Telecommunications Adjudicator update for January 2024

An update on the principle areas of project activity being led by OTA2 in January 2024.

See the latest charts

At the end of January 2024, the number of unbundled lines stands at 6.40 million. There are 2.33million WLR lines and the number of telephone numbers using CPS is 0.93 million. *

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

Passive infrastructure access

Operational performance remains good.

New work stream opening on Whereabouts compliance, working on developing a meaningful measurement set and rules for addressing non-compliance.

Active workstreams currently running to improve the product and its usability for CPs are:

• Health & Safety and good working practices
• NA Evidence and quality documentation for CPs to able to instruct their field resources.
• Connecting Customers
• Incident Management
• Multiple Network Adjustment orders for the same blockage.
• Whereabouts compliance

Ethernet

Performance remains steady.

The overall order profile remains consistent with previously reported volumes. Overall order intake is lower on an annualised basis, with EAD orders c5% up but the other portfolio products dropping back. Order intake is C1300 which is lower than previous months.

Completion rate of c1100 orders per week has continued through January. The workstack is now stabilising at around 20k.

Areas of interest

EAD2 industry engagement has been progressing and a new industry forum has been launched looking at the technical and systems elements. The Product and Commercials will be covered at the EPCG & the Process and customer interface elements will be covered at the IWG.

Transflex phase 2 – Information sharing and embedding the use of Transflex into orders. The development is underway, industry is awaiting the delivery to start their integration and process work.

Copper and fibre

Industry engagement to review FTTP metrics is continuing and will run through to late summer. The expectation is that the metric set will include some of the existing measures and also metrics currently shared by the service managers with CPs. The aim is to define a set of Key Performance Indicators which are appropriately supported, relevant and recognised by Openreach and Industry and which will effectively track the end customer experience. Good progress has been made regarding reviewing the KCI2 Assure process utilised on complex FTTP provisions with the intent of improving the customer experience, increasing certainty and thereby reducing pre-installation cancellations and a trial of the agreed approach commences end-January.

Discussions have commenced on an SLG for FTTP cancellations following Openreach delay. This is being run under the 6-month WFTMR process. Openreach have requested that CPs demonstrate a causal link between an Openreach miss or delay and customer cancellations.

All-IP Steering Group

Ofcom wrote to some CPs at the end of 2023 regarding their responsibilities towards vulnerable customers with telecare alarms and made the statement that no telecare device must be left in a none working state post migration. In view of this CPs have stopped provision orders where a telecare alarm is present and Openreach is returning any that slip through the order process. This has caused a level of customer dissatisfaction and CPs and Openreach are working together to seek to identify where it might be appropriate to apply a changed process to support the Ofcom statement.

The Ofcom statement regarding not leaving telecare not working has implications for the planned “On-the-Day" process due to be launched July 2024, which would have allowed specialist appointments for telecare. This was predicated on handing faults associated with the telecare compatibility issues over to the telecare provider to resolve and for the user to be picked up under the providers safe-guarding procedures.  The on-the-day development will now be to be rescoped to allow for a full reversion of the line, so launch is unlikely in 2024.

Openreach received comprehensive feedback to the Exchange Exit Con’ Doc’. Openreach published their initial feedback in December confirming the strategic direction of the programme. They remain confident that they are on track for a further update addressing the commercial issues raised by industry, during March 2024.

Customer switching

Whilst awaiting the revised date for OTS deployment, the IPG (Industry Process Group) continue to investigate and develop solutions for exception events within the OTS process, alongside enhancing Best Practice guides.

OTA2’s bilateral engagement with CPs and Network Providers also continues, as these parties develop and test their solutions ahead of OTS adoption, assessing options to move through trial and into full functionality.

Business switching solution development and technical specification, with OTA2 support, continues to progress through the various forums, under the governance of GPLB-SG and GPLB-PG (Gaining Provider Led Business – Steering Group and Process Group). With a stable baseline design in place, focus is now moving to address anticipated issues that business switching may encounter, that are outside of the normal process flows.

Number porting

The focus for the next months will be on OTS Porting, ensuring the solution supports both vertically integrated CPs and the more complex supply chains involving wholesalers. There will also be a review of Ofcom’s “Calling Line Identification (CLI) authentication assessment and future roadmap” statement, and what impacts this may have on future Number Porting development.

Service levels

Copper and fibre provision

Openreach FAD (First Available Appointment Date) performance nationally, over the 5-day period ending 5 February 2024 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 a steady trend for LLU and a slight drop for WLR, achieving a 4-week rolling average of 85.1% and 80.1% respectively, by week ending 02 February 2024.

*The figures quoted exclude BT downstream connections

Signed David Halliday