WLR3 (wholesale line rental 3) has been introduced by BT Openreach to provide a level playing field for communication providers (CPs) with BT Retail, through a policy of equivalence of access. To utilise WLR 3, CPs must interface with the BT Openreach EMP. This means that CPs need to either develop their own gateway or partner with a systems integrator such as Union Street, who can provide a solution.
There are more CPs using the Union Street WLR3 Portal than any other solution in the marketplace. While the WLR3 Portal Solution is suitable for CPs with other billing platforms, when used in conjunction with the Union Street aBILLity billing platform it gives significant business benefits in terms of reduced data entry, faster order processing, extra validation and reduced errors.
For Union Street, Steve Cresswell, Technical Director, comments “We upgraded the first five customers to use the new features of release 1300 within in days of its release by Openreach, which I believe is way ahead of any competitor. We have a rolling programe to upgrade 25 customers a day which is a significant logistical challenge but part of our service commitment to our customer base. Release 1300 has some significant advantages such as the moving of numbers to between lines without losing service when a CP’s customer moves premises. We intend that Union Street customers will be ahead of the curve for WLR3 deployment and we have invested in considerable staff resources to ensure that they do.”