Ethernet Provision Recovery

This is the third of BT’s fortnightly updates on what BT Business and Openreach are doing to address the Ethernet provision delays that continue to challenge our people, partners and customers.  Here is the press release from BT Business:

Daren Baythorpe (Openreach Managing Director for Corporate & SME connectivity) held the second industry wide Ethernet Update call. In summary, Openreach recruitment and training remains on track. As previously reported this additional resource is expected to have a positive impact by December 2014.

Openreach acknowledge this is not just about more people but improvements in process and a joint BTB / Openreach workshop has kicked off a number of initiatives aimed at reducing the Work in Progress and unlocking the revenue held up in WiP, more details will follow in future briefings.

What BTB are doing to help resolve the Ethernet provision challenges

We are focusing on what we in BT Business need to do to make the situation easier for our customers and customer facing people. And, we have a number of initiatives already under way.

Calling all Sales people!

Help us to help you and your customers by managing expectations appropriately. Use the latest information on lead times in the table below.

The following table shows the MTTP ( mean time to provide) for the different product areas during July and August. Current lead times are reflective of the MTTP in August except in the case of GEA which has now improved to 39 working days.

 
The current average lead time of 75 working days is a long way from the Subject to Survey standard lead time of 45 working days for BTnet.

The Openreach Survey is really important. Sometimes it will find that the job is simple where duct and fibre already exist. But the survey can also find that new duct is required, possibly involving road closures or wayleaves. We are working to identify and resolve these sooner.

And where we have orders awaiting customer please help us to help you by chasing these down with your customer.

Customer Service & Transformation (CS&T):

• CS&T are working with Openreach to improve the quality of updates and continue to build a proactive jeopardy management process aimed at reducing escalations.
• The Business Partner Sales service managers from our Newcastle Service Team lead on escalating orders through the CS&T team.

Our BTB product teams:

Are investigating what alternative services we can provide as contingencies to deliver service to customers that will reduce the pressure for Ethernet Fibre provision.

In both Openreach and BTB we are working hard to resolve the challenges that are causing you and our customers so many issues. We have a number of initiatives under way to reduce WiP.