Openreach Discounts on Faster FTTP Broadband Migrations Trial
Network access provider Openreach (BT) has today announced a new 6-month special offer to support UK trials of “accelerated migrations” for their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband service, which is focused on making it quicker for ISPs to move existing customers from copper to full fibre lines.
Openreach’s national network is currently going through a major change, which reflects the gradual move away from older copper to modern fibre optic based broadband and digital phone services (example). Many consumers are expected to adopt the new network – once available – organically, such as by switching ISP or through package upgrades. But others who don’t take this route may eventually require more direct intervention to avoid them being left without a working connection.
As part of this effort, the network operator has been keen to test new approaches that could help to accelerate such migrations (here). “Openreach has been discussing with CPs [Communications Providers] the accelerated adoption of FTTP and has worked with CPs to develop concepts on how Openreach can support faster migration of existing end customers onto the FTTP platform,” said the network access provider.
The two migration scenarios which Openreach will be testing with broadband ISPs are ‘Proactive migrations‘ and ‘Reactive migrations‘.
Openreach’s Accelerated Migrations Trials
➤ The Proactive migrations trial will involve CPs pro-actively identifying existing end customer cohorts to migrate to FTTP in local areas and Openreach testing operational capability to support a higher level of installations.
➤ The Reactive migrations trial, also known as ‘Fault to Fibre‘ migrations, will involve, if the CP chooses to, migrating existing end customers to FTTP at the point they contact their CP to flag a fault on their existing copper line.
In order to support this, the operator intends to offer a discount of £25 +vat on the prevailing FTTP connection price, for all existing ISP end customers migrated to FTTP during the 6-month trial period. The trial period is currently set to run from 19th April 2022 to 18th October 2022 – you can see pricing details here.
However, the discount only applies to their ‘Standard Managed‘ engineer installs: “If the CP orders a Premium Managed Install product, the published list price differential set out in the Openreach Price List between the Standard Connection Price and the price of the Premium Managed Install products will be payable in addition to any connection price.“
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and Linkedin.
« Government Seeks Views and Experiences of UK Rural Broadband UPDATE
Latest UK ISP News
- FTTP (5515)
- BT (3514)
- Politics (2537)
- Openreach (2297)
- Business (2262)
- Building Digital UK (2244)
- FTTC (2043)
- Mobile Broadband (1973)
- Statistics (1788)
- 4G (1664)
- Virgin Media (1619)
- Ofcom Regulation (1461)
- Fibre Optic (1395)
- Wireless Internet (1389)
- FTTH (1381)
be interesting, here we’ve got an Openreach CFP just gone live & there seems to be a severe shortage of Openreach staff to install the CPE, with waiting times varying from up to 3-4 weeks (for BT group customers) to 6+ weeks for others (BT wholesale customers, 1st offered appointment) record is currently 12 weeks for a Sky customer
Those could be due to lack for ISP supplied hardware.
Don’t believe the time difference is down to Openreach, more likely caused by ISP.
And will the ISPs pass this onto the consumer?
Interesting idea, but the elephant in the room is those large providers who don’t currently offer telephony on their router (Talktalk and Plusnet in particular).
For me it will be who offers the ability to either use their modem/router just for calls letting you forward everything else to your own router setup OR those who supply a “adapter” that plugs into your ethernet/wifi and routes calls that way.
having spent months getting my setup “just so” im loath to tear it all up and set it all up again on some ISP provided router that probably wouldn’t like how i have my network set-up anyway….
What do you have in your setup that’s potentially problematic AndyC?
> who offers the ability to either use their modem/router just for calls letting you forward everything else to your own router setup
Nobody does that as far as I know, because it’s technically very difficult.
> OR those who supply a “adapter” that plugs into your ethernet/wifi and routes calls that way
Nobody is doing that either AFAIK. However, nothing stops you buying your own adapter and moving your phone number over to a third-party SIP provider – I think that’s the best solution for anyone in your position, who wishes to use their own router.
The vast majority of people, however, just pay for a service: “I want Internet and I want phone”. They expect the ISP to manage it entirely for them, and the ISPs are choosing to provide that as a one box router-with-POTS-port.
The obvious solution would seem to me to be not using bundled phone and Internet access.
If your home network is using multiple subnets it’s going to be best to bring your own everything and run it over the top, with the only provided kit being an ONT in bridge mode or a media converter.
The upcoming problem for the “phone port on router” installs is the significant number of people who have their router located remotely from the master socket (for aesthetics, power plug, or WiFi reach reasons). Especially where there wired extensions that connect back to the master. Or don’t have a modern master.
They will have to pay to have master relocated/installed and wired extensions restructured, or pay to change all extensions to WiFi VoIP compatible (or some other solution).
(I have heard that Openreach will give you one free VoIP cordless on a forced migration us you complain enough).
Clearly a market for a plug and play WiFi VoIP adapter with a phone port that can drive the full REN 4 load for drop in restructures of complex wired extensions, unhooking these from the exchange line at master.
Ideally with battery backup (maybe mobile backup), and also available as a bundle with a mini UPS for the router
BT Retail (not openreach) offer their customers (no complaint needed) the choice of one wifi handset or one digital voice adapter as part of the migration. Additional remote adapters are £15 each. The hub can support up to 5 adapters or digital voice handsets.
Voice reinjection onto the internal wiring is possible at the master socket with the right bits & pieces for those who know what they’re doing. It would have been nice if they offered a new faceplate or adapter to do this neatly. Maybe third parties will come up with products like you described to do this, if there’s demand.
Other ISP’s (not openreach) are responsible for implementing their own digital voice solutions. No doubt some will offer similar equipment to BT and some won’t, to keep costs down.
>> who offers the ability to either use their modem/router just for calls letting you forward everything else to your own router setup
>Nobody does that as far as I know, because it’s technically very difficult.
It’s actually very simple if the ISP offers a 2 box solution with an ONT with integrated POTS port such as the Icotera i5205, phone plugs in to ONT and single ethernet port hands off to customers own router or ISP supplied router.
Openreach used to supply ONTs with voip ports. Probably because when FTTP only served 3% of the UK it didn’t make sense to make providers supply a router with a voip port.
The current Openreach ONTs are made to be as cheap as possible, the icotera i5205 is a better ONT, it has built in voip port and the fibre cable is kept concealed so it can’t be touched and damaged.
However ISPs cannot provide their own ONTs on either Openreach or CityFibre networks and I believe Virgin Media’s XGSPON will be the same, so that’s impossible for the largest three. VM might provide an ONT with voice ports but best not to get too optimistic.