Britain's BT Group agreed to open up its network to rivals and announced several cuts in wholesale prices today in exchange for lighter regulation and to avert a possible break-up.
The former monopoly said it had offered the UK telecoms regulator Ofcom, which has been carrying out a review of the telecoms sector for over a year, a set of undertakings that guarantees equality of access to its local network.
Central to its proposals is a new business unit within the group to provide transparent and equal access to its nationwide local network, on which rivals also depend for their services.
"The undertakings . . . (will) help usher in a new era of clearly defined regulation. This will see regulation focused on key areas and rolled back elsewhere," Britain's dominant fixed-line telecoms company said.
Ofcom began the review in April, 2004, asking the industry five questions which included whether BT should be broken up into separate retail and wholesale arms.