Openreach

Openreach

Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Telecommunications
Founded	2006
Headquarters	London, United Kingdom
Key people	Liv Garfield (Chief Executive)
Parent	BT Group
Website	Openreach

Openreach is an infrastructure division of the British telecommunications company BT Group. It was established in 2006 following an an agreement between BT and Ofcom to implement certain undertakings, pursuant to the Enterprise Act 2002, to ensure that rival telecom operators have equality of access to BT's local network.^[1][2]

Openreach manages BT's local network which connects customers to their local telephone exchange, starting at the Main Distribution Frame (MDF) in the exchange and ending at the network termination point (NTP) at the end user's premises. Openreach also manages the connections between the MDF and the BT Wholesale/Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) termination points located in the exchange, often referred to as jumper connections.

History

In July 2010 Openreach signed an $800 million contract with ECI Telecom to help it service and create a fibre-optic network serving 18 million households in the UK.^[3] The deal was the largest in ECI's history.

Operations

Openreach van

Field engineers also appear under this division and install and maintain the physical network wiring into end users' premises regardless of which telecoms provider is actually retailing the service to the end-user. Openreach installs, services, supports and maintains the wiring, fibres and connections which link tens of millions of homes and businesses in Britain to their Communications Providers' networks. Openreach works on behalf of 400+ service providers in the UK. These companies hire Openreach to install/repair/provide a working service to anywhere within the UK.

References

1. ^ Undertakings given to Ofcom by BT pursuant to the Enterprise Act 2002
2. ^ Ofcom's Strategic Review of Telecommunications
3. ^ ECI's BT contract (Yedioth Ahronoth)

External links

• Openreach Homepage
• Openreach Products
• Ofcom: Implementation of BT's Undertakings
• Introduction to Openreach's key product, Wholesale Line Rental 3 (WLR3)