Openreach Temporarily Withdraw Multiport ONT on UK FTTP Broadband Lines
Network access provider Openreach (BT) has informed UK broadband ISPs that they will be “temporarily withdrawing” the provision of their Multiport Optical Network Terminal (ONT) device and the related Box Swap service (i.e. replacing an existing / older ONT with a new Multiport ONT). The move is due to some “technical issues experienced” by providers.
Just for some context. The ONT or optical modem device is usually installed inside your home or office, near to where the fibre optic cable physically enters your property, and its primary job is simply to take the optical signal and convert it into an electrical one that can be connected to your broadband router via a Local Area Network (Ethernet) port. The standard ONT is usually a very small single port device.
Back in May 2024 Openreach moved to introduce a new Nokia based multiport ONT service on FTTP lines for those who need it (here), which was useful for education sites, libraries, post offices, petrol stations, hotels and more. But this appeared to create some technical issues for broadband ISPs using services on multiport ONTs installed on both Nokia and Huawei based head end exchanges.
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The network operator is currently working on a fix for these issues with the vendors and has decided to temporarily withdraw provision of the service, which will run for 6 months from 13th December 2025 to 13th June 2026. Any multiport orders which receive KCI2 prior to 13th December 2025 will still go ahead and replacements of already deployed multiport ONTs will also continue, but those are the main exceptions.
Openreach has also been conducting trials with a new Adtran based multiport ONT in Northern Ireland and Ipswich, which will continue through this pause. Further details in the briefing.
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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No real loss. I found it impossible to be able to order one, even with ‘prosumer’ ISPs!
agreed – I was thinking about getting one and having a seperate service (business line) for things like working from home etc.
not sure how it’s achieved. as you say you can’t order one so…
I don’t quite understand the point of those. Wouldn’t a router + switch do the job?
No, the ONT is the Optical Network Termination, which means it also decrypts the signal, you can have more than one service over the fibre line and a multiple port ONT is required to decrypt multiple services. The ONT receives everybody else’s service on that fibre branch, hence the decryption that needs to be done.
The idea is if for instance you had a house that had been split into multiple flats you would have 1 on these and a single fibre coming into the property then each flat could have its own Internet connection from the single ONT, potentially with different ISPs.
Ah. So they are going adtran after a number of folk on here in the past mocked Altnets for using their kit.
Playing catchup again…..
LOL.
Why did people knock them?
The ONT is something that the majority of people don’t touch, mine have been left on since I had FTTP and the only times I turned It off is when I stuck a smart plug with an energy usage monitor on it as I wanted to be nosy about how much electric it used and then off again when I took the plug of it.
For most people what ONT a network uses matters not, I have an adtran and it has been fine, over 2 years now. The thing that people will touch, well some, is the router.
A ONT just converts the optical signal to a wired digital signal, okay it is more complex than that, but that is the best way of describing it.
Oh well.
Openreach has used Adtran for years. I would guess they have more Adtran out there than anyone else even though it is merely a portion of their massive, industry leading network.
I’m not sure what you consider to be “mockery”. I know I’ve wondered why some altnets have weird interop issues that Openreach don’t have with equipment of similar lineage, but that is not “mocking” anyone.
They’ve been installing Adtran OLTs since since 2020. They also use Adtran’s optical networking products. They pass more homes with Adtran equipment than everyone else in the UK combined. A third of their installed FTTP network and about half of all their FTTP equipment installs are Adtran.
I just want an ONT as an SFP module. Why we can’t have this by now is unfathomable.
Because almost nobody wants them and they are much more costly to support. And that’s before all the testing issues that arise when getting a SFP to work with a wide range of potential host devices.
You can. You just have to bring your own.
Given the lack of them is unfathomable certainly don’t seem many places in the world where PON operators routinely supply them.
Ironically, a SFP ONT would probably a good solution for some cases where a multiport ONT is required. Pair it with a suitable switch, deliver the different services on different VLANS and you can have as many ONT ports as you can get ports on a switch, with the flexibility to have groups of ports for each service, rather than just one, if you want.
Of course, that only works if you have a competent customer to configure the switch, or can send out the ONT / switch preconfigured with a locked configuration to avoid the inevitable support nightmare that would otherwise ensue.
I have one of the old Huawei 4-port ONUs and ordering a second service on it caused the first to completely stop working. BT insisted on wasting time sending out engineers twice rather than fix the provisioning problem, and all the engineers could do was call their contact centre to try and get someone there to look at it.
The whole process has me at the point that I will never change the services on that ONU until I cease them. The next service I needed, I ordered a new singleport ONU for… which kept failing as people were parking their cars on a chamber two villages away!
so if I ordered fttp (1gb) which model of ONT would i receive?