Broadband News
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Poplar exchange runs out of LLU capacity
23 Feb 2008 | 12.18 Europe/London
On Thursday afternoon, Be (owned by O2) announced to their members that they could no longer accept new orders for customers on the Poplar exchange. This may seem rather unimportant at first glance, but the reason behind it is actually quite interesting.
According to Brett Coles, Head of Member Services at Be, the root issue is that BT have run out of capacity for new tie pairs at the exchange. These tie pairs connect your phone line (terminating at BT's equipment in the exchange) with the LLU operator's equipment.
Therefore this issue affects not just Be, but all LLU operators at the Poplar exchange. Although some operators will still have existing spare tie pairs with which to provision new lines, no new ones can be provided by BT Openreach.
BT Openreach have provided a tentative date of February 2009 for additional capacity to be installed. Given that this exchange serves a very large area, including much of Canary Wharf and the Isle of Dogs, this is sure to cause problems as other operators begin to run out of capacity.
Is this a sign of things to come with local loop unbundling in busy areas? The 149 exchanges in London have, on average, over 7 LLU operators present at each exchange. Whilst this level of choice is fantastic from a consumer perspective, it must be stretching many of the smaller exchanges to their limits.
According to Brett Coles, Head of Member Services at Be, the root issue is that BT have run out of capacity for new tie pairs at the exchange. These tie pairs connect your phone line (terminating at BT's equipment in the exchange) with the LLU operator's equipment.
Therefore this issue affects not just Be, but all LLU operators at the Poplar exchange. Although some operators will still have existing spare tie pairs with which to provision new lines, no new ones can be provided by BT Openreach.
BT Openreach have provided a tentative date of February 2009 for additional capacity to be installed. Given that this exchange serves a very large area, including much of Canary Wharf and the Isle of Dogs, this is sure to cause problems as other operators begin to run out of capacity.
Is this a sign of things to come with local loop unbundling in busy areas? The 149 exchanges in London have, on average, over 7 LLU operators present at each exchange. Whilst this level of choice is fantastic from a consumer perspective, it must be stretching many of the smaller exchanges to their limits.