Openreach has no idea of altnet 'whereabouts' as rules go ignored

An engineer climbs the pole, attaches a fiber cable to equipment on top and then runs it to a box at the side of the home. The basic process will have been witnessed by anyone in the UK who has signed up to a full-fiber service provided over one of the telegraph poles owned by Openreach, the networks part of former telecom monopoly BT. Far less visible to people outside the industry are the rules companies should follow whenever they access Openreach assets. Each time an organization ascends a pole or enters a subterranean duct, it is supposed to notify Openreach through a system called "whereabouts." But compliance levels are abysmal.

One estimate shared with Light Reading by an authoritative source puts current industry-wide compliance at between 55% and 60%. And the real level could be much lower. Under a poorly enforced system, telecom providers submit notifications of interest (NOIs) whenever they plan to access Openreach's physical infrastructure assets (PIA). These generate automatic codes for supplying whereabouts details such as geographical coordinates and time of work. But there should be multiple whereabouts notifications under the same NOI if a provider accesses facilities more than once. The 55% to 60% figure simply measures NOIs that have generated at least a single whereabouts.

Poor rates of compliance have become a huge concern, and not just for Openreach. The opening of PIA to companies besides BT has brought dozens of "altnets" into the UK broadband market. As a result, more companies than ever before are sharing the same critical infrastructure. The risk of damage is inevitably higher than it once was. Openreach and police authorities want traceable records to be maintained. Many of the altnets whose equipment is regularly exposed to rivals are just as keen to see whereabouts rules enforced.

Openreach now plans a clampdown starting in October on companies in breach of those rules. It is targeting an industry-wide compliance rate of 90% and has already written to numerous providers that are below this threshold, asking them to explain how they will make improvements. Penalties are expected to follow, including fines if an NOI is not accompanied by the appropriate number of whereabouts notifications. The financial impact on some providers could be substantial.

This, at least, is what parts of the industry now anticipate from their own correspondence with Openreach, which has not said anything in public about penalties such as fines. "Whilst we'll pursue stricter contractual options if they're needed, we'd prefer not to have to enforce them and we're not commenting on what those might be at this stage," said a spokesperson by email.

Neos under fire

On paper, one of the worst offenders is Neos Networks, a broadband operator active in the business as opposed to residential sector. During a recent messaging exchange with other PIA customers, a record of which Light Reading obtained, a Neos representative revealed his company was at 0% compliance, saying it "will never be able to meet the metrics" before joking that "fake whereabouts are the ONLY way we can achieve compliance."

The company's defense is that new Openreach requirements have made compliance much harder. "In April, Openreach revised the requirements for whereabouts reporting," said Neos by email in response to Light Reading's approach. "According to the new rules, any provider using BT's physical infrastructure assets (PIA) for builds under 1km must report their whereabouts three times, while builds over 1km must be reported seven times."

"This presents significant daily reporting for any company," it continued. "Before this change, Neos Networks was 80% compliant with whereabouts reporting, and the company is eager to find a solution so that we can complete the reporting as quickly as possible."

But Openreach denies anything has changed, saying "PIA customers have had a long time to get up to speed and implement" its rules. Others in the industry agree. Speaking on condition of anonymity, one source outside both Openreach and Ofcom, the UK regulator, said the only change is that rules are now being enforced, and enforced to the letter.

What Openreach recently appears to have done, in response to feedback from altnets, is lay down some guidelines about the number of whereabouts it would expect to see for an NOI of a given scope. But the basic requirement, according to this source, has always been the same – a provider should generate a whereabouts notification each time it accesses the asset.

Nobody knows where you are

Neos is obviously not the only company well below the 90% threshold, and it says many others, including "smaller altnets and larger infrastructure providers," also find compliance with Openreach's standards difficult. The sympathetic view is that there has at the very least been a lack of clarity about the basic system Openreach will use to measure rates of compliance, which vary dramatically from one provider to another.

Better-known providers directly approached by Light Reading were unwilling or unable to disclose their current levels of compliance. Virgin Media O2 (VMO2), the UK's second-biggest infrastructure provider, said it met Openreach's requirements over the last reporting period but failed to answer a follow-up question by email asking if this meant it was at 90% or more.

CityFibre, an altnet backed by Goldman Sachs, is also reckoned to have a low rate of compliance. It did not supply a figure when asked for one by Light Reading, and argued that numbers cited by Openreach are too low. "CityFibre is by far the biggest user of PIA and we work extremely closely with Openreach, including on its compliance metrics which we believe can significantly under-report compliance which continues to improve across the industry," said a company spokesperson by email.

Critics of these organizations insist the process for reporting whereabouts is not onerous. To make submitting whereabouts easier, Openreach has now released application programming interfaces that link to its systems. One provider equips field technicians with company iPads featuring the relevant application, so that details can be uploaded as and when infrastructure is accessed. Information can also be sent manually, via a bulk upload, on a daily or weekly basis.

This begs the question: Why are rates so low? One argument is that many providers fear whereabouts disclosures could expose them to claims for property damage. Accordingly, they had no incentive to be compliant when Openreach was not enforcing its rules. Compliance merely increases liability risk.

An emerging gripe is that Openreach is not held to the same high standards and does not publish or disclose its own compliance rates. Openreach argues that it cannot track altnet engineers in the way it can monitor its own staff. But competitors are known to be upset that Openreach employees, including the same contractors available to altnets, can access shared facilities and risk causing damage without having to record it as VMO2, CityFibre or Neos would. Openreach's role as both rival and enforcer is surely a conflict of interest, they say. For Ofcom, it is yet another competition concern to ponder.

Update: This story has been modified since it was first published to include an Openreach quote indicating it has not made any public comments about fines or other penalties.