BT agrees to provide rivals with a service

Oftel has imposed a service-level agreement on BT for the delivery of services to rival broadband companies who use their exchanges.

This imposes a schedule of fines on BT for delays in allowing other broadband companies to install their DSL equipment in BT's exchanges and connect customers in the local loop unbundling process (LLU).

The fines are £10 for each working day a loop is delayed, and £80 for each day they can't get into an exchange.

The announcement comes a couple of weeks after it was expected, but the delay will make little difference - only 160 customers have actually been connected thus far.

This is slightly up from last month's figure of 150 LLU customers but still below the peak figure of 169.

A BT spokeswoman said: "This is the last major contractual issue to be resolved and we can all get back to making LLU a success."

David Rivington, head of regulatory affairs at BT's rival Bulldog, didn't see it that way: "Not a chance. We feel like we're making progress in peeling through the BT onion, but we definitely want to make more."

The next big battle, he said, would be to allow his own engineers full access to Bulldog equipment located anywhere in a BT exchange.

BT is currently insisting that rival engineers are attended by a minder at all times.