Our Charter
The decade since Openreach was created has ushered
in dramatic change, as people have moved from a
voice to an online world. As the internet has become
a must-have essential, so our digital infrastructure
has taken on a new importance. We’re proud to
have brought the benefits of fibre broadband to the
vast majority of Britain and we remain ambitious for
our nation’s digital future. The Openreach Charter
summarises our aspirations, the investment we’re
putting into our digital future and how we’re raising
standards to meet the demands of consumers and
businesses both today, and in the future. I hope you
will enjoy reading about how we are Building Britain’s
Connected Future.
Joe Garner, CEO Openreach
22 September 2015
Coverage
We aspire to go beyond the UK’s 95% target for fibre broadband
Speed
We will work to provide the speed people need, including our proposal
to give 10 million homes and businesses access to ultrafast broadband
by the end of 2020
Service
We will raise our service standards, offering quicker installations
and faster fixes
Trusted Partner
We will be a trusted partner for communications providers,
continuing to guarantee fair and equal treatment for all
Contribution to our community
We will make a difference to the communities we serve, inspiring
over half our people to become volunteers in the community
Investment
We will invest to sustain Britain’s digital leadership
Coverage
We aspire to go beyond the UK’s 95% target for fibre
broadband
Our progress
Over 23 million properties have access to our fibre broadband network, including
3 million that were part-funded by Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK). Take-up
has exceeded 20% in many areas, releasing additional BDUK funds for local
authorities to reinvest in extending coverage even further. We’re committed to
helping the Government achieve 95% fibre coverage by the end of 2017. We
aspire to go further, although reaching the last 5% will require collaboration
between industry, Government and the regulator.
Our plans
Bringing faster broadband to all remains our priority and we stand ready to
support the Government and work in partnership to close the remaining gap,
through a ‘staircase of initiatives’ using new technologies and funding schemes:
■■ We will work with BDUK and local authorities to take fibre further,
optimising the take-up dividend in BDUK areas. We estimate reinvesting
the £130 million take-up dividend will take us well on our way to delivering
up to 1% additional coverage
■■ We will also do all we can to optimise any future dividend funds, to take fibre
to as many additional homes and businesses as possible
■■ Our ambition is for all new property developments to have a fibre broadband
solution from Openreach. We will continue to work closely with Government
and developers on policies to achieve this and co-funding models in
some cases
■■ We will improve and accelerate our co-funding scheme to connect
communities, and extend it to small business parks
■■ We will continue to innovate, creating technology solutions that help to
bring high speed fibre broadband to hard-to-reach communities
■■ We will make available the most up-to-date information on current
and future availability of fibre broadband
Speed
We will work to provide the speed people need, including
our proposal to give 10 million homes and businesses
access to ultrafast broadband by the end of 2020
Our progress
Thanks in large part to the Openreach fibre optic network, Britain is the
leading internet economy in the G20 and leads the top five EU economies on
most key measures of coverage, take-up, use and competition. The average
broadband speed has risen 20-fold in ten years to an average 23Mb/s (more
than enough for three different high definition video streams), and will rise
rapidly as people opt in to fibre and other faster technologies. We already
deliver ultrafast speeds through fibre to the premises and are now trialling
ultrafast fibre, using G.fast technology, working with 8 communications
providers and over 4,000 of their customers.
Our plans
We will introduce innovative technologies to continue to improve speeds:
■■ We will offer to upgrade 400,000 homes with slow copper lines, in fibre
areas, with a special offer giving a ‘stepping stone to fibre’
■■ We propose to deliver ultrafast speeds of 300-500 Mb/s to 10 million
homes and businesses by the end of 2020, with speeds of 1 Gb/s available
where there is demand
■■ In 2016, we will begin our rollout of ultrafast broadband at speeds of
up to 300Mb/s, rising up to 500 Mb/s, using our G.fast technology
■■ We will also continue to build fibre to the premises (FTTP), taking
ultrafast speeds to more homes
■■ We will launch a 1Gb/s ultrafast service, providing an alternative for
smaller businesses who don’t require Ethernet, as well as for high
bandwidth consumers
Service
We will raise our service standards, offering quicker
installations and faster fixes
Our progress
In the last 18 months, we have invested in improving service, hiring
3,000 engineers to deliver services, where and when customers want them.
We can now offer new customers an appointment within 12 days in 98.5%
of cases, versus 67% two years ago. We’re fixing faults 7 hours faster than
two years ago, with on-time repair improving by 6% in the last year. And
we’re offering more flexible appointment times. Last year we exceeded all
60 minimum service levels set by Ofcom, in every region of the UK, and
complaints have halved. As the service level targets increase, our ambition is
to do much better than these minimums. We continue to expand our range of
services and products, increasing customer choice. If we get it wrong and miss
agreed service levels, we pay compensation to our communications provider
customers.
Our plans
We will improve reliability, transparency and customer choice. If things go
wrong we will fix them quickly and keep customers informed:
For Business customers:
■■ We will increase the number of new Ethernet circuit connections by
over 30% versus last year
■■ We will continue to significantly increase our speed of service delivery
and improve our on-time installations
■■ We are committed to introducing Ethernet minimum service levels and
are actively working with Ofcom to agree future service levels that meet
the needs of communications providers and business customers
For Consumer and SME customers we will:
Raise our service standards and reliability
■■ We aim to do much better than the rising standards already set by Ofcom
■■ We aim to achieve on-time installations of 95% by 2017, working with
our communications provider customers
■■ We will continue to invest in innovation and network maintenance to
reduce our network fault rate
Provide greater choice
■■ We will continue to offer a menu of repair services to communications
providers, so their customers can choose anything from a six-hour to
two-day repair time
■■ We will introduce a combined voice and broadband repair service,
managing the fault whether in our network or the customer’s premises
and reducing the need for duplicate visits
Put customers in control
■■ Our new ‘View my Engineer’ service enables communications providers
to put their customers in control when they have an engineer visit,
with text progress updates, as well as their engineer’s name and phone
number ahead of an appointment
Trusted partner
We will be a trusted partner for communications
providers, continuing to guarantee fair and equal
treatment for all
Our progress
Since our creation ten years ago, we have served all communications
providers equally, offering them our products and services at standard prices
and terms and conditions. This has provided a level playing field on which they
can build differentiated services, creating a vibrant and competitive market
for consumers and businesses. The number of communications providers
has grown from 300 to over 500 and non-BT communications providers
now represent 40% of our business, demonstrating the effectiveness of
equal access.
Our plans
We will consult with our communications provider customers on offering
increased end customer contact with Openreach, as well as the opportunity
to input to service and product developments, through a customer panel.
Contribution to our community
We will make a difference to the communities we serve,
inspiring over half our people to become volunteers in
the community
Our progress
We support Britain in many ways, as a major employer, as providers of the
national telecoms infrastructure, and as members of our local communities.
We have invested in hiring more engineers to serve our customers, including
recruiting extensively among former military personnel and offering training
and employment through our apprenticeship programme. In addition, every
year we support thousands of our people to volunteer in the community
and work with charities.
Our plans
■■ We continue to support thousands of our people who volunteer in the
community – and aim to double the number volunteering by 2020
■■ We will increase our support for charities, especially our partner SSAFA,
the forces charity
■■ We will provide more job opportunities for military veterans
and apprentices
Investment
We will invest to sustain Britain’s digital leadership
Our progress
We have invested £10.5 billion in Britain’s digital infrastructure in the last
ten years, committing over £3 billion to create a nationwide fibre network that
provides affordable high-speed broadband to the vast majority of the UK.
Our plans
■■ W
e will continue to rollout fibre as widely as possible, to bring
high-speed broadband to even more people
■■ We propose to invest in the rollout of G.fast, bringing ultrafast
broadband within reach of 10 million premises by the end of 2020
■■ We continue to invest to extend, upgrade and maintain our fibre
and copper networks
openreach.co.uk/charter
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