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Leader: UK broadband - alive and kicking
Well, Wanadoo is kicking BT, which - while battling Ofcom - is kicking the cable companies, who are...

By silicon.com

Published: Tuesday 27 April 2004

Local loop unbundling. LLU. Say it any way you want but we haven't heard it talked about in a while.

Today Wanadoo - as in Wanadoo UK, an arm of France Telecom's ISP business - launched a fairly broad broadband broadside against BT and the state of high-speed, always-on access in this country.

That ISP has not only changed its name from Freeserve but lamented the failure that has been LLU in the UK. While still relying on BT's wholesale offerings, it has pre-announced a range of services on their way this year, including voice-over-IP telephone calls and video-on-demand.

From now on, it will also sell an ADSL product as a loss leader. How 1999 does that sound?

In many ways, Wanadoo's timing couldn't have been better - or worse. This morning we wrote that BT is scrapping trigger levels at certain exchanges. It will provide 'near-universal' broadband access by the middle of next year because it's the right thing to do, it said.

Where does this leave all those rural campaigners - at a loss? Cracking open the bubbly, cheering "victory!"?  We're not sure but first thing this morning it was assumed that the announcement was timed to douse talk that new super-regulator Ofcom is finally looking at breaking up the telco.

It was also a response, in a way, to Telewest and NTL announcing more broadband per monthly subscription (for example, a 1Mbps Telewest connection is going up to 1.5Mbps).

No doubt Wanadoo's move isn't only about BT. Taking on a certain ISP 'from the continent' - namely Tiscali, with its lower-speed but highly popular 150Kbps service - is part of the play.

Just how much each of these providers has reacted to each other rather than having had their assaults planned for weeks or months we can't say. But as a busy Tuesday draws to a close, it's good to see competition and jostling for position step up a gear in the UK broadband market.