EU says Ofcom fibre virtual unbundling only interim solution

The European Commission (EC) has today approved Ofcom’s proposals that BT’s competitors will get only Virtual Unbundled Local Access (VULA) of its fibre based, super-fast broadband lines, until the time when physical unbundling becomes technically and economically possible.

Unlike Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) which currently provides the rival ISPs with full access to BT’s copper lines and equipment in local exchanges, the fibre infrastructure under VULA will be largely and physically controlled by BT and the competing ISPs will have virtual access to the wholesale products with pricing also fixed by BT, under Ofcom’s proposals.

“In this specific instance, virtual unbundling seems the best option to safeguard competition and enable consumers to benefit from a wider range of services provided over next-generation fibre infrastructure,” said the EC.

However, this virtual unbundling should soon be followed by physical fibre unbundling to offer the long-term solution, according to Neelie Kroes, EU’s Commissioner for competition.

“Only fibre unbundling will give alternative operators full and direct control over the product they offer to end-users.” Ms. Kroes  added.

BT, which has already allowed its competitors to have virtual access over its next generation broadband infrastructure, said that its wholesale products under the present Virtual Unbundled Local Access meet the needs of the industry.

The £2.5bn fibre broadband rollout by BT will bring super-fast speeds to 66% of UK homes by 2015 while a quarter of the connections will get access to 100Mbps speeds over the fibre to the home (FTTH) network.