Openreach Extend Phase 2 Trial of SOGEA Standalone FTTC Broadband

Openreach has confirmed that their Phase 2 ISP trial of Single Order Generic Ethernet Access (SOGEA), which allows consumers to buy a standalone “Fibre Broadband” (FTTC / VDSL2) line without the voice (phone) service, is to be extended for a little longer past 17th July 2017.

The trial will now run until 29th September 2017 and during this period ISPs will still be able to benefit from free service rental and connections. No reason is given for the extension, although we are aware that some ISPs wanted more time to test some features. Openreach are also in the process of introducing better engineer training and new tools to tackle problems like “pair stealing“, which we touched on last month (here).

So far there’s no word on whether the extension will impact Openreach’s previous timetable, which envisaged the final pilot phase launching later this year and that would then have run until early March 2018 (commercial launch to follow).