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13|04|06

Broadband - switching, migration and connection processes

Ofcom today announced it has begun work to assess the effectiveness of industry-wide processes which enable consumers to sign up to, and switch between, broadband providers.

Broadband is one of the fastest-growing new consumer technologies in recent years. Every week more than 80,000 households install a new broadband connection; across the UK, around ten million households now benefit from high-speed, always-on internet services.

The broadband market continues to expand, with new providers - particularly those unbundling the local loop to take full control of the line between the customer's house and the exchange - planning to offer a range of services including high speed data connections, broadband television, video-on-demand and voice over the internet.

As the market enters a new phase of growth - with greater diversity in types of service, provider and pricing - providers will increasingly seek to attract competitors' existing broadband customers as well as households which are new to broadband. In turn, consumers will depend on reliable and seamless switching processes to exercise choice and benefit from competition in next-generation broadband services.

Current migration systems - using established industry procedures - have evolved to meet the needs of a relatively young market. However, as competition - and switching - grows, it is important to ensure that transfer processes are sufficiently robust to support the increased complexity and mass-market scale associated with next-generation broadband access, particularly over unbundled local loops. Ofcom will therefore seek to build on work already underway to assess current migration processes, and will consider whether those existing systems are sufficient to meet the future needs of consumers and industry.

In doing this, Ofcom will work with internet service providers and Openreach (the separate business unit set up by BT Group plc to ensure all providers benefit from equal access to critical network infrastructure) to examine how customer accounts and connections are currently acquired, terminated and handed over to a competing provider. Ofcom will also begin an enquiry into BT Wholesale's management of underlying line ownership and transfer systems.

Ends.

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