“However for most of us the more important thing to understand is what a ‘next generation reseller’ and a ‘next generation business partner’ will look like.
To be perfectly frank I don’t think VoIP is the key issue as I still can’t see anybody with any sales volumes at present.
The carriers hate the idea of having to deal with 600-1,000 resellers and would find life much simpler if they only had to deal with the 25 largest resellers.
Access to the ‘next generation reseller’ will be limited by cost and products.
WLR3 is undoubtedly the ‘next generation line rental’. WLR3 has a whole host of features that are better than WLR2 and more importantly mean that for the first time a reseller can offer the same customer service as BT. However the cost of the systems is £50-100k and therefore we call it ‘equivalence for rich people’.
The ‘next generation networks’ are already here, with BT playing catch up. However, Local Loop Unbundling is only being offered to the 20 largest resellers, so very soon the larger players will have a much more attractive product set than the smaller resellers.
The ‘next generation networks’ are already here, with BT playing catch up. However, Local Loop Unbundling is only being offered to the 20 largest resellers, so very soon the larger players will have a much more attractive product set than the smaller resellers.”