[i.h]

I don't think that's true. LLU (local loop unbundling) means sending the user's line to a backhaul other than BT's at the exchange level. FTTC and FTTP lines still terminate at the exchange. I have FTTP with a Vodafone reseller, and my Openreach line connects to Vodafone's infrastructure at the exchange down the way.

EE, Plusnet and other BT Wholesale customers connect to the same infrastructure as BT (retail) customers.

The point of LLU was to allow ISPs to circumvent BT as far as possible, and that was by letting them rent copper lines (the local loop) to which they’d connect their own exchange equipment instead of BT’s. This was a significant cost saving and it freed them from being limited to the services BT wanted to offer, notably on speed where the LLU firms were a lot faster for a long time. Hence, “unbundled”.

With FTTC/FTTP Openreach returns to that role and it is very much bundled - it’s their DSLAM in the green cabinet or their FTTP OLT/ONT, and ISPs can only offer the speeds and features Openreach wishes to provide, the biggest gripe being the lack of symmetric gigabit service. I suppose the closest modern day version of “LLU” is PIA - where Openreach rents out its poles and ducts to other companies who run their own fibre and use their own equipment.

Can’t work out what you’re saying in the last line. BT Wholesale does not typically provide a full end to end internet service - they connect ISPs to their customers, eg the non BT-owned ISPs like Zen or Andrews and Arnold who maintain their own core networks even if they use BT Wholesale (and others) to handle the rest.

As further proof of it all, Plusnet still seems to have their own AS and their own IP addresses - bgp.he.net  - given the scarcity you’d expect BT to have them merged into their own pools if the network merger had taken place.