Broadband News

TalkTalk to unbundle 300 new exchanges

Monday, 19 April 2010

By Garnet Roach garnet@consumerchoices.co.uk

TalkTalk Broadband (www.TalkTalk.co.uk) will extend its local loop unbundled (LLU) network by a further 300 exchanges over the next year, bringing its coverage to around 90% of the UK.

The cheap broadband provider already has one of the biggest LLU networks, reaching some 80% of the country.

“We’ve currently unbundled just over 1,700 phone exchanges around the UK,” said TalkTalk, “meaning that our customers near these exchanges are on our own network rather than on BT’s legacy infrastructure.

“This gives us coverage for about 80% of the UK population but our aim is to increase this over the next year. We’re planning to unbundle a further 300 exchanges, taken us to over 2,000 in total, and pushing us to coverage of nearly 90% of the population.”

The ISP also announced that it would be increasing its network capacity in order to cope with an estimated 50% increase in internet data traffic over the next few years.

“This upward trend is being boosted by the rise of online TV and video services like BBC iPlayer, ITV Player and, of course, YouTube,” said TalkTalk. “Soon these will be joined by Canvas, the online TV service we are a part of, which will provide an iPlayer-style catch-up service on your TV set, while also giving you additional content and features.”

TalkTalk currently offers a top speed of up to 24Mb broadband on both its £6.99 Essentials package and its high end Pro package, which costs £14.99 a month.

Michael Phillips, Broadbandchoices.co.uk product director, said: “LLU allows providers like TalkTalk to offer cheap broadband, and you can get an up to 24Mb package, bundled with evening and weekend landline calls and line rental for just £18.48 a month.

“But because an exchange needs to be unbundled - where an ISP installs its own equipment in the BT Broadband (www.BT.com) exchange - in order to offer these low prices, customers living outside LLU areas can’t access the best deals. TalkTalk’s next round of unbundling will allow many more customers to save on their broadband bills.”

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