FTTH Worlds best practice: BT Openreach

There is always a temptation to merely follow in someone else’s footsteps, especially when you are unsure of the consequences particular decisions may have. It is always safer to transfer responsibility for a decision onto someone else, rather than to take the risk on yourself. This is especially true in cases where the trailblazers are well recognised, well regarded and hence have substantial market credibility. In fact, in some cases the temptation to blindly follow can be so overwhelming–that we will do so, despite possibly clear indications and warnings to the contrary.

Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM equipment

For this reason alone, I feel it is worth taking a critical look at what some of the other early movers in wholesale FTTH access networks are doing; and whether or not it is necessarily right for Australia to follow. Today, I’ll start with British Telecom’s Next Generation Access company, Openreach (BT NGA Openreach). In particular by looking at some of the approaches they are adopting to resolve many of the intricacies involved in wholesaling broadband access.