Telecommunications Adjudicator update for August 2024

At the end of August 2024, the number of unbundled lines stands at 5.64 million. There are 1.85million WLR lines and the number of telephone numbers using CPS is 0.70 million.  *

The following is an update on the principal areas of project activity being led by OTA2.

Passive Infrastructure Access

Operational performance remains good.

Whereabouts compliance: Compliance continues to be monitored and is moving in the right direction. The measure set has been re-evaluated and the smaller values reset to capture small, short duration activities.

Incident & Planned Works Management: Updates provided at the PCG detailing the changes Openreach have made and outlining an escalation process.

Areas of interest:

• Health & Safety and good working practices
• NA Evidence and quality documentation for CPs to able to instruct their field resources.
• Connecting Customers
• Whereabouts compliance

Ethernet

Performance is good.

The order profile remains constant with demand, cancelations, suspensions, and completions following the expected seasonal trend for August (Holiday dip). The workstack remains stable at around 20k. Planning performance for KCI2 is inching closer to the target of 70% - July 69% by day 14.

Outlier orders: A slight delay in getting more detail for the outliers due to holiday leave, this will pick up in September and be reported back to the ESF.

Exchange Access Problems: There has been a significant issue for some time with CPs getting access to Keys and the IDesk system for BASOL which is the card access system used by BT Security to control access to Exchange buildings. If CPs have any inflight orders for keys which were raised between October 23 and May 24 which were submitted on an unencrypted order form they need to check with their sales and service team to see if the order has been cancelled.

The arrangements for emergency access for CPs and for the reporting of problems with Access Systems is now under review and the processes are being checked.

Areas of interest:

EAD2: Ongoing workstream developing the product proposals. The next major element to deliver is the anticipated pricing for the product.

Exchange Exit: Openreach are building inventories for the affected 105 exchanges and planning for deep dive reviews on Baynard and Staines exchanges as a collaborative exercise to aid CP Planning.

Copper and Fibre

Industry engagement to review FTTP metrics is continuing and will now run through to early Autumn. The aim is to define a set of Key Performance Indicators which are appropriately supported, relevant and recognised by Openreach and Industry and which will effectively track the end customer experience. A draft set of measures, developed collaboratively between Openreach and Industry has been reviewed by industry who have fed back to Openreach.  The next industry working group is scheduled for September.

Discussions have ended on an SLG for FTTP cancellations without agreement. OTA2 has submitted its report for Ofcom to consider.

All-IP Steering Group

The Prove Telecare development which was rescoped to allow for a full reversion of the line, remains on track for release and trial late autumn. An initial low volume trial of the capability is running through to mid-October to test the systems capability, with later testing of the full reversion capability

Following the publication of the Phase 2 response to the Exchange Exit consultation Openreach has taken onboard CP feedback regarding the scale of collaboration activity envisaged and has scaled back the number of industry working groups but also adopted the approach of working through the detail of a couple of exchanges to flush out the issues, challenges and learnings for industry and Openreach.

Customer Switching

The ‘ramp-up’ of CPs onto the TOTSCo Hub and their use of OTS (One Touch Switching) continues to grow, with increased volumes of orders flowing through the OTS process. OTA2 continue to work closely with CPs, Network Operators, Wholesalers and Ofcom to assist all parties in their preparations for ‘go live’. A Best Practice Guide for switching where Telecare devices are known, or suspected, to be present is to be published shortly after peer review and input from many parts of industry. Ofcom have sent a letter to Industry regarding the postponement of the NOT+ process retirement, proposing that it will run in parallel with the OTS process post 12 September 2024 for 6 weeks. Full details are contained in the letter distributed to CPs.

OTA2 continue in their role of co-chair for the GPLB-SG (Gaining Provider Led Business  - Steering Group)  with good progress establishing the technical solution for the published  Business Switching Process which can be found here:  Gaining Provider Led Business Switching public - FCS alongside further documents that include the proposed message set and API.

Number Porting

OTA2 chair both of the Number Porting forums (NPESG – Number Porting Executive Steering Group and NPPCG – Number Porting Process & Commercial Group), which are run on alternating months, focusing on the Strategic (NPESG) or more ‘day-to-day’ (NPPCG) challenges of our industry. While dealing with specific issues related to the Number Port process these groups also respond to additional challenges such as the changes to switching processes, Telecare services, Fraud prevention/CLI authentication, Telecoms Security and more.

Service Levels

Copper and Fibre provision

Openreach FAD (First Available Appointment Date) performance nationally, over the 5-day period ending 01 September 2024 was as follows:

Notes:

1. MI and SI are Managed-Install and Self-Install orders
2. FTTC is Fibre to the cabinet
3. FTTP is Fibre to the premises
4. SOGEA is Single Order Generic Ethernet Access
5. GFAST is Fibre-base Ultrafast Broadband

Copper repair

LLU and WLR ‘on time repair’ performance has seen a slight upward trend for LLU and WLR, achieving a 4-week rolling average of 86.5% and 84.3% respectively, by week ending 28 August 2024.

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*The figures quoted exclude BT downstream connections