Telecommunications Adjudicator update for June 2024

An update on the principle areas of project activity being led by OTA2 in June 2024.

See the latest charts

At the end of June 2024, the number of unbundled lines stands at 5.89 million. There are 1.97million WLR lines and the number of telephone numbers using CPS is 0.75 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 is moving in the right direction. There are some challenges where historical build has not been undertaken with whereabouts notices being served, these are being worked out of the system, to provide a clean slate going forwards. CPs are being managed through their Openreach service managers and any stragglers are being approached.

Incident & Planned Works Management: Openreach are making significant changes to their operating models to ensure that the wider Industry are aware of the need to accommodate the PIA CPs during incidents and planned changes.  Openreach are running an internal programme called ‘Responsible Landlord’ which sets out how the Openreach teams across the business manage PIA CPs.

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 remains steady.

The order profile has changed marginally over the past month with a slight rise in the volume of EAD orders, but the overall picture remains fairly constant. The workstack continues to remain stable at around 20k.

Outlier orders: Work has started to review the challenges of orders which have significant delays attributable to both Openreach and CPs. The findings will be reported through the ESF.

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: Collaborative IWGs held for Space & Power and Ethernet & Optical. Next stage is the sharing of inventory for CPs to assess the impact of removing nodes from the network on their network topology and resilience.

Copper and Fibre

Industry engagement to review FTTP metrics is continuing and will run through to late summer. 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, is under review by industry who expect to feedback to Openreach this month.

Good progress has been made regarding reviewing the KCI2 Assure process and a trial of a new ‘hybrid’, which it is hoped will improve the number of single visit completions. Openreach are due to report back in detail regarding the initial trial phase in July and early autumn on any intent to adopt more widely.

Discussions have commenced on an SLG for FTTP cancellations following Openreach delay. This is being run under the 6-month WFTMR process, which puts an end date of mid-July on the negotiations, however limited progress has been made to date. OTA2 concerns have been raised regarding this.

CPs have also expressed concerns, both via the OTA2 Executive and CFPCG regarding the overall quality of Ready for Service data and accountability for subsequent provisioning delays. Industry has been asked to clarify their views on the issue that needs to be addressed, which will be picked up via the CFPCG.

All-IP Steering Group

Following the announcement by BT Group to reset of the date of the PSTN switch off to 31 January 2027, Openreach has aligned the withdrawal of its ‘Wholesale Line Rental’ (WLR) product to this date. This change from December 2025 provides an additional 13 months for Communications Providers (CPs) to safely migrate their vulnerable customers off the PSTN. Openreach are planning to establish a number of industry working groups to assist delivery to this area.

Ofcom wrote to some CPs at the end of 2023 regarding their responsibilities towards vulnerable customers with telecare alarms and made the statement that no telecare device must be left in a non-working state post migration. In view of this CPs had stopped provision orders where a telecare alarm is present and Openreach is returning any that slip through the order process. CPs and Openreach had developed a set of exemptions regarding which provision orders can proceed, which are now supported by Openreach. Ofcom have now written again to CPs to provide further clarification on their position. This is currently being reviewed by industry and Openreach to understand the impact, if any.

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 has now been announced by Openreach to commence end-July to run through to mid-October.

Openreach has now published its Phase 2 response to the Exchange Exit consultation and briefed industry on its approach to progressing discussions. Subsequently 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

OTS (One Touch Switching) is moving closer to launch, with a series of phased ‘ramp-up’ activities, beginning in July, all aimed at achieving the ‘go-live’ date of 12 September 2024.

This will deliver OTS for all residential customers wishing to switch their IAS (Internet Access Service – e.g. broadband) and/or their NBICS (Number Based Interpersonal Communications Service – e.g. Analogue and Digital voice to a fixed location) between retail service providers. OTA2 remain fully committed to working with TOTSCo (The One Touch Switching Company) and all Residential CPs to enable industry to meet the 12 September date, with confidence that all elements of the OTS process and system architecture are in place and ready. OTA2 co-chair a number of OTS forums, including the IPG (Industry Process Group) and the OF (Operational Forum), and a heavily involved in many others.

More details about TOTSCo, OTS documentation and how to register if you are not already signed up can be found here: TOTSCo

OTS impacts are not limited to Retail CPs and TOTSCo however, and OTA2 are equally active engaging wholesalers and access network providers in preparing for OTS go-live. This is especially critical for those wholesalers and access network providers currently operating the NoT+ (Notification of Transfer plus) switching process, which will be decommissioned as OTS launches fully. Coordination of the decommissioning approach and a number of trial windows, which will support CPs wishing to undertake end-to-end trials of their OTS processes in a post-NoT+/full OTS environment, has been led by OTA2, who will continue in that role until launch has been successfully completed.

OTA2 also run the series of OTS Porting sessions, which are aimed at agreeing and delivering complimentary improvements to the existing Number Porting process for those OTS switches that require a Number Port activity. Please see more below in ‘Number Porting’.

OTA2 maintain their co-chair role for the GPLB-SG (Gaining Provider Led Business – Steering Group) with its focus on providing business customers and their Retail CPs with a robust switching solution, offering improvements over existing switching options, that will support CPs in meeting the General Conditions (GCs) associated with switching of IAS and NBICS for their business customers. The Business Switching Process has already been published and can be found here:  Gaining Provider Led Business Switching public - FCS alongside further documents that include the proposed message set and API. This month should see the long-awaited publication of a Business Switching webinar, which will take CPs through the principles of the GPLB Switching Process along with a more detailed process overview.

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. Though the current ongoing focus on fraud and misuse of Numbers (e.g. using fake CLI presentations) and the SPAM calling of customers, are not directly associated with Number Porting, the forum continue to work on improvement that will assist in addressing similar issues that have a more direct link to porting. The forum also considers the security aspects of porting, which will complement the work being undertaken as part of the TSR (Telecoms Security Requirements) undertaking.

The role of Porting to support the UK moving to an All-IP voice architecture is also monitored, with the processes working well to facilitate the migration of millions of numbers from analogue to digital platforms.

OTS Porting development continues, with OTA2 running weekly sessions with industry, to enable all to agree timescales and define appropriate SLA (Service Level Agreements). These sessions also support the open discussion around identified exception scenarios, and the agreed Best Practices required to resolve them.

Service Levels

Copper and Fibre provision

Openreach FAD (First Available Appointment Date) performance nationally, over the 5-day period ending 3 July 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 steady trend for LLU and an upward trend for WLR, achieving a 4-week rolling average of 85.8% and 83.5% respectively, by week ending 28 June 2024.

*The figures quoted exclude BT downstream connections

Signed David Halliday