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07|10|05

Wholesale Line Rental to support greater competition in voice and line market

Ofcom today proposed to approve the Wholesale Line Rental (WLR) product which allows consumers to choose from a range of competing telephone providers for both their voice calls and line rental.

Greater competition in the calls and line rental market will expand consumer choice. Over time, more providers will be able to offer a combination of services, all paid via a single bill, which will increase value for money for consumers.

The WLR product (currently offered by BT Wholesale) will be offered to providers by the new BT Group plc business unit, Openreach, from January 2006.

The proposed WLR product will also enable Ofcom to deregulate certain current retail price controls on BT Group plc.

Fit for purpose

Ofcom has assessed the proposed WLR product to ensure it is sufficiently robust to enable providers to meet the needs of their customers and to compete effectively.

That assessment has concluded that the WLR product meets the large majority of requirements first agreed with providers in 2003. However, Ofcom also requires BT Group plc to resolve a small number of outstanding issues by April 2006. BT has committed to address these issues in the course of system upgrades in December 2005 and April 2006.

Final approval by Ofcom is subject to consultation. The deadline for consultation responses is 8 November 2005. The full document is published on Ofcom website at: www.ofcom.org.uk

Ends.

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