BT Warn of Migration Trouble for Sub Loop Unbundled Broadband ISPs

BTWholesale has advised that consumers whom attempt to switch their broadband service from a Sub-Loop Unbundling (SLU) based ISP to a Shared Unbundled (LLU SMPF) provider are currently “being rejected” because of a fault, which forces the end-user to cease the service instead.

Sub-loop unbundling allows ISPs, such as Rutland Telecom (Gigaclear), to build and control their own Street Cabinets right next to BT’s. This helps such ISPs to bring faster and more advanced broadband to areas that BT might have otherwise ignored (e.g. rural villages), although it also makes it harder to switch providers. BTOpenreach moved to improve this in April 2012 with a new migration path (here).

BTOpenreachs Statement

BTWholesale (BTW) has advised Openreach that it is currently experiencing systems issues with the manually generated SLU MAC resulting in the migration order being rejected. This issue only impacts orders placed into the BTW system and all other CPs should be unaffected.

BTW is currently working on a solution, but as it is temporarily unable to support this migration path, BTW ISPs wishing to migrate customers from SLU, must advise the end users to cease their SLU service first, before submitting a provide SMPF order into BTW. During this time, BTW ISPs should not advise prospective end users to obtain a MAC from their SLU CP.

The somewhat niche nature of the market means that this will only be affecting a tiny proportion of consumers, most of whom might have little desire to migrate due to a lack of comparable alternatives. Similarly it should be said that SLU migration was already time consuming and costly due to the need for “separate engineering activities“.