Openreach UK Discount 10Gbps Cablelinks for Fibre Broadband
Openreach (BT) has launched a new special offer for broadband ISPs that discounts the charge on 10Gbps Cablelinks for FTTP and FTTX/C lines (GEA), nationwide, when taken on Layer 2 Switches (L2S) built before 31st December 2023 to just £499 +vat (the regular connection cost is normally £1,270.58).
The Cablelink (Ethernet) products are how Openreach provide data capacity for their full fibre and other connections (i.e. the connection between their fibre headend and an ISP’s equipment). Suffice to say that any discount on this side may also feed down to impact the price consumers may pay for their service from an ISP (more likely for the biggest providers), so they’re worth keeping an eye on.
The latest discount is available to ISPs irrespective of whether they’re already taking advantage of the “Equinox” offer for cheaper full fibre FTTP line rentals. But ISPs won’t be able to benefit from it if they’ve previously purchased a 10Gb Cablelink on the same L2S or the L2S is already at capacity. The maximum number of discounted 10Gb Cablelinks will be limited to 999 per provider at the wholesale level.
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The special offer will run from 1st March 2024 until 30th September 2024 and a single rebate will then be applied in December 2024. Further details here. One particularly interesting aspect of this offer, at least for those with an interest in it, is that Openreach have also included a regularly updated list of L2S excluded from the special offer (here) – due to them being at capacity. We can’t recall seeing a list like that being made public before.
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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Wonder when we’ll be seeing either 40G or 100G products becoming a thing?
Openreach are currently in the early stages of designing an EAD 2.0 product that (from the information CPs have seen so far) has the potential to be a huge improvement on the current offering. I can’t recall right now if >10G options have been mentioned as it’s a while ago since we had a presentation on it but I have a feeling that it has been discussed.
EAD 2 allows seamless speed upgrades between 1 and 10Gb. Nothing faster than that at present
how do i order one ?
This is for communications providers / ISPs, as clearly stated above. So if you’re a comms provider, then you should already know the answer to that.
so £499+VAT for a 10Gbps link.. Yet BT charge the same price for either 500mbps or 1Gbps Leased line wise at £505+VAT (well according to a quote from AAISP) so that’s a decent profit x10.
BT net managers will match anything up to £310+VAT a month for 1Gbps. If you use companies such as Sancom it gets even cheaper
A cablelink is a port in the exchange and a one off charge. It’s not a leased line at all.
A cablelink is a local *patch cable* within an exchange, not a leased line, and goes into a port on an Openreach switch.
And this is a one-off installation cost, not a monthly or annual rental. See price list:
https://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/products/pricing/loadProductPriceDetails.do?data=YvrbXj0%2B0Dyyop3O3YfAMC47kj8fY8a94roxD9SR6D2R9gAIXOr0w6eWLkF2jxWre6YShZ82RgLOGLsH2e9%2Bmw%3D%3D