Openreach Discount 10Gbps Capacity Links for FTTP Broadband ISPs

Openreach (BT) has given UK broadband ISPs that make use of their “gigabit-capable” Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) products a little Christmas gift by discounting the cost of their 10Gbps Cablelink services, which help to provide the capacity for such full fibre connections.

The short term special offer, which will become effective on orders placed from 1st February 2021 until 30th April 2021 in all UK exchanges, will see the connection charge for their 10 Gigabit GEA Cablelink product being reduced from £1,042 to £750.

The goal of this discount is to encourage ISP “consumption and sales” of the FTTP service to consumers by making the capacity side even more affordable (we can still remember when a 10Gbps Cablelink would have cost £10,000 just for the connection fee), although there are a few caveats to consider.

Restrictions to this offer:

– Only the first 300 10Gigabit GEA cablelinks per CP [ISP] during the offer period will benefit from the discounted price.

– This offer will apply to all GEA-FTTP only Layer 2 Switches UK wide, it is not available where a Layer 2 Switch is also supporting GEA-FTTC services.

– The offer will be limited to the first 10 Gigabit GEA cablelink per GEA-FTTP only Layer 2 Switch per Communications Provider (no discount will apply to subsequent 10 Gigabit cablelinks from the same CP on a given Layer 2 switch).

– To be eligible for the rebate, CPs must connect the cablelink to their infrastructure to achieve “CP Live” status promptly after Openreach completes the connection, and in any case no later than 30th June 2021.

The special offer pricing is naturally limited to the duration of the special offer itself, and should not be interpreted as a pricing intention on a long-term basis. “Eligibility is based on the date orders are accepted by Openreach (rather than the date of completion), but CPs must have connected the cablelink to their infrastructure no later than 30th June 2021, which will be the cut-off date to assess which cablelinks should be rebated,” said the operator.

The move isn’t really big enough to have any serious impact on the price that consumers pay for such services, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to make the capacity supply side as affordable as possible so that ISPs can better support the fastest tiers.