Statement: Quality of service for ethernet and dark fibre

Statement published 30 October 2023

Ofcom has decided to retain existing standards on Openreach’s quality of service for Ethernet and Dark Fibre repairs for the remainder of the control period.

As part of our 2021 review of wholesale fixed telecoms markets, we set Openreach annual minimum standards for repairs and installations, to ensure it provides the quality of service its customers need. Data provided by Openreach suggested that existing standards were becoming increasingly difficult to reach due to a change in the underlying fault mix. Following this, we proposed to replace the current ‘on-time repair’ measure with a ‘mean time to repair’ measure and standard.

However, having carefully considered responses to our consultation from multiple stakeholders, we have decided to retain the existing measure and standard. Overall, these are minimum standards that Openreach is expected to achieve and, while this may be challenging, it reflects the criticality to customers of ethernet and dark fibre services.

The decisions we have taken and our reasoning are set out in the statement below.