§ The Earl of Northeskasked Her Majesty's Government:
Further to the Written Answer by Lord Sainsbury of Turville on 16 February (WA 67–68), what are the "significant errors" contained in the European
133WACompetitive Telecommunications Association (ECTA) report; and in what ways does the report fail to "give an accurate picture of the roll out of ADSL or progress with local loop unbundling". [HL1020]
§ Lord Sainsbury of TurvilleThe European Competitive Telecommunications (ECTA) report considers progress on local loop unbundling in the European Union. It includes a scorecard which shows figures relating to local loop unbundling and provision of ADSL as at 15 January 2001. For the UK the number of exchanges where the "incumbent" is offering DSI, is given as 54 when the figure for BT should be 619, and the number of "incumbent" DSL lines is given as 15,000 whereas BT had installed 30,000 ADSL lines. At 15 January nearly 700 local exchanges were included in the bow wave process for handling orders for local loop unbundling although loops had been unbundled at only two exchanges. These errors are indicative of the inaccurate basis on which the report draws its conclusions on the progress of local loop unbundling. I am pleased to say that BT is now able to accept orders for colocation of other operators' equipment at any of its exchanges.