Openreach Launch IP Voice Solution for UK ADSL Broadband Lines
After a long pilot, Openreach has today revealed that the commercial launch of their Single Order Transitional Access Product (SOTAP) for UK ISPs will take place on 1st December 2023. The new product makes it possible to offer a standalone ADSL broadband line with optional IP-based (digital) phone services.
At present BT and other Openreach based communication providers are all working toward the final switch-off date for the old analogue Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), which is due to reach its conclusion by December 2025. As part of this those same providers are adopting All-IP (Internet Protocol) based solutions.
For example, on hybrid copper and fibre broadband lines (FTTC), we’ve already seen the new products for this transition go live via the Single Order Generic Ethernet Access (SOGEA and SOGFAST) solutions. But the equivalent solution for older ADSL lines (SOTAP) has tended to lag behind and only entered the full ISP pilot stage last year (here).
In the old way of doing things, customers taking out an FTTC or ADSL service would have first required the installation or activation of an analogue copper phone line (usually bundled with broadband). But the transition to all-IP technologies changes this around, with the copper line now only carrying broadband by default and the less desirable – now optional – phone services going over the top of that via VoIP / IP-based products.
Without this, an estimated 4 million premises in the UK – those currently on a traditional purely copper based service – would have no available fixed broadband product.
Openreach’s Statement
By configuring equipment in the local exchange, SOTAP is able to provide broadband and internet protocol (IP) or digital phone services over the existing copper line running to a customer’s premises. Phone services are optional and will be provided ‘over the top’ of the copper line via Voice Over IP (VoIP) products. Unlike a traditional analogue copper only line – users can make calls while browsing the internet.
The SOTAP solution needs an unbundled (LLU) exchange infrastructure to work – where Communication Providers have installed their own equipment inside an exchange, giving them greater control over the voice line and broadband service they can offer customers. Providers who don’t have unbundled lines can also purchase SOTAP via a wholesaler who already has LLU equipment and is offering the service.
Openreach has been piloting the fibre alternative since May this year and has seen demand for the product grow rapidly – with a tenfold increase in demand following the introduction of UK wide ‘stop sell’ in September of Wholesale Line Rental (WLR) and related broadband ISP products, which include copper only lines (ADSL). The stop sell process means that when end user customers sign up for a new contract – or switch, upgrade or re-grade their service via their provider – they’ll be moved onto a new digital line rather than an analogue one.
The final SOTAP wholesale pricing details for ISPs puts the annual rental for a SOTAP line at £99.53 +vat, which is roughly akin to the cost of their old analogue line solutions. Naturally this doesn’t consider all of the extras that providers may need to add a retail, such as services, capacity and 20% VAT etc.
According to Ofcom’s most recent data, around 2.6 million copper broadband lines in the UK are still connected via ADSL technology.
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.
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Im curious out of the 4 million UK ADSL customers how many can’t get anything else and how many never upgraded to superfast, whether that be full cabinets or just not upgrading.
FTTC (30+mbps) is available to 97+% of the UK so 4 million seems high to be the former.
I’d imagine it’s cabinet availablity that’s holding them back at the moment. However alot of older people aren’t upgrading from asdl as there not well enough informed and have a not broken why fixit attitude
There’s actually more like 2.6m on ADSL lines, but I believe the 4 million figure Openreach give will also be reflecting those landline-only customers who only have a traditional phone service (no broadband).
There’s also some other uses for ADSL beyond internet access such as OOB device management (1310 mentioned doing this when unbundling exchanges) & I can easily picture this applying to other companies in different sectors too.
So maybe a few 10K or so tails there so add to the figure
I’ve got elderly family still on adsl2+, they get ~18mbps and only use it to watch iplayer via youtube box on a 32″ TV, it also includes all calls and they seem to be on a package with no inflation rises so they’ve been on the same package for 5+ years with no need to switch and no price rises (they actually got an automated email offering to re-contract at a higher price or stick to a rolling one at a lower price ha). For some it works still, although at some point I guess they’ll be force upgraded.
I’m pretty certain when BT (Openreach) were installing FTTC cabinets there was not always enough capacity to give service to every property served by that cabinet. A friend of was refused FTTC even though it was in the area there was insufficient capacity in the cabinet. He had to wait for ages until capacity became available. I wonder if that situation still remains in some areas or if Openreach have rectified this.
I know someone who lives in military housing, AFAIK their houses have only ever had ADSL with a max speed of 10mbps, much to their annoyance.
The only viable alternative may be something like Starlink, which costs multiple times more than VDSL and of course there’s the hassle of when they move.
Will OfCom mandate that ISPs put the price down, for SoTAP, in light of present ADSL customers (that are happy on it) losing a copper phone line and gaining nothing?
I imagine Ofcom will mandate it in exactly the same way they mandated price reductions for SoGEA over FTTC and G.fast.
To me this is just a way for them to get out of installing fibre the home in all areas, and make more profit, despite the fact government is giving them endless amounts of taxpayers money to do so. Where I live on their map I am literally fully surrounded by plans for them to install fibre including in many villages smaller then mine, yet they have no plans for my area and we have our own telephone exchange building in the village with hundreds of more homes being built here, which are not being built in the surrounding villages! Due to this I have 1 choice of provider or one of its wholesale users to select from for fibre to the door, neither are big and one has a very poor review rating. Great.
No, it’s about them preparing for PTSN switch off in 2025 and ulimately scrapping all copper lines and closing exchanges.
What subsidies are you referring to here? BDUK is long gone, ‘gigabit vouchers’ are still a thing but aren’t all that significant.
Getting rid of rural exchanges (as in the entire building) is a major cost saving, thus there is a huge driver to get fibre out there at some point. It just might not be in the next two years, so here’s SOTAP as a transitional technology using the DSLAMs that are already in place which allows them to get rid of the even more decrepit PSTN in the mean time.
There’s no big conspiracy theory here.
‘Due to this I have 1 choice of provider or one of its wholesale users to select from for fibre to the door, neither are big and one has a very poor review rating. Great.’
Just to check my comprehension: you’re complaining about Openreach not planning to cover you with full fibre when you already have a full fibre network available?
@XGS yes I am! I am with Idnet an amazing brilliant provider very very highly regarded, but due to Open Reach having zero interest in upgrading the area, I am limited to Gigaclear which in this site has very poor ratings. Although I’ll probably go with one of its partners that’s still a risk and even then I have but one choice of partner that covers my area, so I go from Open Reach with ALL the choice of providers using its network, to 2 using an entirely separate network.
@Winston @Ivor sorry, but I have never red in here ever that this was about closing telephone exchanges, where do you two get that idea from? Please do explain how that works, how does FTTH result in hundreds or thousands of telephone exchange buildings being closed?
The problem is people whinge about price. You could slap starlink down and get 350 down 30 up most of the time. If you are prepared to pay £90 a month got it. But people won’t so there is no hope.
Price is the only barrier for some. Well most.
@I Love Starlink, yeah that’s sensible, I can get fibre to my door via cable but I shouldn’t and instead pay double for satellite broadband for half the steed and far worst pings, makes total sense.
Seems so far I’ve had Starlink and BT customer relations people reply to me? Any Virgin staff want to join in too?
Regarding closing exchanges: https://www.openreach.co.uk/cpportal/products/the-all-ip-programme/exchange-exit-programme
Featured on here several times.
@XGS, well that’s only a trial with no guarantee it’ll be nationwide, also it stated that child exchanges will be closed and everyone moved to parent exchanges, that would entail the parent exchange being massively upgraded to handle the thousands of extra connections. Also I assume, as that article you linked to goes into very little detail, that the fibre runs back to the parent exchange will be miles and mikes in length.
SOTAP is only regarded as a transitional product while providers other than BT have LLU equipment present in the exchange.
Your local exchange will eventually not be needed, as the fibres will go back to a more central facility. Hopefully something nice will replace it.
The copper closure is unrelated to the FTTP rollouts, the only connection is that it hastens copper closure in those areas.
OR are likely to provide your area with FTTP but they are not under any obligation.
it’s a “pilot”. It’s going to happen though.
re: fibre lengths – so what? PON, the underlying technology for most FTTP in this country, can do tens of kilometres, point to point ethernet (as can be used to drive fibre cabinets and remote OLTs) even longer. The fibre may not already go via your local exchange on its way to the big one in town.
The VDSL and FTTP networks are already built on the concept of larger exchanges serving as handover points. You can sometimes see hints of this when there is a fault and a different exchange shows up in the fault detail, or that you can suddenly get an ISP that you couldn’t get via LLU ADSL.
So that leaves PSTN as the main blocker for exchange closures, followed by getting people off of ADSL and onto (probably) FTTP.
If you were to walk into any reasonably sized BT/openreach exchange building you won’t have to go far to find large areas of empty space, that was historically either full of equipment or full of desks and people. Much of both now no longer exists, the equipment decommissioned and removed, and the people left the business and some of their jobs relocated elsewhere.
The current FTTx network was always designed to utilize the minimum number of buildings for the reason that so many would ultimately become redundant and could be vacated. This is now the reality of the exchange closure program that will see the majority of buildings vacated between 2030-2040
@Me So much wrong with your response but delivered with such assurance. I’ll pass on continuing this conversation.
@me ….
ALL NGA fibre (FTTC & FTTP) already goes back to a parent exchange and not your local child exchange.
Only the copper used for ADSL/PSTN goes back to the local, smaller child exchanges.
Openreach intend on closing the child exchanges, reducing exchange numbers from circa 6,000 exchanges to around 1,100 parent exchanges.
@John… What is classed as a parent exchange then? Mine serves around 2000 properties yet is both FTTC and FTTP enabled. For my estate they literally built a new cab on the pavement right outside it for FTTC.
In my experience with VOIP, even with a reasonable ADSL (10/1) connection you still experience high ping and packet loss when talking if you are downloading/uploading files.
BT need to have a solid traffic prioritisation system in favour of VoIP for this to work.
This isn’t strictly about VoIP, this is about providing an internet service without PSTN, though it follows that BT and others might attempt to use it to provide their VoIP solutions over the top.
The ISPs can clearly do a lot more for prioritisation than can be done when using some third party VoIP service and attempting to have your router knobble the traffic into compliance.
I am 79 on Pension credit and live on my own. For27 years I’ve had only a mobile phone. (no land line or broadband) I’m about to give up my phone number /sim and just use WiFi calling and WiFi internet access when out. Sim only price is far to high and the service too poor. I’ve tried Vofa, 3 & EE networks this year at best 2 bar signal strength and in heavy rain NO SIGNAL I just had enough of wasting money
If you get pension *credit* then BT home essentials is an option if you’d still like home internet or phone. https://www.bt.com/broadband/home-essentials
£10/month for phone service and unlimited mins, £15 for 40Mbit and 700 mins, £20 for 80Mbit and unlimited mins.
“I’m about to give up my phone number /sim and just use WiFi calling and WiFi internet access when out”
Well you can’t use WIFI calling without a UK number and sim.. so how are you doing this?
In my road CR2 9..Greater London there is only ADSL2 via Openreach. And checking the various comparison sites, Opernreach don’t yet offer FTTP, but Comminity Fibre is available up the poles, but I have 8 months contract left. Surely this is the same plight for many, but importantly I don’t need fast speeds as a single household. So the is no need or desire whatsoever for me to change.
I assume with SOTAP and BT as the ISP, customers will still need a Smart Hub 2 for IP Voice. This brings me back, as I have said on here previously, how are BT going to get all the Smart Hub 2’s needed for Digital Voice, with apparently 8 million customers still to be changed over before December 2025? It would be good to know just how many Smart Hub 2’s are in use at the moment!
Yes BT Smart Hub 2 is required for BT digital Voice regardless of the type of broadband connection. Typically 0.5Mb is required for VOIP so most Adsl connections should be up to the task.
“Unlike a traditional analogue copper only line – users can make calls while browsing the internet.”
Blimey, I didn’t realise browsing the internet over ADSL prevented you making phone calls at the same time. What have I been doing wrong for the last 20 years???
Or there’s a PR person still using their dialup modem…..
I also did a double take on reading that bit, and it likewise took me back to the dial-up era!
However I think the point the author may have been stumbling to get across is that a SOTAP line is different to a analogue-only PSTN line *without* ADSL broadband… but even if that was the intended point, it’s a bit of a bizarre one to make.
Unless of course Openreach is trying to suggest to Communications Providers that they upsell to those customers who just want a voice phone line service, and try and get them signed up to a basic (ADSL speed) broadband service…
ADSL and ADSL2+ are outdated now. Pointless to have SOTAP.
The alternative?
As The Facts posted, what is the alternative? Ok, they could try mobile broadband I suppose, but then they still lose their home phone unless they can link some sort of VoIP to it.
A lot of people still can’t get anything but ADSL and still people who can’t even get that. I changed a household to mobile broadband last year, they were still using dial up.
@ad – who provides dialup?
SOTAP is purely a transitional product where there is no alternative. As soon as FTTP becomes available in an area I expect Openreach will move pretty quickly to shut it down.
Now providers can charge people again for calls and line rental if they want to once we get this digital voice. Years ago before broadband, phones had line rental, and you used to pay for each call, then we went to local calls were included with your line rental. Then later on broadband and line rental become one, even if it really was not the case, it just seemed to be.
Now expect a separate line rental to be charged for home phones and the consumer either have to pay extra for free local calls or pay per call again. The home phone will become an add on in this digital world.
I just had a nose, and it is already happening, on BT, for Full Fibre 1 you pay an extra fiver for a phone.
should have expected it from BT I suppose.
I’ve just resigned to BT digital voice. £10 a month for unlimited calls to landlines (perhaps we should just call them VOIP lines from now on) and mobiles. I’ve looked into using a third party voip provider but to be honest BT is not uncompetitive against them.
Plus going with one ISP for broadband and another foe VOIP is a lot of extra hassle and in most cases not worth it
I dont understand the upset here. The phone service isn’t just tacked on with no expense. It costs to run and in turn – like any service – costs to buy. The fiver is a pay as you go service. Pay for the line pay for the calls. For a couple of quid more you get a calling plan which isn’t far off a mobile plan. It’s not that different from the old way of doing things, just structured in it’s own way wih new names.
I dont understand the upset here. The phone service isn’t just tacked on with no expense. It costs to run and in turn – like any service – costs to buy. The fiver is a pay as you go service. Pay for the line pay for the calls. For a couple of quid more you get a calling plan which isn’t far off a mobile plan. It’s not that different from the old way of doing things, just structured in it’s own way wih new names.
@unknownquantity
Not only that but with BT digital voice you get facilities like call diversion and a 2 line phone (if using BT advanced digital handsets) included that on PSTN only businesses could afford.
@ad47uk. All BT broadband contracts now attract a five pounds price hike, if you want to add or maintain a home phone service, then you either go pay as you go for calls, or pay for a call package. Exceptions i can think of to this would be, BT Basic which has been superseded by the two varieties of BT’s social tariffs, where you pay either £15 or £20 pounds for broadband speeds of 36 or 67Mbps, with 700 phone minutes included on the £15 plan and i believe unlimited phone minutes on the £20 plan.You need to be in receipt of certain benefits to avail of these packages.
Don’t forget BT will added hard search in credit file check!
Would I be correct in assuming that for those stuck on “Exchange Only” lines (LSCRO in my case), SOTAP is going to be the solution for the PSTN switch-off (so, pretty much the same awful broadband service)?
https://availability.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/LSCRO
SOTAP can remain while the line, MDF and line units remain. Timescales will be dependant on the programme for that particular exchange. So no reason why SOTAP cannot remain for some time after December 2025.
Croydon is significantly covered by VM and Community Fibre have an increasing coverage. No current OR plans for Croydon itself.
If areas like Croydon are not progressed by OR then BT (that has the obligation) could always transfer you to a mobile router solution, ask OR for exceptional solutions, transfer you to an Altnet service or request Ofcom to remove the obligation. But we are at least 5 years out. The deadline here is to remove the BT PSTN and by default other TDM networks which SOTAP facilitates.
By December 2025:
Many users will decline a fixed “landline voice service” or seek alternative service (BT encourages this by charging so unless it will be used decline and the change cost is avoided.
The vast majority of those will have a broadband product via OR or other (mobile or fixed).
Those in MDUs should be proactive either via their landlords or management companies
The number of people without any Internet service will be minimal but even then there will still be a base FTTP product for voice and IoT.
What happens to exchanges that aren’t LLU unbundled and to people not connected to FTTC?
https://availability.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/WWSTIC
Exactly why SOTAP is there.
No OR Plans currently, probably awaiting BDUK to make their minds up, but you are surrounded by OR planned areas so presumably the base FTTP product will be available if you can find am ISP to sell it going forward.
This is exactly what that is.
SOTAP is just the full copper flavor of SOGEA allowing IP connectivity without a Dial tone
Sotap still comes from the exchange. Unless you have fttp all other services have copper to prem.
It says that…
Openreach has been piloting the fibre alternative since May this year and has seen demand for the product grow rapidly – with a tenfold increase in demand following the introduction of UK wide ‘stop sell’ in September of Wholesale Line Rental (WLR) and related broadband ISP products, which include copper only lines (ADSL).
How is there a 10 fold increase in demand? I thought the Stop Sell meant that SoTAP is last resort stuff and can’t be sold to anyone for whom SoGEA is available? Which is most people, now?
Yes its hierarchical.
FTTP no SoGEA
SoGEA no SoTAP
New ADSL, FTTC and LLU (some exceptions) dead
Demand driven by ISPs (mainly BT) needing to start their exchange equipment recovery
What a mess this has all become because BT openreach have been cheap and sectretly wont upgrade their network. The problem in my area is that bt wont upgrade the network at all. 10 years ago they put in a nice new green cabnet but after that they only connected half of the road to it and refused to do any more upgrading. They then left the other half of the road on really poor speeds. The problem I see with BT openreach is that some person at the top makes these silly decisions of turning off the copper system when they really dont have any idea how it really is. I have noticed bt are really not interested in upgrading their network even.though the silly bosses say we are going to turn everyone off copper in december 2025.I am hopefull they will get their fingers out but I cannot see this happening for Dec 2025 though. BT openreach just keep making silly excuses about not having enough money to upgrade the networks.
They are switching the PSTN off in December 2025 which has nothing to do with copper services so make sure you understand what is happening before you start a rant.
i mean there spending 15billion to upgrade to full fibre ( 85% 2026, 99% 2030 coverage ) . the copper voice is totally seperate to the fttp programme and voice services can be run on sogea ( fttc ) sotap ( adsl ) etc. so no they arent turning off everyones copper, only voice, copper or part copper/part fibre broadband is remaining until fttp is done
So many childish comments on this website from people who haven’t a clue what they are talking about.
@MRLeeds. From your description i believe your elderly family members are on BT Basic, which is no longer available, and has been replaced with two versions of BT’s Home Essentials Social Tariff. At 18 Mbps on ADSL2+ they will be pretty close to the exchange as 24 Mbps is the best speed available on ADSL2+. If they are only using the internet as you describe then 18 Mbps is well above what’s needed. You should advise them to stay on BT Basic as long as they can, if only from a purely financial perspective, and ignore BT’s emails. At some point in the not so far of future customers will be encouraged or maybe even forced to upgrade, at a higher cost than they are paying now, no doubt. The Social Tariff prices are £15 or £20, for speeds of 36 and 67 Mbps, 700 phone minutes on the £15 plan, unlimited on the £20 plan. To get the speeds described on the Social Tariffs, they would need to be on FTTC at least, and be receiving certain benefits to qualify. The price for the old BT Basic is £10.07 per Month.
I know a few deep rural places in Devon on ultra long EO lines where ADSL isn’t available (over 20km it really doesn’t work) but they do have analogue voice service, I wonder how these locations will be dealt with?
Premises below 10 Mbs are eligible for USO (BT) and similar solutions can be provided to voice only.
But really these premises should be picked up by BDUK initiatives by Dec 2025. If not it’s theirs and a government failure.
Too many still think BT is a state monopoly and can cross subsidise. They do to a point but they are a commercial company in fierce competition in the cities and towns.
@Meadmodj My UPRN is “covered” by CDS’s utterly bodged BDUK Phase 2 multiple procurements – original RFS date Q3 2018 from Gigaclear, latest Q2 2024 from Airband FTTP but no sign of build commenced, so that won’t happen. I think we can safely say that being “picked up” by end of 2025 is cloud cuckoo land for me. I won’t even mention the chances of a commercial build being completed.
Double Bubble, knownquantity = 2
I am amazed that 2.6M lines are still on ADSL. I would assume that the vast bulk of them are capable of being moved to FTTC or FTTH
I’m just curious on whether there are going to be job openings for VoIP engineers