BT Openreach UK Culls Old FTTP Superfast Broadband ISP Products

After plenty of warning BTOpenreach has today withdrawn from new supply a selection of its first truly fibre optic (FTTP) based broadband ISP products including the 40/15Mbps, 100/15Mbps, 110/15Mbps, 100/30Mbps and 330/20Mbps options (download / upload speed in Megabits).

The move, which is intended to streamline Openreach’s product set, was first announced last year so as to give ISPs plenty of time to adapt (here). As a result the above named products can no longer be offered to new customers but existing users will continue to be fully supported, at least they will until March 2014 when they must be “removed from the product portfolio completely“.

Openreach’s Simplified Fibre-to-the-Premises Product Range

• 40/2 Mb
• 40/10 Mb
• 80/20 Mb
• 220/20 Mb
• 330/30 Mb

The new 220Mbps service, which officially launched at the start of June 2013 (here), is designed to replace the old 100-110Mbps FTTP products and adopts a similar level of pricing i.e. (£92 +vat to install and annual rental price ranges from £187.32 +vat per year if you take the Transition Product with a phone line). Retail ISPs will of course need to add other costs on top of that.

Sadly none of this will have a huge impact on the market because only a tiny number of UK homes and businesses currently have access to a native FTTP service, while BT’s new FTTP-on-Demand (this makes FTTP available via FTTC lines) product is simply far too expensive for most residential consumers and has yet to complete its national rollout (details).