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The price for all LLU operators migrating users in bulk from 1 July will be reduced by 42 per cent for a period of 12 months. It means the UK is now ranked third in Europe on price comparison for shared LLU.

'We are fully committed to seeing LLU a success, said Paul Reynolds, CEO of BT Wholesale. 'Industry interest has grown significantly since BT delivered price reductions of up to 70 per cent on shared LLU in 2004, and we are confident that the special offer announced today will further boost demand.'

This offer follows an Ofcom ruling

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that the 70 per cent cut BT announced last September was not sufficient.

LLU enables other telecoms operators to take Internet (and phone) services on to their own networks. It has already had a significant impact on the UK broadband market, spawning the first 4Mbps and then 8Mbps services and the first sub-£10 512K connections.

Cable & Wireless, owner if the leading unbundler Bulldog, has announced plans to double the number of its LLU installations to embrace 800 exchanges by early 2007. And Tiscali has started to migrate London customers onto the first 27 exchanges in its LLU platform. The ISP hopes to have unbundled 200 plus exchanges by the end of 2005 and 600 by 2007.

ADSL Guide estimates that there are now around 60,000 LLU lines across the UK, double the figure in February, with an additional 3,500 being ordered each week. One of the advantages of the process is that it lets service providers add services to the basic Internet connection. Bulldog's @ctive product, which includes telephone, is one example and the ISP is about to launch a new service for the SOHO market that will include eight VoIP lines.