Telecommunications Adjudicator update for August 2025

At the end of August 2025, the number of unbundled lines stands at 4.07 million. There are 1.26 million WLR lines and the number of telephone numbers using CPS is 0.45 million.  *

The following is an update on the principal areas of project activity being led by OTA2.

Passive Infrastructure Access

Demand remains flat and operational performance remains good.

Unauthorised Use: Good progress on getting the contractual changes in place to allow all parties to move to a recovery phase. Both sides have leaned in to get a resolution.

Incident & Planned Works Management: We continue to monitor how this embeds into the process of Openreach/CP interaction.

Beyond Build: The focus areas have been agreed with both Openreach and CPs - OT2 to now shape a priority and structure plan. Workshops will be planned for late September/ early October.

Other areas of interest:

• Health & Safety and good working practices
• Connecting Customers

Ethernet

Performance is good. The order profile remains subdued, compared year on year it is circa 8% lower. The workstack has dropped well below 17k, which begins to raise some challenges with fluidity and the impact on reporting. Planning performance forKCI1.1 at day 6/8 is extremely low at 42%, there is some question around the validity of this as a measure with the advent of Quick Wins and more so Swift where orders are completing on average in 10 days. KCI2 remains extremely close to the target of 70% at 69%. If the quick win deliveries are added the outcome is 77%. Overall, the delivery performance looks very good.

The validity of the reporting KPI suite is being questioned by industry. There are three distinct lenses to view performance through and it is apparent that there is a growing challenge of ensuring that the shared measure set is truly reflective of the area it is setting out to portray.

Areas of interest:

EAD2:  Good progress on getting to the trial stage of development.

Exchange Exit: A growing number of CPs have now signed up for the commercial offer. The next stage is to get trials underway to prove the new hardened process for migration and to test the scheduling of circuit cutover.

Copper and Fibre

A collaborative review of KCI2 Assure continues between industry and Openreach. Several areas of focus have been agreed.  Openreach anticipate an improved performance over the remainder of the FY. The aspirational targets for this have been communicated to industry. A further workshop is planned for early Autumn to review progress and of ongoing trials.

Industry engagement to develop a set of customer centric FTTP metrics has been completed with 8 FTTP metrics agreed between CPs and Openreach.  These metrics, plus the initial targets (where applicable) will be communicated via the CFPCG and SMF in September, then reported monthly to SMF and quarterly to CFPCG.  The discussions to agree the 2026/27 targets will commence end Q4 2025.

A further draft Best Practice Guide to support Business Standard orders has been circulated to Industry for comment and it is hoped this will be agreed during September. CPs have flagged some remaining concerns regarding information flow, which Openreach are reviewing.

All-IP Steering Group

Openreach deployed its UK WLR Stop Sell in September 2023 with limited exemptions, permitting orders of WLR lines in scenarios where the equivalent All-IP product or product variant were either not yet available, or not fully consumed across the supply chain. These exemptions were removed in March 2025. Industry will however be able to place WLR3 orders in exceptional circumstances to support CNI and vulnerable customers. However, Openreach plan to withdraw these exceptions during 2025. Openreach received some late industry feedback which affected the timetable, but this will be formally briefed out shortly.

The Prove Telecare pilot is nearing completion and it is expected that Openreach will announce the launch date shortly.

OTA2 has voiced some concerns regarding both Industry and Openreach understanding of the complexity of the migration task for the remaining businesses on WLR.  

Customer Switching

The volume of OTS (One Touch Switching) completed orders have now passed the 1.5 million mark, all since launch less than 12 months ago.  More information can be found at the TOTSCo website: Hub Operations Info - TOTSCo. OTA2 continue to work closely with TOTSCo and CPs through various fora and bilateral channels to improve adherence to the OTS process, helping to promote and consolidate Best Practices across all parties.  

TETP (Tactical Erroneous Transfer Process) is still in use and although the volumes of issues are comparatively low, CPs can still do more to avoid these being encountered and are encouraged to consider recommendations in OTA2 published Best Practice guides which can be found on our website www.offta.org.uk/best-practice-guide in the ‘Consumer Switching’ section

All TETP documents can be found on the OTA2 website, under Best Practice Guidance – Consumer Switching, including the registration template for any CP wishing to join.

OTS Porting

The Test Case set for OTS Porting has now been fully reviewed and updated, and is now with the members of the OTS Porting Focus Group (chaired by OTA2) for their final consideration. Once brought to issue it will be published as part of the Number Porting document library.         

Business Switching

The GPLB-SG (Gaining Provider Led Business - Steering Group, which is OTA2 co-chaired) and GPLB-IPG (Industry Process Group) have up-issued a comprehensive suite of ‘Switching for Business’ documentation, including Process V3.0, Message Specification 1.0.0, Response codes V3.0, Matching Guidance V1.0, Principles V7.0 and much more. All of which can be found on the Gaining Provider Led Business Switching public - FCS website, which does not require registration to view the published documents.

These documents are now under formal change control and will not be modified without due process, authorisation and communication.   

Number Porting

The August OTA2 chaired NPESG (Number Porting Executive Steering Group)discussed the recent Ofcom investigation and action related to the provision of accurate caller location information to emergency services, and how all CPs should check their solutions to ensure this is being achieved consistent with their obligations under General Conditions, especially when discharging their duties via a 3^rd party as the obligation remains with the CP. This will be discussed in more depth and at an ‘operational’ level in the upcoming NPPCG session, with a subject matter expert from BT’s Emergency Services team present to assist with guidance and suggestions.   

Service Levels

Copper and Fibre provision

Openreach FAD (First Available Appointment Date) performance nationally, over the 5-day period ending 25 August 2025 was as follows: 

Notes:

1. MI and SI are Managed-Install and Self-Install orders
2. FTTC is Fibre to the cabinet
3. FTTP is Fibre to the premises
4. SOGEA is Single Order Generic Ethernet Access
5. GFAST is Fibre-base Ultrafast Broadband

Copper repair

LLU and WLR ‘on time repair’ performance has seen an upward trend for LLU but downward for WLR, achieving a 4-week rolling average of 83.8% and 65.6% respectively, by week ending 22 August 2025.

*The figures quoted exclude BT downstream connections