OTA2 Update for August 2012

At the end of August the number of unbundled lines stands at 8.48 million. There are 6.29 million WLR lines and the number of telephone numbers using CPS is 2.34 million.

‘Backstop’ SLG (Service Level Guarantee) for Appointed Orders

The SLG programme for Appointed Orders has been in place since 1st January of this year with a requirement for CP's to achieve a forecasting accuracy of 90% being applied since April. All forecasting CP’s have been regularly supplying forecasts and the overall process is now in a fairly mature state. In support of the payment process Openreach have now developed their strategic systems which are now in place providing accurate assessments of achieved orders against forecasts in order to calculate any SLGs payable. To support this process a number of KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) are in advanced stage of development and will be available soon. The main focus is now moving to supporting tasks that are aimed at improving the effectiveness of Openreach by identifying areas that could be improved with CP’s . These are known as the OTA2 tasks of which there are now eight;

1. Late Cancellations
2. Adoption of WLTO
3. Reduction in Forced Provides
4. Repeat Provision Visits
5. Repeat Repair Visits
6. Re-Appointing
7. Daily Appointing Process
8. Address Matching

These are currently being reviewed by the forecasting CP’s with a view to building an agreed top level plan for improvement.

Plan & Build

The Plan & Build Industry Forum is providing an effective vehicle for CPs to review Openreach delivery performance at a detailed level, allowing all participants ample opportunity to raise any specific issues which might warrant closer inspection.

At the next PBIF (4th Sept), we hope to finalise the Forum’s new ‘Terms of Reference’ which will now, amongst other things, incorporate the need to regularly review the ‘List’ of exchanges to be ‘proactively’ surveyed (i.e. in terms of Space & Power availability) by Openreach. This is one of their obligations under the BT Undertakings.

Ethernet Services

As previously reported there are concerns from the CPs who have undertaken testing of the EST platform with regards to functionality and usability.

Following a number of collaborative industry meetings Openreach have assessed the requirements arising from the feedback and have developed an action plan to correct the identified issues.

It has been agreed that the Ethernet Product and Commercial Group, which is the industry forum for the Ethernet Community will be jointly chaired by Richard Thorpe of Openreach and Rod Smith of OTA2 for the rest of this year in order to ensure that senior focus is brought to bear on some of the critical issues that face this vital community. This in no way reflects on the excellent work of the previous joint chairs – Adrian Hobbins of Exponential-e and Clayton Jones of Level 3 to whom we are extremely grateful.

Service Levels

Copper - The record rainfalls experienced throughout June & July have driven repair volumes to a level which has severely stretched Openreach’s resources. The average weekly fault rate was 14% higher in July 2012 than July 2011. Understandably, a higher priority is attached to tackling repair jobs and to getting the overall repair workstack down to a more manageable level. As a consequence, Openreach are having to re-direct a portion of their provisioning capacity to undertake repair activity and this has had a heavy negative impact on Copper Provisioning performance during this period.
Copper Lead to Cash (L2C-Provisioning) - Average lead-time for appointed provisions in the first week of August had increased to 20 days (versus 14 day SLA).

Openreach advise that they have a comprehensive recovery plan in place to tackle the fault levels, and continue to keep customers updated in the meantime via their web-site and specially arranged industry briefing sessions.
Ethernet provision – stable mean time to provide for next generation services and continued high performance against CDD SLA (committed delivery date), with some local delays in London and other Olympic sites due to roadwork embargoes
Ethernet repair – continued high level of performance versus SLA for all high volume products (legacy and next generation)

Our KPI charts show current performance levels.

Number Porting

The Number Porting Process & Commercial Group (NPP&CG) continues to grapple with serious industry-wide issues (process, operational and commercial), the net effect of which is causing material inconvenience to End Users (e.g. can’t port their numbers when switching suppliers) and significant cost of failure to CPs involved in handling porting requests (e.g. inefficient and overly complex process).

The growing list of participants at our NPP&CG meetings reflects the level of CP interest and commitment to make things better.

Openreach support of Business CPs

Following representations by a number of Business focused CPs regarding the way in which Openreach support such organisations, collaborative activity is now underway to develop a series of work streams to address issues such as KPIs, jeopardy management, process improvement etc.

NGNuk

Whilst not part of the OTA2 activity, NGNuk works in parallel and has traditionally focused on NGN interconnection issues. It has been proposed that the scope of activity for NGNuk be extended to cover:

End to end NGN ‘performance’ rather than just NGN interconnection since end to end ‘performance’ directly affects the user experience
The full set of services supported by NGN networks i.e. voice, data, video, IM, Chat etc rather than simply voice.
Co-ordination of CP approach to implementing existing agreed standards with a view to improve consistency of application and efficiency of end-to-end service performance for both CPs and End Users

OTA2 Industry Meetings

OTA2 has published the schedule of industry meetings for 2012. These are available via the ‘CP Info’ tab on this website.

OTA2 will continue to focus on:

New ‘backstop’ SLG for appointed orders
Address Data Matching Integrity issues
WLR/LLU Process development
Connectivity Services Process Development
Ethernet strategic Product review
Strategic Review of Consumer Switching
Erroneous Fixed Line Transfers activity
Fixed line porting - Improvements
Service levels (LLU/WLR/Ethernet)
Minimum Security Standards
PIA - Passive Infrastructure Access
VULA – Virtual Unbundled Line Access
Plan & Build Performance Issues
Plan & Build – new SLA/SLG scheme

Rod Smith