Openreach (BT) this week announced the launch of a new ‘Build to the Wall‘ (BTTW) trial for UK ISPs selling their gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network, which could increase the success rate of new provisions to homes by changing how they approach the final drop to homes.
As usual, the public briefing on this trial doesn’t say anything even remotely useful, and so we had to do some digging through the industry in order to try and figure out what Openreach were actually doing.
During a normal FTTP installation the fibre will typically be run from a Connectorised Block Terminal (CBT) on a pole (overground), or Toby Box in the pavement (underground), and taken to the external wall of your house. The fibre then gets drilled through to the inside wall, where it is connected up to their Optical Network Terminal (ONT) and that in turn is linked to your broadband router. Some final tests are then made.
Admittedly, the above explanation is a simplification of all that’s actually involved and sometimes tackling the final drop doesn’t go quite so smoothly, which may require further visits to remedy. So far as we can tell, the new trial seeks to improve the success rate for installs and thus the overall customer experience, partly by streamlining the process through two separate visits (this can already occur, but OR are going further).
The first visit would essentially focus on the outside work, such as taking the new fibre to the customer’s wall or Customer Splicing Point (CSP). The engineer will also test for the right optical light reading at the CSP to ensure success on the appointment date that has been booked (homeowners often won’t need to be present for the first visit). After that another appointment will be made for the in-home installation, which would see an engineer take the fibre inside and setup the ONT, router etc.
This seems to us like an approach that could increase the cost of service delivery for Openreach, although much may depend upon how much it impacts that crucial success rate. But as we understand it, Openreach may be seeking to combine this trial with new ways of working internally (i.e. increasing job density in geographical areas with multi-skilled teams).
Put another way, fewer engineers completing more jobs in a single day. In other words, if both trials are successful then their FTTP provisioning success rate would increase, while additional costs could be mitigated through greater efficiency. The trial will of course seek to test all of this, and to understand any resources/process implications for delivery.
Openreach have since informed us that the trial will run for 4 weeks, starting on 23rd August 2021, and will target around 600 residential orders. The two trial locations will be in Lancs & Merseyside and Manchester (Openreach will decide which). The trial is widely supported by ISPs.