The proposed European regulation would require BT and equivalent operators in other countries to open up their local phone exchanges to competing operators by 1st January 2001, six months earlier than the time limit Oftel has imposed on BT.
Oftel is now asking the Commission to amend its regulation to provide that: “Operators shall offer to provide within a reasonable timescale unbundled access to third parties on reasonable request.”
Critics fear that Oftel’s proposed wording, which leaves open the interpretation of “a reasonable timescale”, would set back the opening of competition, and consequently the provision of competitive broadband internet access in the UK, by up to a year.
Oftel reportedly denied trying to delay the unbundling process.