Trooli to Withdraw FTTC Broadband from Two Kent UK Villages UPDATE

Alternative network operator and ISP Trooli (Call Flow) has revealed that they’re also planning to shut their “up to” 100Mbps capable Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC / VDSL2) based broadband network in Kent, which currently still covers hundreds of premises across the villages of Stansted and parts of Fairseat.

The development comes only a week after ISPreview revealed that the operator was also in the process of closing one of their legacy hybrid wireless and fibre optic broadband networks in rural Hampshire (here). This was originally built in 2014-16 with support from £1.258m of public funding (Building Digital UK). But the situation in Kent is different.

Just to recap. Trooli is currently focused on deploying their gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network (covering 410,000 premises) across towns and large semi-rural villages in parts of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Dorset, East Sussex, Hampshire, Kent, Norfolk, Suffolk, West Sussex and Wiltshire in England. As well as parts of North Lanarkshire, South Lanarkshire and Fife in Scotland (formerly part of Axione UK’s network).

However, in the past, Trooli (formerly better known as Call Flow Solutions) did also deploy a number of hybrid broadband networks into several rural communities using Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) and sub-loop unbundled based Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC) technologies. In the case of Kent, we’re talking about the latter, which was built around early 2017 (here).

The Kent project, which as we recall covered the installation of three Sub Loop Unbundling (SLU) based Street Cabinets, formed part of Call Flow’s contract with the county council’s state aid fuelled Superfast Kent programme. Openreach (BT) sell SLU to ISPs, which gives providers access to a partial local loop and enables them to build their own FTTC cabinets. In this setup Openreach only remain responsible for the provision, maintenance and repair of the SLU circuit, while the cabinet and its services are controlled by the ISP.

The SLU approach was a bit of a middle-of-the-road solution and one that never really took off at scale, although a number of providers like Call Flow did deploy some small networks using the technology. The networks were typically focused on areas that had no plans for upgrades via any other solution.

However, this is now a problem for residents of Stansted and parts of Fairseat, which is because Trooli / Call Flow plan to close their FTTC network by the end of 2025, and they have no plans to replace it with their own FTTP infrastructure. This stems from Openreach and BT’s ongoing efforts to retire their legacy copper based phone (PSTN) and line rental (WLR) services,

A spokesperson for Trooli said (Kent Online):

“We have been in touch with a small number of customers whose broadband service is at threat from Openreach’s Wholesale Line Rental (WLR) switch-off.

These properties are part of a small group of Call Flow customers whose broadband uses an unusual type of connection which is reliant on Openreach’s copper network.

Whilst we have had no part in Openreach’s decision to switch off WLR, if it goes ahead as planned, it will no longer be possible for us to provide these properties with a broadband connection.

These customers were originally informed that their service would be switched off in May.

However, as the switch-off is not scheduled to take place until the end of the year, we have decided to use this time to continue our attempt to find an improved resolution with Openreach.

This postponement has been communicated to potentially impacted customers.

We will, of course, provide further updates to these customers and keep them updated on how our conversations with Openreach progress.”

Just to be clear, this doesn’t impact Openreach’s own national FTTC (VDSL2) network because the operator has invested to adapt it via SOGEA technologies for the modern digital age. In theory, Openreach could perhaps find a way to re-purpose the existing SLU cabinets into their own network, but that’s tricky and the operator has long since switched its focus to FTTP (i.e. FTTC solutions are on the way out and no longer being built).

A spokesperson for Openreach would only say that their “build plans are continually being updated“, before noting how “state-subsidised programmes like Project Gigabit are rolling out nationally“. But they currently have no clear plans for the two communities, which will push local homes and businesses back to ancient ADSL lines (these struggle to cope with the demands of the modern internet and many ISPs have already retired it).

In some areas it may be possible to get a viable mobile broadband (4G/5G) connection as an alternative, although rural performance is often a very mixed bag. At this point we’d normally suggest that another solution may come via Starlink’s (SpaceX) LEO satellite network. But the latter is an expensive proposition for many users and capacity issues mean that there’s currently a waitlist active in that area of the south east.

UPDATE 5:36pm

Openreach informs that the end of 2025 date is Trooli’s and they themselves aren’t planning to switch anybody off at that point (Openreach previously extended the WLR/PSTN withdrawal to Jan 2027 for vulnerable users). Trooli are running SLU SMPF, so if they are removing the broadband element by the end of this year – Openreach said there will still be a voice service.

The operator also confirmed that discussions were taking place between Trooli and Openreach about a possible solution for the broadband side, which we suspect might potentially end up being a migration of the lines from SMPF (shared unbundled) to MPF (fully unbundled). But it’s too early to go into details, and we don’t yet know if these discussions will result in a solution.