Openreach Full Fibre special offer
July 1, 2021
By Colin Mann
UK digital infrastructure provider Openreach has revealed a special offer for its wholesale Communications Provider (CP) customers that it says gives them long-term price certainty on its FTTP (Fibre-to-the-Premises) technology. Openreach is seeking to drive widespread adoption of ultrafast, ultra-reliable full fibre broadband.
The new offer has been developed after extensive engagement with its customers and aims to encourage adoption of the new technology through the following set of principles:
- Commitment: where CPs choose to purchase from Openreach they commit to using FTTP wherever it is available (including new provides and technology regrades) – rather than older services such as those based on Fibre-to-the-Cabinet or purely copper technology – with no volume or migration targets.
- Pricing certainty: Openreach will give pricing certainty for up to 10 years in return for this ‘stop-sell’ commitment
- Simplicity: A single national rental price will apply to the entire Openreach FTTP footprint
- Competitive prices: Prices will be competitive whilst offering a fair return for Openreach. CPs can tailor offers across a range of speed tiers and take-up of higher bandwidths will be encouraged with further rebates, whilst pricing is set by Ofcom on the lowest speed tier (40Mbps upstream, 10Mbps downstream).
The offer will be open for participation between October 1st 2021 and March 30th 2022. The long-term pricing certainty will last until September 30th 2031 and be available across the entire FTTP footprint. Discounts are available to CPs where they choose to place new orders with Openreach and commit to making a percentage of those on the FTTP network, where available.
“Nobody’s building Full Fibre broadband faster, further, or at a higher quality than Openreach, and we’re well on track to reach 25 million premises by December 2026,” asserted Katie Milligan, Managing Director of Customer, Commercials and Propositions at Openreach. “At the same time, we’re determined to make Full Fibre the default option for customers throughout the UK, so we’ve been working closely with Communications Providers to offer simple and competitive pricing which gives them the long-term certainty and flexibility they need.”
“We believe this offer makes Full Fibre a must-have for every home and business, and it means more people could start benefitting from our most revolutionary and reliable broadband sooner,” she concluded.
More than one million homes and businesses have now ordered ultrafast, ultra-reliable full fibre broadband over the Openreach network. BT is investing £15 billion to build the gigabit-capable technology to 25 million UK premises by December 2026 and it is making the technology available to 43k premises every week, with more than five million homes and businesses already able to place an order.