Openreach Give ISPs 48 Hours to Remove Lithium Batteries from UK Exchanges UPDATE

Network operator Openreach took a few communications providers by surprise yesterday after they gave them just 48 hours to remove any lithium batteries from BT exchanges. The batteries are said to be prohibited by the operator’s building safety policy “due to the significant risks … [of] thermal runaway, fire and explosion“.

The move is interesting, as we’ve not previously been aware of any specific restriction being imposed against the use of a particular type of battery chemistry in Openreach’s rules, which usually adopt generalised language when discussing batteries. Some comms providers also told ISPreview that they were similarly uncertain about exactly where in Openreach’s docs this is expressed.

The official briefing, which isn’t available to the public, seems to refer specifically to the use of lithium batteries that exist within Colocation or Access Locate customer cabinets within BT’s exchanges. “Openreach mandates the use of lead acid batteries as the preferred and safest option for battery back up in CPs’ colocation or Access Locate customer cabinets,” said the briefing (a slight contradiction – using both “mandates” and then “preferred“).

The briefing also fails to make any distinction between regular LiPo (lithium polymer) and LiFePO4 (lithium iron phosphate) batteries. The latter, which are now used in many industrial and home storage energy applications, have a safety record that is similar or even better than sealed lead acid batteries; because their unique chemical composition is less prone to overheating and thermal runaway.

Not to mention that lead-acid batteries contain hazardous substances like lead (obviously) and sulphuric acid, while LiFePO4 batteries are constructed with more non-toxic materials that can be recycled. Suffice to say that the blanket restriction against “lithium” seems unusual, and it may have been more forward-thinking to express stricter requirements.

In any case, Openreach clearly has serious safety concerns after identifying that “lithium batteries” are in use in some of BT’s exchanges, and they’ve now given such providers just 48 hours to remove them (on the surface this seems like an unreasonably short notice). “This instruction is made and is issued in accordance with the existing Revised Agreement for Access Network Facilities Services (“RANF Agreement”) and Access Locate contract. The relevant Product Description(s) will be updated accordingly to capture this instruction,” said Openreach. Providers must also notify the operator about their use of such batteries..

We’ve requested a bit more information from Openreach and will report back later.

UPDATE 1:57pm

Openreach informs ISPreview that they’ve only found an extremely small number of cases and thus don’t believe the move will have a significant impact.

A spokesperson for Openreach told ISPreview:

“Safety is our number one priority, so we pay close attention to best practice, expert research and industry recommended standards when it comes to fire safety.

During a recent annual maintenance check in one of our exchanges, we discovered a handful of lithium batteries linked to some equipment owned by one Communications Provider.

This is extremely unusual. The use of batteries is rare in itself and, any CPs that do, overwhelmingly use the safer lead/acid variety.

We don’t believe this is a widespread issue which will impact any other CPs but, given the importance of safety in our buildings and wider estate, we felt it was the right thing to do to send out guidance on battery usage.”