ISP Ogi Unbundles 20 Exchanges in Wales to Aid FTTP Broadband

Broadband ISP Ogi has confirmed to ISPreview.co.uk that they’ve just managed to unbundle and backhaul their 20th handover exchange in South Wales, which gives them more control to offer cost-effective Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) packages on Openreach’s UK network (i.e. in areas where they aren’t building their own fibre.. yet).

At present Ogi, which is being backed by Infracapital (i.e. the infrastructure investment arm of M&G Plc), is probably best known for their £200m project to build a new “full fibre” (FTTP) broadband network to cover 150,000 premises – both homes and businesses – across South Wales by 2025 (here and here).

However, it’s often forgotten that the provider is also pursuing a dual strategy of build and unbundle, which enables them to offer cheaper FTTP broadband packages via Openreach’s network, in areas where they’ve yet to deploy their own fibre, and to maximise coverage. So far, a total of 20 South Wales handover exchanges have already been unbundled and backhauled, with a further 13 due to be completed by the end of 2022.

Out of the next 13 exchanges, a further 5 are already in the process of being unbundled away from Openreach (BT), with the remaining 8 being set to follow. The provider also has some additional non-handover exchanges unbundled where they are doing Sub-Loop Unbundling (SLU). This will complete all of the South Wales handover exchanges.

As depicted in the image at the top of this article (i.e. Green = Unbundled, Yellow = Unbundling Underway, Red = Planned for 2022 and Grey = Under review), Ogi are currently also considering whether to continue up into Mid and North Wales, but no firm plans for that have been set, yet.

Ogi’s 20 Unbundled Exchanges (South Wales)
Abergavenny
Barry
Brecon
Bridgend
Caerphilly
Cardiff
Cardigan
Carmarthen
Chepstow
Haverfordwest
Hengoed
Lampeter
Llanrumney
Llantrisant
Monmouth
New Quay
Newbridge, Gwent
Newport, Gwent
Pontypool
Swansea

As usual the catch is that, in order to benefit from this, those people living within an unbundled exchange area would also need to have been covered by Openreach’s own FTTP network (or spend a lot of money to pay for an ‘FTTP on Demand’ product to be built to their properties).