11 December 2007
The latest Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) figures have been released by the Office of the Telecoms Adjudicator (OTA), Peter Black.
According to the OTA's monthly report, there are 3.55 million LLU lines currently in the UK - up almost 200,000 from the previous month.
LLU lines are connections which rival broadband providers and phone firms have unhooked from the main BT network on which to run their own services.
Despite the strong increase in line numbers for November, Mr Black said in his update that "several market forecasts" predict a "flattening" of unbundled line rises in the future.
He added: "The result of any reduction in demand for new LLU lines is likely to be an increase in churn as customers seek better deals.
"Therefore we continue to focus much of our activity on improvements to provision, repair and migration services."
BT Openreach, launched last year by the telecoms firm and responsible for overseeing the LLU process, was also praised by Mr Black as "improving" its performance.
However, the adjudicator pointed out that the BT division was still currently failing to match its agreed target performance levels.