BT escapes breakup in telecom review
John Walko writes in EE Times:
England's largest telecommunications group, BT, struck a deal with industry regulator Ofcom that prevents the carrier's breakup. The operator has agreed to tough undertakings that must ensure fair and equal access to its nationwide network for other service providers.
The settlement announced Thursday (June 23) by Ofcom and BT followed 18 months of tough negotiations and uncertainty for the industry and after years of bickering about BT's dominance of the U.K.'s telecom sector.
The exact terms of the accord will be published next week, but the key issues have been thrashed out. Among them is that BT would not be split into two groups, one division for wholesale, the other for retail, as some alternate operators had urged.
The deal is a huge relief for BT, as well as for the many companies that are involved in the operator's groundbreaking 21st Century network upgrade to an all IP based network. There were fears that this huge investment would have had to be seriously overhauled and maybe even scrapped if Ofcom's review had led to a split.
posted by Fergie @ 6/23/2005 07:43:00 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home