Telecommunications Adjudicator update for May 2023

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

See the latest charts

At the end of May 2023, the number of unbundled lines stands at 7.20 million. There are 3.13 million WLR lines and the number of telephone numbers using CPS is 1.59 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. This area continues to throw up major concerns, most especially, regarding the use of Openreach poles and attachment to poles which have been tested and need replacement.

Operational performance remains good.

The OTA2 framework for incident management: Workshop with CPs organised for 15 June 2023 to get into the details of how a CP will respond to a trigger message from Openreach.

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 and performance: orders averaged over the year, we have seen a net demand of c1.1k/week. Completions are c1.13k/week which is slowly eating into the workstack.

Work is continuing to look at how we can improve the quality of orders which come into the planning area and further work is being undertaken to expose any potential to remove any illegitimate delay from the whole of the delivery process.

Copper and Fibre

Openreach has completed its detailed review of the FTTP post-Point of No Return cancellation charge and Abortive Visit Charge which had resulted from the CP request to amend the FTTP contract to align with its existing policy. This request was made in Q4 21/22. CPs expressed their concerns that after a 14-month review, Openreach notified and briefed its new policy prior to any substantive discussion with industry. Industry and Openreach are corresponding regarding observations and comments made by industry regarding the new policy.

Openreach has agreed with OTA2 to run industry engagement during Q1 2023/24 to review FTTP metrics.This activity has now commenced and will run through to late summer. The expectation is that the metric set will include some of the existing SLA/SLGs and also metrics currently shared by the service managers with CPs. 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.

Historically resellers needed to contact their wholesaler for updates on orders, resulting in increased contact for both wholesalers and Openreach. A bespoke portal was created for reseller customers enabling them to self-serve and provide an improved end customer experience. The portal is live with all development, documentation and training materials are now completed.

All-IP Steering Group

Openreach had previously communicated that it would be ceasing services within the Salisbury and Mildenhall trial areas in April 2023.Openreach are introducing 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.

The changes include:

• Gfast will not be in scope for FTTC speed degradation
• ISDN30 will not be in scope for Route to Credit Control
• Remote call forwarding will not be removed as part of Route to Credit Control
• When requested and agreed, Openreach aim to remove FTTC speed degradation and Route to Credit Control within 24 hours (except on weekends)

These measures are being 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.

Openreach has identified that since sharing the initial list of customers for Batch 2 with CPs, Openreach has seen a reduction of 30% of customers within scope, due to migrations, inflight orders and exemptions.

Stop-Sell Tranche 8 was implemented on 09 May 2023.

Openreach has fed back to industry on the process and systems implications of the SoR to support the migration of analogue lines to All-IP, where a telecare alarm is located at the customer premises. Following this feedback Openreach and its CPs have agreed to progress the development. The software/process developments to support this are targeted at end 2023. Further dialogue with the Telecare industry and other non-engaged CPs will now commence during June.

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.

The revised Ofcom General Conditions (GCs) came into effect on 3 April 2023 – it should be noted that the new GCs are not restricted to switching (OTS or GPL) and include other requirements that communications providers need to be compliant to.

Residential Switching

TOTSCo (The One Touch Switching Company) has been created to specify, deliver, and run the OTS Hub. To receive both the latest news on the technical and commercial updates for the TOTSCo Hub, please register on the TOTSCo website www.totsco.org.uk (registration is free). The latest versions of Message Specifications, API and Process documents have been published and are available from the TOTSCo site.

Business Switching

Business switching is being led by members of the Gaining Provider Lead Business Steering Group GPLB-SG).  A website is now available for all at: www.fcs.org.uk/gaining-provider-led-business-switching/ which contains the library of documents created and published by the GPLB-SG, with more being added on a regular basis.

Both OTS and GPLB process have also been assessed when associated to a Number Port activity, when the end customer is switching their NBICS service (fixed voice), which has identified a number of interactions with the Porting process that require review and possible modification to optimise the switching journey – please see ‘Porting Improvements’ for more details.

Porting improvements

The NPPCG have initiated and investigation into the introduction of a new facility in porting to replace or supplement ‘Cancel Other’, which is increasingly seen as incompatible with the revised General Conditions applicable to Switching customers through a Gaining Provider Led process.

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.

Supplier of Last Resort

OTA2 continue to work closely with industry in this area and are collaborating to produce a more detailed background and problem statement, which will highlight the more typical VoIP trading model and identify ‘points of failure’ in this set-up, including ‘cloud’ based solutions.

Service Levels

Copper & Fibre Provision

Openreach FAD (First Available Appointment Date) performance nationally, over the 5-day period ending 4 June 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 steady trend for LLU and WLR, achieving a 4-week rolling average of 87.7% and 81.2% respectively, by week ending 26 May 2023.

Ethernet

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