Ofcom to cut Wholesale Line Rental
(WLR) charges
Ofcom today published proposals to cut Wholesale Line Rental (WLR)
prices.
WLR enables telephone companies to rent lines from BT Wholesale
and resell these to their customers. This means consumers and businesses
can choose from a range of competing telephone companies offering
a single bill for both voice calls and line rental.
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.
Following detailed cost analysis Ofcom is proposing to reduce the
annual rental charges that telephone companies pay for WLR. This
means that maximum monthly rental charges would change as follows:
| |
Line rental price (prior to 1 August 2005) |
Proposed line rental charge ceiling |
Price Reduction |
Percentage Reduction |
| Residential WLR |
£9.24 / month |
£8.39 / month |
£0.85 |
9% |
| Business WLR |
£9.95 / month |
£9.17 / month |
£0.78 |
8% |
On 1 August 2005 BT Wholesale reduced the residential WLR charge
from £9.24 / month to £8.74 / month.
Ofcom’s proposed changes aim to support the continued growth
of competition in this market. Ofcom believes that over time, more
choice of supplier and more services offered via a single bill will
increase value for money for consumers and businesses.
Ofcom decided to review the existing charge controls (set by Oftel
in August 2002), following the completion of its work to value BT's
copper access network and the cost of capital assessment. Both these
statements were published in August 2005.
The deadline for responses to the consultation is
12 December 2005. The full document is published at: www.ofcom.org.uk
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