Local loop unbundling: A new dimension in telecom competition.

(From Business Line)

THE Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has to be commended for releasing a comprehensive set of recommendations on April 29 addressing various issues for accelerating the growth of broadband and high-speed Internet access in the country.

If the recommendations are accepted and implemented by the government, it is expected that broadband access will experience growth similar to that witnessed in mobile telephony. Of all the different areas in which improvement is sought, Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) is critical and, hence, is addressed here.

Internet Service Providers (ISPs), which introduced high-speed Internet connectivity solution referred to as Digital Subscriber Loop (DSL), did not make enough inroads, thanks to monopolistic bottleneck in the critical "local loop" of the incumbent Basic Service Operators (BSOs).

The lion's share of the local loop, which connects the customer premise to the BSOs switch through traditional copper wires is owned by MTNL and BSNL. Since local loops require huge sunk costs, network duplication is neither compatible with the …