required release of the stranglehold of the incumbents over the way in which services were supplied, and their high costs, based on using the local loop infrastructure as the jugular vein through which to squeeze the customer. The current state of the infrastructure In OECD countries, households have a growing number of Internet connected PCs and SO the local loop is increasingly based on some form of broadband connection. The fixed line infrastructure has been boosted by DSL for the local loop for voice, Internet access and television programming. In many OECD countries the cable TV operators or multi-service operators (MSOs) offer their own broadband coax or fibre connections for FTTH (fibre to the home) or FTTC (fibre to the curb with copper extensions). Thus, bandwidth is available in the local loop, at a price related to cost of deployment, and is adequate for most demands by domestic consumers for voice telephony and Internet access. Businesses are equally demanding of more bandwidth for their e-commerce and voice telephony needs. VoIP is beginning to take a small amount of voice traffic (usually under 5%) in certain OECD countries and most of all between them for international calls. 18 Local loop unbundling in the OECD has not only delivered on the promise of lower prices through competition in the retail market, but has resulted in new entrants providing increasingly higher speeds and bundled services including the provision of television programming on xDSL. Business communications demand varies by country. In general, fibre capacity for long distance has expanded enormously, so that there is now a bandwidth glut due to overspend by the incumbent operators also challenged by new small entrants to the long distance market who targeted the wholesale ISP INFRASTRUCTURE TO 2030: TELECOM, LAND TRANSPORT, WATER AND ELECTRICITY - ISBN 92-64-02398-4 © OECD 2006 2. TELECOMS INFRASTRUCTURE TO 2030 Figure 2.4. OECD broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants, by technology, June 2005 Cable Other OECD average Source: