BT Announce they are not investing money they were probably never investing anyway

Sponge Bob

Bt told silicon republic that

reduced its capital expenditure on local loop unbundling (LLU) over the past year, investing in only six exchanges instead of 13

which 6 exchanges one wonders, they had a 40 exchange project in 2001 which was largely completed 2002, finally completed in 2004 (Portlaoise) and has not been expanded from 40 to 46 (or 53) that I know of.

The good news is that now they are not spending the money on LLU they will have a whole pile of ca$h to spend on a new billing system and on integrating Billing and CS and on training the little dears properly in preparation for LLU ...but they did not tell SR that you heard it here first from hot from Sponge Central

The LLU negotiations are not happening either . Dead in the water.

eircomtribunal

Sponge Bob wrote:

The LLU negotiations are not happening either . Dead in the water.

See (good) article on ENN

BT Ireland's annual turnover grew 26 percent to EUR470 million compared to EUR372 million in 2005, but concern formerly expressed regarding Eircom's incremental local loop unbundling (LLU), the Irish regulatory regime, and "aimless" talks, has now turned to exasperation.

"The two words I've become used to hearing since I've come here [to Ireland] is 'eventually' and 'patience'," said BT Ireland's chief executive Danny McLaughlin. When asked how annoyed was he about the LLU impasse, he told ENN "I am about as annoyed as I look."

"There's never a dull minute here though and there's lots going on in the background," McLaughlin added. According to BT what's going on in the background is "talks about talks". Last month BT Ireland withdrew from LLU negotiations with the Government and industry because it claimed Eircom's stance would "jeopardise industry investment and impact on Ireland's competitiveness."

In comments reminiscent of the run up to the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland, BT Ireland's chief operations officer Mike Maloney told ENN: "We can't even get the talks about restarting the negotiations sorted because we want to set out an agenda of what needs to be looked in big picture terms, while they're trying to sort out each little aspect piecemeal."

He added that other Irish broadband operators Magnet and Smart Telecom were "fully supportive" of BT's attitude.

P.

damien

The bit in their announcement yesterday that caught my eye was:

BT currently claims 35,000 Irish broadband customers compared to 31,000 last year

4000 new customers on broadband since last year? That's rather miniscule.

zuma

If BT have 35,000 from a total of ~250,000 how much have eircom/UTV/digiweb...etc got?