Government stands by LLU plans

South Africa’s Department of Communications (DoC) has hit back at critics who claim it has reinforced Telkom’s dominance of the local loop. A report released last week by the DoC was slammed for setting November 2011 as the deadline for local loop unbundling (LLU) and a number of media reports criticised the government for giving Telkom another four years to open up its local networks to rival operators. The DoC has now said, however, that many commentators had misrepresented its statement; it actually plans to begin the unbundling process as early as January 2008, with the deadline for completion set as late 2011, at which point 80% of the network will have been opened up. Local website Moneyweb quotes Minister of Communications Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri, who says that LLU should be ‘urgently implemented’ in South Africa in order to drive down end-user prices.