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Network access provider Openreach (BT) has today provided a progress update on the difference that their innovations (e.g. drones, mini-exchanges, LiDAR-powered planning etc.) are making to their ongoing roll-out of Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband ISP technology. This network now covers 20 million premises (70% of the UK).
We start things off with drones. Openreach have been using air drones to help deploy (carry) new fibre optic cables since late 2017, which comes in particularly handy when the fibre needs to be run over difficult or dangerous terrain (e.g. rivers, valleys and steep gorges). The operator has even deployed underwater drones to inspect and repair cables beneath some of Britain’s lakes and rivers.
According to the latest update, the operator’s DroneOps team is now home to 14 trained pilots and they’ve collectively flown nearly 1,200 missions, helping Openreach with more than 400,000km of fibre and connecting more than 100,000 premises in the process. Such missions are said to have saved over 600 days of “dwell time“, avoided more than 100 requests for temporary traffic lights, and helped them skip 50-60km of disruptive duct digging.
After that we come to Subtended Headends (SHEs), which have been around since 2019 (here) and are essentially mini exchanges (i.e. mini-head end or mini-Optical Line Terminals) that can be installed closer to customers – inside new or existing street cabinets). The approach is a useful way of extending the reach of a fibre cable by up to threefold and helps to cut down on the need for some other civil works; up to 1,000 additional premises can be reach from a single SHE.
The latest data reveals that Openreach has now installed 1,200 fibre-boosting nodes (SHEs) like this, saving an estimated £120m and 8,500km of fibre “that we didn’t need to lay” (up from just 1,262km only a couple of years ago). The change probably helps to underline that the operator’s roll-out is now increasingly tackling rural areas, where such methods can be particularly handy.
In addition, there have been a couple of smaller developments. For example, Openreach are now able to survey twice as many building per day and have slashed related costs by up to 65% after deploying Holoplan, which we’ve touched on a couple of times before. Developed by Digitalnauts, this LiDAR-powered tech turns a smartphone into a 3D scanner that allows engineers to create accurate VR models of buildings in seconds – mapping cable routes, equipment, and layouts in real time (saves lots of manual measuring etc.).
Finally, the operator is also now using overblow technology, where new fibres are propelled on a cushion of air through existing ducts. “It’s not only faster, but it uses fewer materials, it’s less invasive for nature, and it dramatically reduces the need for roadworks which disrupt communities,” said Openreach. But we didn’t get any data on this one.
We should point out that some of Openreach’s rivals are also deploying similar approaches, so none of this is strictly unique to the incumbent. But it’s always interesting to see what kind of impact such things can have at scale.