Openreach to Pilot National UK Exchange Closure Plan in 5 Areas

Last year Openreach (BT) began consulting on their plans to close 4,600 exchanges across the United Kingdom as part of their move from copper to fibre optic based broadband ISP lines. The operator has today begun to consult on the first 5 pilot exchanges to go through this new mass-migration process.

Just to recap. At present Openreach has around 5,600 exchanges but only c.1,000 of these exchanges – so-called Openreach Handover Points (OHPs) – are used to provide nationwide coverage of modern “fibre broadband” based services (FTTC, FTTP and G.fast).

In other words, the rapidly increasing move toward fibre and IP-based phone connectivity had long been expected to result in the closure of many old exchanges, since fewer such hubs will be required to deliver the new services (i.e. as copper services are slowly withdrawn, then the number of exchanges will shrink). On top of that, it would quickly become economically unviable to support both the old and new exchanges together.

Such a process could take years to fully complete and requires long-term planning. As such, last year’s consultation initially aimed to shut at least 100 exchanges by December 2030 (here), with full decommissioning of all equipment to follow one year later. The process would then speed up until the other 4,500 had been completed during the early 2030s.

However, Openreach has today acknowledged that closing 100 as part of the first pilot might be a little too much, too soon for such a complex programme. Instead, today’s consultation is examining plans to develop and test approaches to mass-migrating their customers using five pilot exchanges.

The 5 Pilot Exchange Closures

Openreach propose to have 5 pilot exchanges, all of which will be ‘child’ exchanges. These are:

➤ Deddington, Oxfordshire
➤ Kenton Road, Greater London
➤ Carrickfergus, Ballyclare, Glengormley * – all in County Antrim, Northern Ireland

* All child exchanges served from the same parent, Whiteabbey exchange.

The pilot exchanges have been selected because they will have been announced as Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) stop sell exchanges by the beginning of the trial period, and have a good mix of ISPs and end customers. The pilots will begin in April 2022, with most stop sell implementations from June 2022 (excluding those not already covered by any FTTP stop sell), and final withdrawal in December 2023 (Deddington) and June 2024 (all other exchanges).

David Belcher, Openreach Strategy and Transformation Director, said:

“In December last year, we asked our Communications Provider customers for their views on plans to close 4,600 exchanges throughout the UK.

Today these exchanges support traditional copper-based phone and broadband but, as we upgrade the UK from analogue copper-based services to digital fibre-based ones, many exchanges will eventually become unviable for Openreach and Communication Providers (CPs) to operate from, so closing them down is a natural next step.

We initially proposed to focus on 100 exchanges where the benefits of closure are highest and we aim to close these buildings by December 2030, with most of the remaining 4,500 closing in the early 2030s – but we’re under no illusions that this is going to be a hugely complex programme to plan and deliver. We also know from speaking to CPs that these timescales will be challenging, so we’re now consulting them on plans to develop and test approaches to mass-migrating their customers using five pilot exchanges.

We’ll continue to work closely with our customers and the wider industry to develop our strategy and deliver a smooth digital upgrade throughout the UK.”

The removal of any exchange is a highly complex and long-winded task, and maintaining continuity of service for end customers will be a key part of all this. Potential areas of concern may also exist around those older exchanges that still support plenty of high-capacity leased lines or where other ISPs, such as Sky Broadband and TalkTalk, have invested to unbundle (LLU) in order to gain more control over their services.

On the flip side, Openreach are ultimately intending to prioritise exchanges where the potential benefits of exit are highest (e.g. those with very high running costs), and to focus on those first. But just to be clear, the operator will NOT be withdrawing exchanges in areas where doing so would leave existing customers disconnected (i.e. no fibre or FTTC alternatives).

We should add that a small number of OHP exchanges will also need to be consolidated into other OHP sites, which means that Openreach may well eventually end up with a total of around 960 OHPs.