A few days ago cable company Telewest announced their plans to abandon their part in the roll-out of ADSL using BT's network, only shortly to be followed by Telecoms operator, Energis.

Energis stated that they will be scaling back their investment because of the delays they have been faced with from BT. Energis claimed that the amount of time it takes BT to allocate their exchanges makes it difficult for operators to draw up realistic business plans. They now intend to go forward with less exchanges than they had originally hoped and that more delays will be expected because it will take equipment up to four months to get installed and out to the public.

BT are being accused of doing very little to facilitate the roll-out and unbundling of their local loops, so that other operators could gain access to their telephone exchanges, even though it was made a legal requirement by the European Union's Council of Ministers on the 5 December. This was seen as an essential part of opening up telecoms markets across Europe so that universal cheap broadband internet services are gained across the UK.

By BT delaying such moves other operators have accused them of being able to could gain crucial competitive advantage as they have already installed their own ADSL, BT openworld in over 200 exchanges.