Local-loop unbundling

Unbundling referred to - especially in the telecommunications and IT industry - the separate supply of individual services that were previously only available bundled with other:

• Due to the unbundling of the local loop (ULL ) from a landline connection of the incumbent receive competing landline providers without their own last mile the possibility of direct access to customers by allowing them to rent the local loop at regulated rates by the incumbent operator.

• The unbundling of the DSL line from the fixed network connection both by pure broadband offers for consumers as well as by inputs from the incumbent fixed network operator for competing Internet service provider ( line sharing, local loop unbundling, bitstream access ) is required for the supply of complete connection packets by competitors without their own local exchanges and for the provision of IP-based telephony control Next generation Network and triple-play connections.

• Unbundling of hardware and software
• Unbundling of operating system and application

Commonly, a distinction in the telecommunications market regulation:

Unbundling of the local loop

(English Local Loop Unbundling ( LLU or ULL ), also unbundled access)

This is the default for fixed -line provider with significant market power in the local loop (ULL ), the power input decoupled ( unbundled ) to make your own connection services. The competitors ( alternative fixed-line provider) without its own line to the participants should thus have the opportunity to also own line-based services (telephone, broadband, IPTV, Video on Demand, etc ) offer. The subscriber line is connected directly to the network of alternative network operator by means of collocation in the local exchange.

In Germany, the unbundling in § 84 of the Telecommunications Act (TKG ) is fixed. For connections of Deutsche Telekom, this form of unbundling is prescribed by the regulator by the telecommunications regulator in 1998 and upheld by a judgment of the Federal Administrative Court in April 2001. Despite available for ten years VALLEY unbundling 2008, about 40 % of German households are developed not for the valley rent by alternative providers, as this business model is not profitable in rural and small urban areas due to the high fixed costs of collocation for competitors.

In Switzerland, the access of competitors by means of collocation is offered at the main distribution since 1 April 2007 by Swisscom, as provided for by the end of 2006, revised Swiss Federal Telecommunications Act. In Switzerland, several providers offer the end user to an ADSL or VDSL connection without telephony based on the Swisscom network.

Line sharing

When line-sharing is the variation of the frequency unbundling of the local loop with only the for the provision of ADSL lines used higher frequency spectrum of the local loop is unbundled and used by alternative providers, while the classic telephone service continues by incumbent network operators over the low frequencies TAL is provided. By the splitter at the main distribution site, the frequency spectrum is thereby divided and the higher frequencies are fed directly to the DSLAM of the Data - CLEC, while the lower frequencies are processed by the switching technology of the incumbent. From the provider perspective, the same investment for a realized through line sharing DSL broadband access are necessary as in the fully unbundled local loop.

This intermediate is in Germany in line with the market regulated form since mid 2005.

Unbundling of broadband Internet access from the classical telephone connection

This is the default, to the incumbent network operator to enable its competitors to provide DSL broadband access without the consumer must simultaneously maintain a conventional telephone line ( unbundled DSL).

This requirement was implemented in Germany for many years only on the unbundled subscriber line, but not at the level of the wholesale broadband access as it is defined in the regulatory framework of the European Union and although a regulatory order of the Federal Network Agency has been given already in September 2006 to bitstream access, their implementation by the German Telekom but only with a considerable delay took place in summer 2008. T- DSL resale as sets of Deutsche Telekom offered bitstream access a light maintained by the participants conventional telephone connection to the telecom ahead.

In Switzerland, the amended Telecommunications Act provides since April 2007, both bitstream access and the marketing of the telephone connection of Swisscom on wholesale basis (resale, in addition to previously only existing DSL resale ) before. However, Swisscom is this commitment has not been claimed and marketed since November 2007 instead merely their own, available for customers since the end of August 2007 Naked DSL also through resellers.

Bitstream access is required or demand, especially from those of competitors, the widespread VoIP -based phone services and triple play coupled with a broadband Internet want to offer. This is not economical to realize about the unbundling of the local loop, because the valley rent due to the high fixed costs collocation is not worthwhile in sparsely populated areas with a low power density of the ULL network.

DSL offers of telecom competitors with a bundled phone line from Deutsche Telekom based on the offered by Telekom as bitstream spare T- DSL resale were almost unsaleable in the last days before the introduction of stand-alone IP bitstream access, so that in the undeveloped per DSLAM collocated port areas, the dominant position of telecom in the broadband area significantly increased, which was designated by the Chief of the Federal network Agency in January 2008 as unproblematic.

IT Industry

In 1969, the U.S. government was based on the Sherman Antitrust Act case against IBM, to force an unbundling of hardware and software. Up to that time it was common for hardware manufacturers the software without additional payment ( and usually source code ) passed on to their customers. Herein saw the ISV a distortion of competition.

During the so-called browser wars Microsoft befell comparable. Microsoft were forced to separate Internet Explorer from its Windows operating system or to implement a less strong bond, so that competing products (eg Mozilla Firefox) had a chance in the market.