12th Jun 2015 06:51
LONDON (Alliance News) - UK telecoms regulator Ofcom Friday proposed controls on the wholesale prices BT Group PLC charges for its business lines, with the aim of reducing costs over a three-year period.
Ofcom believes the proposed price caps "should lead to significant real-terms price reductions for most customers" in this market, including businesses, schools, universities and libraries. Consumer mobile and broadband operators also would see savings which could be passed on to customers, Ofcom said.
The caps are linked to inflation based on the UK consumer price index and related to its older leased lines and to new lines based on the faster 'Ethernet' standard for sending data at high speeds.
For BT's traditional interface services with bandwidths up to and including 8 megabits per second, Ofcom is proposing a cap of between CPI - 6.25% and CPI - 14.25%, with a central estimate of CPI - 12.25%. For BT's Ethernet services with bandwidths up to and including 1 gigabit per second, it is proposing a cap between CPI - 9.75% and CPI -17.75%, with a central estimate of CPI - 13.75%.
The Ethernet caps assume that BT would be required to provide access to its fibre-optic cables allowing competitors to take direct control of the connection, also known as ''dark fibre', as proposed by Ofcom last month.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; [email protected]; @HanaSSAllNews
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