Openreach claims to have bought full-fibre broadband to more than seven million homes and businesses across the UK, including more than two million in the places others can’t reach.
Openreach said its engineers were installing about 800 metres of cable every minute and passing more than 50,000 new homes and businesses every week. The end result was that it was confident of being on track to reach 25 million premises in the UK by December 2026.
Nokia said that Openreach will deploy its fibre solutions to help meet its target of bringing ultra-fast and reliable broadband access to 20 million homes across the UK by the mid-to-late 2020s.
The roll-out with Nokia focuses on deploying GPON and XGS-PON fibre access technologies to expand Openreach’s fiber-rich network to reach 4.5 million premises by the end of March 2021. It’s also capable of delivering up to 10Gb/s symmetrical broadband speeds in the future, in areas where demand for additional capacity is required, it’s claimed. Nokia’s solution supports a smooth evolution from current traditional deployments to virtualised access-network control and management (SDAN – Software Defined Access Networking) by software upgrade.
BT Group’s infrastructure unit Openreach has signed an agreement with American networking and communications firm Adtran to limit its dependence on Chinese company Huawei and to speed up construction of a fibre-based broadband system across Britain.
Under the government’s new rules, ‘high-risk’ vendors (such as Huawei) are excluded from sensitive ‘core’ parts of 5G and gigabit-capable networks, with a 35 percent cap on high-risk vendors supplying parts to the non-sensitive areas of 5G and high-speed fibre-based networks.
Telecoms watchdog Ofcom has barked at BT to legally separate from its Openreach division.
For those who came in late Openreach runs the UK’s broadband infrastructure and considerably miffs BT’s rivals including Sky and Talk Talk.
They claim that Openreach charged too much for the use of broadband lines and was unresponsive to their demands. They wanted a full break-up of BT, with Openreach being turned into a separate company.
Now it seems that Ofcom agrees saying that BT had not voluntarily addressed competition concerns Ofcom laid out in July, it said.
Ofcom said it was preparing a formal notification to the European Commission to start the process.
The regulator has resisted calls to split Openreach off entirely.
Ofcom said BT had not gone far enough to address its concerns about BT’s ability to favour its retail business when making investment decisions in Openreach.
It wants Openreach to become a distinct company with its own board, with non-executives and a chair unaffiliated with BT.
Openreach would have a duty to treat all its customers equally, the regulator said.
TalkTalk is asking its channel partners to support the “Fix Britain’s Internet “campaign which is calling for the privatisation of BT Openreach.
For those who came in late, the campaign was created by Vodafone, Sky and TalkTalk, and is designed to help consumers and businesses to make their voices heard during Ofcom’s ten week public consultation period. TalkTalk’s wants its channel partners to joined the fight.
Ofcom published its Strategic Review of Digital Communications admiting that major reform was needed. Several months later, the watchdog set out proposals that would not force BT to spin off Openreach, but instead suggested that Openreach should be run as a legally separate company within BT Group, with its own board, and an independent chairman.
However the competing service providers fear this is not enough and want everyone to oppose it. In a statement Talk Talk said:
“Our partners’ have a firsthand experience of Openreach’s poor service provisioning has fueled their desire to support the campaign and encourage more businesses to get in touch with Ofcom before the consultation closes on 4th October 2016.”
UK telco watchdog Ofcom has growled that Openreach must become a “legally” separate company from BT and have its independent board as seperate drinks cabinet.
In February, Ofcom identified serious failings with BT’s ownership model of Openreach now it has outlined details of how an enhanced structural separation will work.
Ofcom said BT has an incentive to make these decisions in the interests of its own retail businesses, rather than BT’s competitors.
Ofcom iterated that Openreach should be a legally separate company within BT, saying all its directors would be required to make decisions in the interests of all Openreach’s customers. The new board should have a majority of non-executive directors, who should not be affiliated to BT Group in any way but would be both appointed and removed by BT in consultation with Ofcom.
Openreach’s chief exec should be appointed by the Openreach Board, with no direct lines of reporting from Openreach executives to BT Group.
Openreach will also be obliged to consult formally with customers such as Sky and TalkTalk on large-scale investments which is something that BT was not happy to do during its G.Fast roll-out plans.
Sharon White, Ofcom’s Chief Executive, said: “We’re pressing ahead with the biggest shake-up of telecoms in a decade, to make sure the market is delivering the best possible services for people and business across the UK.”
The moves are designed to ensure that Openreach acts more independently from BT Group, and takes decisions for the good of the wider telecoms industry and its customers. “If it cannot achieve this, Ofcom will reconsider whether BT and Openreach should be split into two entirely separate companies, under different ownership,” said the regulator.
Ofcom said BT has notified it of plans to deliver changes to Openreach’s governance, to make it more independent and accountable to its customers. “We welcome BT’s acknowledgement of the need to reform Openreach, and elements of BT’s proposal.
BT’s business rivals have called for the telco to be sliced up after having enough of the outfit’s monopoly like powers.
It all goes back to 2006, when Ofcom forced BT to set up Openreach as a separate division that manages its network infrastructure across the UK.
This was supposed to give rival telephone and internet service providers (ISPs) equal access to BT’s wide-reaching network of copper and fibre cables and promote competition.
The signs are that it more or less worked, but now, Sky and TalkTalk are urging Ofcom to split up BT and Openreach completely.
TalkTalk’s CEO Dido Harding says it’s “crucial” that Openreach is separated because it would encourage the subsidiary to focus exclusively on the quality of its network.
At the heart of the problem is the BT and EE merger because the pair will have too much influence over the UK telecoms market and reduce their level of investment in Openreach.
Sky holds a similar view saying that splitting Openreach and BT “is at the heart of creating a sustainable industry” that allows multiple providers to compete.
Ofcom just announced its second ‘Strategic Review of Digital Communications’ and since this was the first to led to the creation of Openreach, it is an opportunity for BT’s rivals to put the boot in.
Ofcom is expected to be releasing a “discussion document” this summer, but the regulator’s initial conclusions won’t be published until the end of 2015.
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