Luxembourg, 05/04/2001 (Agence Europe) - Commissioner Erkki Liikanen, responsible for the information society, on Wednesday deplored the fact that "the unbundling of the local loop was going too slow and inadequately". He noted that only 7 Member States offered complete access to the last meters of telephone cables and none offered shared access, whereas the regulation on the unbundling of the local loop took effect on 1 January 2001. Mr. Liikanen wanted the Fifteen to put more pressure on national regulatory authorities to ensure they implemented the regulation. He did, however, reject the idea to attacking those lagging behind in law.
Scoreboard of private operators: one DSL line in 20 said to be open to them
A European "pro-competition" association bringing together telecommunications operators, ECTA, published a scoreboard on Wednesday on the unbundling of the local loop. It states that out of the 914000 DSL lines available in the EU, 857,000 are still in the hands of traditional operators, whereas 57,000 are accessible to other operators. By Member State, Denmark and Finland are the most advanced, whereas Austria, Belgium, Greece and Portugal are lagging behind. Phil Evans, ECTA Director, deplores the fact that "even where an unbundling process exists, private operators are often frustrated by high prices or the convoluted requirements of the incumbent."