Constant Group to Build Enclosures for Openreach’s UK Exchange Exit Programme
The Oldham-based Constant Group, which is a British single source solution provider for sheet metal fabrication – from telecom / broadband cabinets to POS displays, has secured a contract from Openreach (BT) to develop and deliver secure external enclosures as part of the operator’s nationwide Exchange Exit programme.
Just to recap. Openreach are currently gearing up to close around 4,600 of their 5,600 UK exchanges as part of their Exchange Exit Programme, which is occurring (mostly after 2030) because only c.1,000 of these are needed to provide nationwide coverage of modern “fibre broadband” services (FTTC / SOGEA, FTTP etc.) – the Openreach Handover Points (OHPs or “Super Digital Exchanges“). The rollout of full fibre (FTTP) technology, combined with the retirement of copper lines and legacy services (ADSL, WLR, PSTN etc.), will soon make it economically unviable to support both the old and new exchanges.
The “world-first” solution that the Constant Group has developed to assist this enables fibre circuits to be migrated from traditional exchange buildings into secure external enclosures through a highly controlled, plug-and-play process. The solution is intended to simplify and accelerate deployment, allowing pre-prepared units to be delivered directly to site for rapid installation.
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“The solution has successfully passed and exceeded all rigorous testing requirements set by Openreach, with installations and deliveries now underway,” said the announcement.
David Gilligan, CTO at Constant Group, said:
“This project represents a huge milestone for our business and a major step forward for UK telecommunications.
We are proud to have developed a world-first solution that supports Openreach’s long-term fibre network transformation strategy. The collaboration, innovation and engineering expertise behind this product has been exceptional, and to see deliveries and installations underway is a fantastic achievement for the entire team.”
Sadly, they didn’t include a picture of the new enclosures.
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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I wonder where these units will be put? If they are just outside the exchange then surely that makes it harder to sell the building if the new owner has to avoid these cabinets and the cables going to it.
Seems a strange solution.
Public highway outside so that cables can entirely bypass the land the exchange sits on. Given Openreach don’t own most of what they are selling they can’t leave a bunch of live cables and street furniture on private land they neither own or lease.
I’ve seen a video where they put one in a sectioned off area of the Exchange car park with big steel barriers around it.
Given that the Exchange buildings will more than likely be demolished losing a small area of a car park won’t make any difference.
BT haven’t owned most of their exchange buildings since selling them to Trillium on a 30 year leaseback scheme which is approaching expiry, hence the determination to close them before the scheme expires and rates skyrocket. Trillium know any buildings still required makes BT a captive customer and any buildings not required can still make money from transmitter infrastructure on the roof. The admin dealing with demolishing or disposing the site unless it’s in premium city centre locations is usually considered not commercially viable so the sites just sit there for years doing nothing.
Unattended external cabinets carrying wide scale F.O. links? What a target for malicious attackers. If these cabinets were underground that would be better albeit more difficult to maintain.
I have no doubt that intelligence gathering operatives will pinpoint every cabinet in order to disrupt UK comms – as they already have for exchanges at present.
I know it must be done however. I’m just a bit paranoid about national security.
This is presumably for a small amount of equipment that can’t easily be reparented to a retained exchange. I’d wonder if they’re thinking about copper, since that is very distance dependent, such as for the media gateways to support the remaining copper voice services. The headends for Openreach FTTC/FTTP will already be centered on the retained exchanges. This allows them to hand the rented buildings to the landlord, perhaps sooner than originally planned.
Anyone wanting to do damage can already do it (and people without malicious intent do it all the time with a wrongly placed JCB)
Why bother with targeting thousands of physical assets when they can compromise network providers’ systems to disrupt networks that way? Hacking is lower risk, cheaper, and has more deniability.
Some of this may involve powered equipment in the cabinets so can’t really bury that.
The passive stuff they could put it all underground in chambers however nothing stopping someone from opening the chamber, pouring something flammable in there and lighting it or taking a bolt cutter to it. These cabinets the chambers feeding them are far more vulnerable than they are.
When fibre leaves exchanges right now it goes into chambers outside where it may be damaged relatively easily. Resilient circuits enter the exchange via two different chambers from two different directions so path diversity.
The longer distance stuff relies on path diversity. Regeneration has to be done periodically and for most of our fibre networks at least some of that is done in cabinets. Arranging networks in rings tries to mitigate this.
Adversaries will be quite aware of fibre routes for most regular traffic, you could find them out pretty easily it’s not a big secret. The really interesting stuff is going to be harder to access.
Isn’t the point that there are no fibre circuits in the exchanges Openreach are exiting. The fibre comes from the OHPs, I presumed.
Is this not for residual circuits at the exchanges that are closing?
One potential issue, is that once the kit is moved out of the exchange, how does the power resilience change. I know at least some rural exchanges had backup generators, I’m not sure how universal and if third party operators used them. Certainly battery backup is better than nothing, but also isn’t close to a generator (with appropriate fuelling and maintenance contracts)for long power cuts
It’s still the way I tell in the middle of the night if a power cut is just my place or more widespread. Nip along to the exchange and hear if the generator has going.
Fibre circuits being relocated, so basically splice cabinets, then