Telecommunications Adjudicator update for July 2023

An update on the principle areas of project activity being led by OTA2 in July 2023.

See the latest charts

At the end of July 2023, the number of unbundled lines stands at 6.99 million. There are 2.95 million WLR lines and the number of telephone numbers using CPS is 1.48 million.  *

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

Passive Infrastructure Access

Health and Safety, and good working practice continues to require attention across industry. We continue to see instances of poor working practices which could expose both engineers and the general public to risk.

Operational performance remains good.

The Incident Management Framework is continuing to develop. The document has been re written to include feedback from CPs at the June workshop. Openreach are developing plans to begin adapting the JSV processes to bring them into line with the Incident Management thinking. This will be shared with CPs in due course.

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

• NA Evidence and quality documentation for CPs to able to instruct their field resources.
• Connecting Customers
• Incident Management

Ethernet

Performance remains steady. Order intake remains high c1550 per week with a slightly over 25% fallout to cancellation and a completion rate of c1100 orders per week.

The workstack has seen a slight decrease and seems to have settled at just over 20k. Fluidity of the workstack remains a key area of focus for Openreach c60% non-fluid.

Areas of interest

Order Quality – Front desk order quality and setting standards.

Transflex phase 2 – Information sharing and embedding the use of Transflex into orders.

Survey Tools – getting the most out of customer surveys.

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. Work has also commenced to review the KCI2 Assure process utilised on complex FTTP provisions with a view to improving the customer experience and thereby reducing pre-installation cancellations.

Openreach intends to launch SOTAP nationally once the agreed target of 400 successful orders is met. To support achieving this volume Openreach will extend the SOTAP pilot terms nationally. The national launch is targeted for August 2023, however, if 400 successful orders are not achieved Openreach propose to continue with the pilot status nationally, using launch process to ensure capabilities are in place.

All-IP Steering Group

Within the Salisbury and Mildenhall trials, non-migrated customers have had their service degraded. Openreach is currently working with industry to assess the risks associated with the cessation of services planned for October and how to mitigate these.

National Stop-sell for WLR remains on track for 05 September 2023. There will initially be some exemptions, largely associated with where Openreach has not completed the delivery of a planned equivalent All-IP product.

Openreach has published its Consultation document on how it proposes to exit 103 priority exchanges by 2030. Industry has been requested to respond by 21 September 2023.

Openreach remains on track to deliver the SoR which supports the migration of analogue lines to All-IP, where a telecare alarm is located at the customer premises in late Q4 2023, however CP consumption is unlikely to occur until 2024.

Consumer Switching

The revised Ofcom General Conditions (GCs) mandating this process came into effect on 3 April 2023, although industry has not yet been in a position to implement OTS.

Industry and TOTSCo (www.totsco.org.uk) continue to work to agree and publish a timeline for delivery of OTS and the supporting Hub technology, along with proposals for on-boarding of Retailers (Consumer facing Communications Providers), billing and service support.

OTA2 maintain close engagement with Industry and TOTSCo, supporting both through a number of initiatives.

In the revised Ofcom GC’s effective from 3 April 2023, Ofcom have directed that switching for Business customers must follow a Gaining Provider Lead (GPL) process, though unlike Consumer switching, there is no mandate of a specific process, only that Industry should adopt agreed ‘Best Practice’

The Gaining Provider Lead Business Steering Group (GPLB-SG), with a membership that represents a cross-section of the parties involved in Business Communications service provision and switching has an active website, available for all at: www.fcs.org.uk/gaining-provider-led-business-switching/ where CPs can find Process documentation, FAQs and more.

Number Porting

The NPESG and NPPCG continue to consider what improvements should be made to the Porting process, which has been running for over 20 years, seeking to identify opportunities for improvement and simplification within the existing framework and processes.

Number Porting is also not immune from the changes to switching (OTS and GPLB) and the fora are continuing to respond to this, considering how best to complement the switching processes.

Supplier of Last Resort

The increasingly complex trading and supply structure adopted for VoIP (aka All-IP) services has highlighted the need for a review of the existing SoLR (Supplier of Last Resort) processes, which has been given more prominence due to the current economic climate. OTA2 are working closely with Industry, drawing on their expertise and knowledge, to both better define the problem statement and identify potential solutions.

Service Levels

Copper & Fibre Provision

Openreach FAD (First Available Appointment Date) performance nationally, over the 5-day period ending 30 July 2023 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 slight downward trend for LLU and WLR, achieving a 4-week rolling average of 85.7% and 81.7% respectively, by week ending 21 July 2023.

Ethernet

Due to the performance data not being available this month, the Ethernet KPI charts have not been updated.

*The figures quoted exclude BT downstream connections

Signed David Halliday