Openreach Improve UK FTTP Ultrafast Broadband Provision Process

Openreach (BT) appears to be making some improvements to their provision process for new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based “ultrafast broadband” lines, which according to the ISPs we’ve spoken with should result in consumers receiving a more reliable activation date for their service.

The public briefing note for this change is about as vague as you can get and doesn’t tell us anything about what it actually means. Nevertheless we understand that the big advantage of this new process is that the date Openreach initially commit to completing the installation on (i.e. the planned activation date) is now far less likely to change.

Under the new process Openreach should have already carried out the necessary pre-work before advising of a final activation date, which in turn could result in fewer delayed activations and thus happier end-users (customers are rarely pleased when they have to rearrange days off work or change their schedules again). This in turn means fewer complaints for an ISP to tackle.

Overall ISPs are hoping for a much improved customer experience and one where expectations are better managed. Openreach are currently working to deploy their Gigabit capable FTTP network to cover 3 million UK homes and businesses by the end of 2020 and it’s widely expected that this will then continue to reach 10 million premises by around 2025.