World Online joins DSL exodus

World Online has joined the ever-growing list of companies which have scrapped their DSL plans, blaming BT's "unreasonable behaviour" for making the trials economically unviable.

World Online had been given space in a BT exchange in Edinburgh, along with Cable and Wireless, NTL, and Thus. NTL dropped out of the trial last November. World Online claims that since then, BT has forced the price of access up to the remaining trialists in an attempt to recoup the lost revenue. World Online is now intending to drop out of unbundling altogether and will focus on creating DSL services based on BT's wholesale offerings. Andy Frost, World Online UK's director of broadband, said in a statement: "The decision to pull out of the trial was a difficult one and followed much internal deliberation. The cost of co-location space in the BT exchange was always high. However, since other operators have exited it has potentially more than doubled." He added: "We appreciate that BT wants to recover the costs of building this space but in our view it is not acceptable or reasonable to look to those operators who entered into the trial process on the understanding that their costs were fixed and who remain committed after others have retrenched. There are many issues that still need resolving on LLU [local loop unbundling] before operators can sensibly invest in this venture with any degree of certainty about the cost or liabilities of that investment." Oftel declined to comment on the decision, saying it was a commercial issue between BT and the other telcos. Last week, Kingston Communications and Thus cancelled their plans for similar reasons. Earlier in the month, Redstone said it was tired of waiting for the long-protracted process of unbundling to happen, and announced plans to build its own exchanges next to BT's buildings.