Ofcom UK Extend and Tweak BT Openreach’s Quality of Service Rules

The Quality of Service (i.e. minimum standards for repairs and new line provision) targets that Ofcom imposed upon Openreach (BT) in 2014 (here) look set to be extended until 31st March 2018 and the regulator will also make some additional tweaks.

The original changes were introduced because Ofcom was concerned about a “gradual decline in Openreach’s performance, in particular related to fault repairs and provisions for the core WLR and MPF services.” This reflects the most common fully unbundled broadband and phone lines (as used by Sky Broadband and TalkTalk etc.), as well as the similar Wholesale Line Rental (WLR) service.

Ofcom’s existing targets were designed to escalate over 3 years. For example, under the changes Openreach would be required to complete around 80% of fault repairs within 1 to 2 working days of being notified by 2016/17. Similarly Openreach were also told to provide an appointment for 79% of new line installations that require an engineer visit within 12 working days of being notified (up from 54% in 2014/15).

At the time of the 2014 direction, the majority of WLR lines provided by Openreach were associated with an SML1 Service Level Agreement (a ‘two-day‘ repair), while the majority of MPF lines were provided at SML2 (a ‘one-day‘ repair). Ofcom determined that these were the product/care level combinations about which there were particular concerns and, consequently, applied the repair minimum standards to them.

Ofcom states that Openreach “has met the three minimum standards for the first two years of the review period. In particular, the percentages of WLR and MPF repairs completed within service level agreement (SLA) timescales have improved compared to the low levels identified during the [2014 review].” Good news, but there’s a problem.

Since then a number of retail broadband ISPs have made decisions to change the SML associated with their rental of WLR and MPF services from Openreach. In practical terms, this has resulted in the majority of MPF lines moving from SML2 to SML1 and the majority of WLR lines moving from SML1 to SML2 (i.e. unbundled ISPs have saved a bit of money by sacrificing repair quality).

“The effect of these changes is that a large proportion of total WLR and MPF lines purchased by CPs now fall outside of the on-time repair minimum standards, thereby reducing the effectiveness of our current regulation,” says Ofcom. The regulator’s solution is to set the minimum standards so that they apply to all MPF / WLR lines at a given care level, plus a few other tweaks.

Additional Changes

* Update the KPI reporting requirements to require BT to report additional data for MPF lines at SML1;

* Extend the deadline for the reporting of KPIs relating to the volumes of installations and repairs impacted by MBORCs by one month;

* Consent to the dis-application of the existing final year minimum standards for WLR and MPF repairs, on the basis that these will no longer be necessary; and

* Extend the provision and repair minimum standards to ensure that they remain in force until the next Narrowband and Wholesale Local Access (WLA) market reviews are completed.

The draft directions and consents that Ofcom have today decided to make will take effect on 1st November 2016 and run until 31st March 2018. A short consultation has also been launched and this will run until 18th November 2016, although further changes seem unlikely until the next review (this is due very soon).

“We do not consider that extending the compliance period will lead to a reduction in performance against the minimum standards. In fact, a 17-month compliance period which includes two autumn/winter seasons is potentially more challenging for Openreach as autumn/winter weather tends to result in a higher fault intake,” said Ofcom.

Quality of Service for WLR and MPF Update
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/../QoS-Statement_Non-confidential.pdf