Telecommunications Adjudicator update for February 2023

An update on the principle areas of project activity being led by OTA2 in February 2023.

See the latest charts

At the end of February 2023, the number of unbundled lines stands at 7.50 million. There are 3.36 million WLR lines and the number of telephone numbers using CPS is 1.73 million.  *

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

Passive Infrastructure Access

Health and Safety, and good working practice continues to require attention across industry.

Operational performance remains good.

The OTA2 framework for incident management: CP feedback has been consolidated into a revised document and additional detail added with some draft process descriptions. This first stage is now with Openreach to refine how they would facilitate operationally. Once this detail has been reviewed, we will present to the full PIAPCG.

Active workstreams currently running to improve the product and its usability for CPs are:

• NA Evidence and quality documentation for CPs to able to instruct their field resources.
• Connecting Customers
• Incident Management

Ethernet

Demand is slightly increased. Completions continue to run at between 12-13k per week. Openreach are targeting a reduction of the workstack down to c21k by the end of the financial year, the current workstack is 21.5k. Order fluidity has slipped slightly to less than 50%, this is an area which requires some joint focus with both Openreach and CPs.

The Openreach SIP to look at task closure delays and how these can be managed and closed as quickly as possible is ongoing.

Copper and Fibre

When FTTP was launched, Openreach chose to adopt a defined tier approach to installation options rather than offer time related charges. However, CP consumption of the Premium option has not materialised. This has the potential to create issues during installation where the work required exceeds that ordered. Openreach and industry agree on the need to find a workable solution and have initiated discussions to address this. This work is continuing, and a further collaborative session is planned for March

Openreach has briefed industry in January regarding the DCMS Designated Vendor Direction against specific vendors that providers of UK public networks must comply with and requested compliance statements. Openreach have reminded CPs that access to exchanges may be limited should replies not be received or prove inadequate.

Industry had requested clarification from Openreach regarding automatic compensation payments from 01 April 2023. Openreach has responded that it does not intend to increase Automatic Compensation payments for the next financial year. SLG payments will track the increase in line rentals.

All-IP Steering Group

Openreach had communicated that it would be ceasing services within the Salisbury and Mildenhall trial areas in April 2023 and to support this had served contractual notices for the affected products (but also provided an exemption process). However, in scope customers remaining on WLR are higher than Openreach expected and that learning from the trials has been less than anticipated. In view of this Openreach are planning to introduce service measures to prompt end customers to contact their CP. These are applying speed reductions to FTTC and applying outgoing call redirection to credit control numbers. These measures will be applied in batches through April to end-July. Cessation of services will now be no earlier than 09 October 2023, with at least 4-weeks’ notice provided. Industry expressed some concerns regarding the potential for end customers to become confused if they receive different messages from different sources. To address this, Openreach will not communicate with any customer of any engaged CPs during February but that the plan remains to contact all non-engaged customers end-March, although the message to these customers may change following further consultation with CPs.

Industry has now submitted its SoR to support the migration of analogue lines to All-IP, where a telecare alarm is located at the customer premises. The draft process has also been discussed with a representative group of Alarm Receiving Centre's, who provided valuable feedback on how the process could be improved such that it had less impact on the Telecare industry. This feedback has been incorporated. Further dialogue with the Telecare industry and other non-engaged CPs will commence end March, early April when Openreach have worked through the next level of process detail.

Consumer Switching & Number Porting

The ‘One Touch Switch’ Process (OTS) for Residential Customers and Gaining Provider Lead (GPL) for Business Customers

OTA2 continue to be engaged with industry for both OTS and GPL Business Switching Process Design initiatives.

Residential Switching

TOTSCo (The One Touch Switching Company) has been created to specify, deliver and run the OTS Hub, which provides the messaging capability between gaining and losing retail CPs, as described in the OTS process. To receive both the latest news on the technical and commercial updates for the TOTSCo Hub, please consider registering on the TOTSCo website www.totsco.org.uk - which will provide access to documentation, including the OTS Process, API developer guides and Hub technical specification, and meeting schedules (registration is free).

Business Switching

Business switching is being led by members of the Gaining Provider Lead Business Steering Group (known as the GPLB-SG), consisting of a cross-section of the Business service provider community, who have volunteered their time and expertise to this enterprise.  The GPLB-SG is co-chaired by OTA2 and FCS and has produced an agreed set of guiding principles, a process design that is at an advanced stage and has engaged directly with Ofcom to outline both the principles and challenges facing the successful delivery of business switching processes.

Porting improvements

Input from across the Number Porting community, has identified the need for investigations into a broad spectrum of Porting issues, mostly stemming from areas of friction in the existing Best Practice processes, which reflects on both the documentation’s age and its focus on analogue voice services, when it is recognised that an All-IP voice service is rapidly becoming the mainstream solution and will, in all probability be universal in the UK before the end of 2025.

The coincidence of this and the anticipated requirements to support new switching processes present both a challenge and opportunity to the Number Porting community

Related to the move to All-IP, CPs should be aware of the upcoming ‘stop sell’ and withdrawal of Openreach WLR service (analogue PSTN). More information about WLR withdrawal can be found at the Openreach portal:WLR Withdrawal (openreach.co.uk) and if CPs wish to reach out for assistance then they should email wlr.consultation.feedback@openreach.co.uk.

The Plan of Works for 2022 will be reviewed in the first quarter of 2023 and a decision made on which items can be closed and if new items should be added.

Supplier of Last Resort

The need for an industry agreed ‘Supplier of Last Resort’ (SOLR) process proposal to address the scenario of a VoIP provider getting into ‘distress’ and provide a solution that would mitigate impacts on end customer service (directly or indirectly), has already been proposed and will be a key deliverable in 2023.

Service Levels

Copper & Fibre Provision

Openreach FAD (First Available Appointment Date) performance nationally, over the 5-day period ending 6 March 2023 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 upward trend for LLU and WLR, achieving a 4-week rolling average of 90.2% and 87.7% respectively, by week ending 27January 2023.

Ethernet

Due to the performance data not being available this month, the Ethernet KPI charts have not been updated.

*The figures quoted exclude BT downstream connections

Signed David Halliday