Openreach Industry Consultation – Upgrading the UK – Future Handover Architecture and Exchange Footprint

On 3 December 2020 Openreach published its first industry consultation on the Exchange Exit Programme.

The Executive Summary reads as follows:

“Objectives
i. The objectives of this consultation are to set out Openreach’s initial thinking on how our exchange footprint should evolve over the next 20+ years, and to provide a basis for discussion and input from Communications Providers (CPs). We invite CPs to help us (i) refine the end-state vision, and (ii) determine how we move towards it.

Background
ii. Openreach’s network currently uses c. 5,600 exchanges to provide services to CPs.
iii. We use c. 1,000 of these exchanges – so-called Openreach Handover Points (OHPs) – to provide nationwide coverage of fibre broadband services (FTTC, FTTP and G.fast), with the remaining 4,600 non-OHP exchanges currently required to provide legacy services over copper lines.
iv. The majority of Openreach’s customers are now served using fibre broadband. Fibre take-up will continue to grow throughout the 2020s, supported by the closure of the WLR platform in 2025 and the rollout of FTTP to 20m premises by the mid- to late-2020s.
v. As customers migrate to fibre broadband services, the number of copper broadband customers being served from the 4,600 non-OHP exchanges is declining, and could fall to c. 1m by 2025.
vi. The declining utilisation of non-OHP exchanges will make it economically unviable for Openreach and CPs to maintain a presence in many of these exchanges, and will hence naturally lead to exchange footprint rationalisation.
vii. Over 98% of the exchanges that Openreach uses are owned by Telereal Trillium, and there is a contract break in December 2031 which will enable the scale divestment of exchanges.

The Future of our Exchange Footprint
viii. Openreach plans to exit at least 100 exchanges by December 2030, to enable full vacation of the buildings (including decommissioning of all equipment) by December 2031. Our ambition is to exit a large majority of the remaining 4,500 non-OHP exchanges in the early 2030s. In all cases, services will be migrated to the appropriate OHP exchange ahead of us exiting the exchange, to provide continuity of service for end customers.
ix. We have provided a preliminary list of the highest priority 100 exchanges in Annex 1 – however, this list will be updated as we conduct detailed operational assessments of how to exit each exchange.
x. We advise CPs to note both the “top 100” list (exchanges that Openreach will exit by December 2030), and our ambition to close a large majority of the remaining 4,500 exchanges in the early 2030s, when making their investment decisions.

Consultation Questions
xi. This is a complex topic, with significant implications for the industry as a whole. We recognise that we will need to factor CPs’ input into our strategy and plans, and are inviting CPs to provide input on

a. the long-run architecture of the Openreach network
b. enablers for migrating from legacy products to fibre products
c. timeframes for exiting exchanges
d. specific plans for the 2031 exchange footprint
e. implications for leased line and PIA (Passive Infrastructure Access) services
f. any other issues or concerns relating to interconnect with the Openreach network or exiting exchanges.”

 The full document can be downloaded from here.