Original article ISPreview UK:Read More
London-focused ISP Vorboss, which runs a 100Gbps speed fibre optic network in the UK’s capital city, has told Ofcom that reclassifying the UK’s market for high capacity leased lines to include “LeasedLine Equivalents” (LLEs), such as XGS-PON technology (underpins many FTTP broadband networks), would be “misguided, confusing, and ultimately detrimental“.
The industry regulator is currently in the process of conducting a major Telecoms Access Review 2026 (TAR), which reflects a wide-ranging market study that is typically only conducted every 5-years. The study is looking to make changes that “promote competition and investment” in gigabit broadband and business connectivity. But such things are always easier said than done, with vested interests frequently clashing.
Speaking of which, leased lines have historically been considered as private dedicated fixed lines, which offer guaranteed bandwidth and greater reliability via strong Service Level Agreements (SLA) to specific sites (point-to-point). But in recent years the increased roll-out of Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband, which has narrowed the technology and performance gap, has started to muddy that debate (e.g. EoFTTP – Ethernet over FTTP).
On this front, one of the lesser-known parts of Ofcom’s proposals under the new TAR concerns its plan to broaden how they define the single product market for leased line access (LLA) services at all bandwidths (data speeds). Under the change, this would now include “leased line equivalent [LLE] services delivered over symmetric PON (e.g. XGS-PON)“, which is the same technology that underpins many consumer FTTP (full fibre) lines.
Extract from Ofcom’s TAR 2026 Consultation
We therefore provisionally conclude that services with features such as uncontended capacity, symmetric download and upload speeds, and quality of service parameters similar to point-to-point leased line services (e.g. fast repair times compared to WLA services) delivered over symmetric PON (such as XGS-PON) should be included within the LLA product market. We refer to these services as ‘leased line equivalent’ (LL-equivalent) services.
As with anything the regulator suggests these days, this idea isn’t universally popular, and business ISP Vorboss told ISPreview that they’ve expressed “serious concerns” over the redefinition. “While we appreciate Ofcom’s broader objectives of ensuring fair competition and encouraging investment, we strongly believe that this reclassification is misguided, confusing, and ultimately detrimental to both end customers and the business connectivity market,” said the provider’s regulatory submission.
Vorboss highlights several “fundamental and material differences” between point-to-point leased lines and Ethernet over symmetric PONs.
Vorboss – Examples of the Differences
These technologies are not substitutes from a technical, operational, or investment perspective. Including both in the same product market undermines these distinctions:
• Network Topology and Investment: Point-to-point leased lines are far more resource-intensive, requiring up to 100x more fibre per customer. The network architecture and build economics are entirely distinct from PON-based strategies, which share infrastructure across multiple users. Providers typically pursue one strategy or the other, not both.
• Bandwidth Capabilities: Leased lines can already support symmetrical services at 10Gbps, 100Gbps and beyond. In contrast, XGS-PON is fundamentally limited in both capacity and scalability. Current PON solutions do not support higher bandwidths, nor is there evidence of widespread provider plans to upgrade to future versions with such capabilities. This directly contradicts the increasing bandwidth demands of modern businesses.
• Contention and Performance: Unlike leased lines, PONs inherently introduce contention, which limits performance and reliability. Businesses requiring uncontended, high-performance connections cannot rely on PON-based services, which often fail to deliver even the advertised headline bandwidths in practice.
• Scalability and Upgrade Paths: Leased lines offer granular, customer-specific upgrades with minimal disruption. In PONs, any significant bandwidth upgrade necessitates area-wide infrastructure changes, reducing flexibility and responsiveness.
• Resilience and Redundancy: Business customers increasingly demand route diversity and power resilience. These requirements are practically impossible to meet using ethernet over symmetric PONs due to fixed routing and cabinet-based active equipment susceptible to environmental and physical risks.
• Customisation and Control: Leased lines allow bespoke route planning and deployment, enabling customers to tailor connectivity for operational or compliance needs. PON networks cannot accommodate such flexibility.
• Security Considerations: Leased lines provide a physically and logically isolated connection, offering higher levels of security. Ethernet over PON, by its nature, is shared and thus inherently less secure.
• Service Agreements and Reliability: Leased line SLAs reflect the premium nature of the service: guaranteed uptime, rapid repair times, and consistent performance. These are critical to business operations and are not truly replicable by PON services, even if nominal service terms are offered.
The key point above being that, by suggesting “equivalence” between these solutions, Vorboss says Ofcom “risks signalling to the market that the return on investment in genuine leased line infrastructure will be eroded or devalued“. In fairness, there has always been some inevitable impact on leased lines as the capabilities of consumer grade broadband have improved, which occurred with FTTC and now FTTP – particularly for smaller firms.
In addition some operators, like Netomnia, have already partly deployed 50G PON technology (50Gbps), with Cityfibre also considering 100G PON for the future – further narrowing the gap. The example given above for “bandwidth capabilities” is thus set to become increasingly debatable.
The fact that FTTP is such a significant enhancement on what has come before, which narrows the gap to leased lines, is ultimately at the root of why Ofcom feels a need to reclassify LLEs to include XGS-PON lines. But it’s also easy to see why this might upset and threaten operators like Vorboss, which are focused on selling a very modern high performance taken on point-to-point leased lines.
Vorboss are clearly concerned about a rise in providers promoting FTTP based “Ethernet” products, which they say could “artificially inflating the perceived level of competition” and dilute the meaning of Ethernet – opening the door to “misleading marketing from providers that may imply parity where none exists“.
The provider concludes its submission by urging Ofcom to reconsider its approach and “maintain a clear and distinct definition of leased line services” that excludes Ethernet over symmetric PONs. The regulator currently intends to publish their final decision in March 2026, although they’ll publish their semi-final proposals before that in order to allow time for consultation (probably before the end of this year).