Openreach Replace 1Gbps Street Access with Rugged Ethernet

Openreach has this week launched a new Ethernet (Ethernet Access Direct) product – EAD Rugged 1G – into the UK market that has been designed to replace their ‘Street Access‘ service, which enables ISPs to run a dedicated 1Gbps fibre optic line to connect street furniture (bus shelters, kiosks, lamp posts, cabinets etc.).

The new wholesale service appears to be a refinement of Street Access, albeit one that continues to offer the same style of permanent 1Gbps point-to-point dedicated and managed data circuits to street furniture as before, and over a standard radial distance up to 25km between sites (or physical line plant route distances of up to 40km).

The product also makes use of Openreach’s new XG120 slim line multi-service headend (faster speeds while saving Rackspace in the exchange). The operator envisages that ISPs and other customers will use this service for the interconnection of Gigabit Ethernet between street furniture mounted devices and a BT exchange or the ISPs own Point-of-Presence (PoP) site.

The Network Terminating Equipment (NTE) being used alongside this is designed to be tough and can withstand a whole range of temperatures and weather conditions. Such Ethernet links are often used to help improve 4G and 5G mobile coverage in urban areas (e.g. capacity feed for small cells) or to serve data to kiosks, such as BT’s smart WiFi Street Hub kiosks (formerly InLinkUK kiosks), among other things.

According to the official briefing, the new product will become available on 17th May 2022 on either a 3-year or 5-year minimum term. Customers taking a 3-year term can expect to be charged a connection fee of £3,000 +vat and this falls to £2,000 on their longer 5-year terms. The annual rental prices start at £1,500 for a 5-year term or £1,620 for 3-years – see pricing details.