Full Fibre ISP Gigaclear Secure Openreach Path to Collaboration Status
Rural broadband ISP Gigaclear, which is building a new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network to cover 500,000 premises in England by the end of 2023 (300,000 completed), has been awarded Path to Collaboration (PTC) by Openreach (BT) – a move that should help to boost their rollout.
PTC is an important status under Openreach’s Physical Infrastructure Access (PIA) programme, which broadly recognises that Gigaclear’s engineers have achieved a high standard of work when utilising the incumbent’s national network of ducts and poles to run their own fibre. As a result, they should benefit from a far simpler approval process and thus be able to accelerate their deployment pace.
Not all Alternative Network (AltNet) providers have achieved PTC status, although quite a few have (Truespeed, Trooli etc.) and they won’t be the last.
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Caitlin Johnston, Head of Strategic Partnerships at Gigaclear, said:
“This is a huge milestone for us and reflects the hard work, exceptional capability and dedication demonstrated by our delivery teams and build partners. We value the partnership and growing relationship we have built with Openreach and the collaborative approach which has been taken to achieve this status.”
Openreach said that Gigaclear had provided “good documentation and a high quality of requests“, before adding that they were “delighted” to support the operator in securing PTC. But admittedly, PIA wouldn’t exist in its current form were it not for Ofcom’s regulation and the wider push for greater market competition at infrastructure level.
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, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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So does this mean that until now GC wasn’t allowed to use PIA?
It means that when submitting job completion documentation or requests for Network Adjustments (repairs/replacement for ducts and poles), their documentation is of a sufficient quality that Openreach will relax the verification and audit requirements on all of these submissions.
This allows them to complete builds and repairs faster due to less admin overhead.
No, they were able to use PIA.
They’ve demonstrated sufficient clue and quality of workmanship that Openreach will relax some of the red tape for them which is good for them – reduces cost and delay.
Essentially it’s a gold badge for not making a total mess of Openreach’s assets.
Pine Media have had PTC for around a year, and we too are proud of the recognition of quality and process adherence it represents.
Well done gigaclear
Does this mean that gigaclear customers can switch to other suppliers?