Openreach Industry Consultation – Exchange Exit Pilots

On 12 November 2021 Openreach published an industry consultation on the Exchange Exit Programme.

The Executive Summary reads as follows:

“As an industry we have embarked on a fundamental upgrade of the UK’s broadband infrastructure with billions being invested by Openreach and others to deploy Fibre to the Premises (FTTP), and large-scale migration of customers now underway. As that migration gathers pace the opportunity to consolidate and simply legacy infrastructure will come into sharper focus, and as an industry we need to be ready.

In December 2020 we began to discuss the long-term handover architecture of the Openreach network with Communications Providers. We highlighted the opportunity for Openreach to exit exchanges that will no longer be needed to support FTTP, FTTC or Ethernet services. We set out an ambition to exit 100 exchange buildings by December 2030, and a large majority of the remaining 4,500 non-handover exchanges in the early 2030s. By exiting exchanges, we see an opportunity for Openreach and CPs to consolidate
infrastructure, reduce energy consumption and increase efficiency.

Several respondents to the consultation suggested that it will be challenging to exit 100 exchanges by 2030 in terms of both planning and delivery. We agree. And to address this we plan to run a series of pilots.

We propose to use five pilot areas to identify the operational enablers, processes and notification periods to facilitate exchange exit, and better understand the commercial opportunities and challenges. A key priority for Openreach is to ensure that all customers are migrated safely and with minimal disruption. And the pilots will help us develop and test the processes that we need to achieve this.

Pilot Details

We propose to have 5 pilot exchanges, all of which will be ‘child’ exchanges. These are

• Deddington, Oxfordshire
• Kenton Road, Greater London
• Carrickfergus, Ballyclare, Glengormley — all in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, and all child exchanges served from the same parent, Whiteabbey exchange

The pilot exchanges have been selected because they have been announced as FTTP stop sell
exchanges, and have a good mix of CPs and end customers:

• Deddington has high FTTP coverage, and is a ‘simple’ exchange with no unbundled infrastructure or leased line access circuits
• Kenton Road is more complex, with both LLU and leased line local access points of presence, and is more representative of our priority 100 exchanges
• The three Northern Ireland exchanges will enable additional learning of the challenges of edge rural coverage, but also high EAD take-up. Since the three exchanges are all child exchanges of Whiteabbey, CPs will also have the opportunity to consolidate exchange-based equipment.

Timing

• The pilots will begin in April 2022, with most stop sell implementations from June 2022 (excluding those not already covered by any FTTP stop sell), and final withdrawal in December 2023 (Deddington) and
  June 2024 (all other exchanges).
• There will be no stop sell for leased lines (Ethernet, Optical and Dark Fibre Access), however restrictions will apply:
  products will be connected in the pilot exchanges (if CPs order this product) until June 2022 after June 2022, products will still be available, but will be connected to the parent exchange

Customer Migrations

• End customers using voice and broadband products (e.g. WLR, MPF, FTTC) will be migrated primarily to FTTP (if available) or SOGEA (if FTTP is not). Customers who use EAD and other leased line circuits will be connected at the “new” handover exchange.
• All customers who use products connected at the pilot exchanges must either have those products ceased, re-arranged or migrated to a product provided in a parent exchange before the end of the pilot.  Whilst this will remain the responsibility of individual CPs, Openreach will discuss with industry potential new migrations/support process requirements to achieve the goals of the pilot.
• The approach to migrations will follow the same broad principles as those in place for the All IP programme, namely a voluntary phase followed by ‘managed’ migration phase.
• Commercial offers may be developed to incentivise customer migrations. However, these will be designed to meet the specific requirements of the pilot and should not be viewed as a precedent for further exchange building exits.

Governance

• Openreach proposes to extend the scope of the All IP Industry Working Group to cover all products, act as the primary industry engagement mechanism for the pilot, and engage fully with the OTA and Ofcom.
• Openreach will also engage through each product’s formal industry engagement channel.

Consultation Responses

• CPs and interested parties are invited to respond to the proposals laid out in this consultation. Through the document questions are posed to provide a structure for feedback.
• An online virtual meeting will be arranged where Openreach will present the consultation and answer any questions that CPs and interested parties may have at that time.
• Openreach request that responses are provided no later than 21 January 2022.”

 The full document can be downloaded from here.