BT in danger of breaking local loop deadline

European Union telecoms ministers have sanctioned a law that will force local loop unbundling by the end of this year - a deadline many national telcos, including BT, may not meet.

The representatives of all 15 member states agreed on a European Commission regulation which sets a 1 January 2001 deadline for unbundling. For some national telecoms regulators, including the UK's Oftel, the move advances national deadlines by six months. Patricia Hewitt welcomed the regulations and said in a prepared statement: "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." Oftel has set BT a deadline of July 2001 for all local exchanges to be open. The UK Department of Trade and Industry said the proposed EU law will merely require member states to have a regulatory framework in place for unbundling by January. "The unbundling itself does not have to be completed by January 2001," said a spokeswoman. However, Michael Ryan, the head of the telecoms practice at law firm Arnold and Porter, said the UK will find itself in breach of this regulation unless it has negotiated a special deal. "It's perfectly clear that the draft regulation requires customers to actually have access to the local loop by 31 December. It's not a question of putting a framework in place and then delivering at some unspecified point in the future. The future has arrived and it's 31 December. "We have an agreed timetable with BT and we're sticking to that timetable," responded an Oftel spokeswoman. "We don't believe we are in breach of the regulation." The French government has not yet passed a law that allows the unbundling to begin, and both Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom control more local networks than BT. The proposal still must be approved by the European Parliament, and Liikanen hopes the Parliament will vote on the matter by the end of the month.