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Last month, BT Openreach announced that LLU had passed the one million milestone. That momentum looks set to be mirrored elsewhere as the number of unbundled local loops in Western Europe grows massively from 10.9 million in June this year to 28.6 million by the end of 2010.

This growth will be largely as a result of alternative operators moving towards infrastructure-based

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strategies to safeguard and increase profit margins, according to Analysys' report entitled 'The Competitive Dynamics of DSL in Western Europe: prospects for local loop unbundling and bitstream.'

This strategy shift will account for a 437 per cent increase on 2005's unbundling figures, equating to some 24.2 million fully unbundled local loops in service within the next three years.

'Local loop unbundling (LLUB) is one of the big successes of 2006, across Western Europe,' said Martin Scott, an Analysys research analyst and the report's co-author.

'However, LLUB could potentially become a victim of its own success. Exchanges are becoming overcrowded and, as incumbents begin to fight back with more competitive wholesale offers and cabinet-based DSL, as in the Netherlands, the balance of power may shift back to incumbents.

'The true landmark figure in the UK is not 1 million unbundled lines but 1.5 million - that's when BT will restart the battle for the local loop,' he added.