BT saying that if a telco could prove that it was technically impossible to meet the deadline, it might be lenient. "This is an obligation unless a request is technically unfeasible and there are clear facts that render the request impossible," he said.

Telecoms regulator Oftel confirmed that if requests for access are not met, it is prepared to step in and investigate whether it is feasible or not. It said BT had accepted the framework for local loop unbundling and that entrants are able to place orders with the telco now.

The UK government has thrown its support behind Oftel and said it is confident that the UK will meet European deadlines for opening up local phone networks to competition.

According to E-minister Patricia Hewitt, the UK has been accelerating local loop unbundling and is on target to meet the proposed regulations agreed by European telecom ministers yesterday.

"I strongly welcome this regulation. Far from dragging its feet, the UK has been accelerating local loop unbundling. We will be fully compliant with the regulation and we fully support it," said Hewitt.

Oftel also said it is confident that the UK will meet the requirements of the regulation, despite admitting that not all local loops will be ready by the proposed deadline. The watchdog said that while the first local loops will be unbundled in January, they will not all be open until July.

Oftel has come under a barrage of criticism in recent weeks and has been accused of unfairly favouring BT. The watchdog has confirmed that it received a complaint from a group of telcos who believe there has been "discrimination" in BT's roll out of asymmetric digital subscriber line services.

But Hewitt said yesterday that the government "will continue to back Oftel in taking the tough decisions needed to deliver more competition, more choice and lower prices".