Openreach Taps ADTRAN to Deliver Ultrafast Broadband Across UK

ADTRAN®, Inc, a provider of next-generation open networking and subscriber experience solutions, announced today that Openreach has selected ADTRAN’s SDX Series of OLTs and Mosaic Cloud Platform to help it achieve its ambition of making gigabit and multi-gigabit services available to 20 million homes by the mid-to-late 2020s with its Full Fibre network.

More than 600 retail carriers across the United Kingdom rely on Openreach to deliver the wholesale capacity to support a broad portfolio of services to enterprise, small-to-medium businesses and residential customers.

Peter Bell, Network Technologies Director, Openreach said: “We’re already making our new ultrafast, ultra-reliable broadband network available to around 32,000 UK homes and businesses every week – and we’re on track to reach our target of reaching four and a half million premises with ‘Full Fibre’ by the end of March 2021.”

“But we don’t want to stop there. Our new network will support the UK’s economy for decades to come and help it bounce back from the COVID-19 pandemic, so we’ll be accelerating our Full Fibre build throughout the year. ADTRAN’s solutions will play a key role in helping us achieve that as we’re continually searching for innovative technologies that can help us build the network better, broader and faster for our customers.”

By delivering the industry’s highest OLT port density per rack, ADTRAN’s SDX platform will enable Openreach to economically scale its GPON and XGS-PON network with a level of flexibility that could not be realized with traditional access solutions. The platform’s disaggregated, flexible design provides the framework to support Openreach’s vast number of customers by delivering the granularity of interconnect speeds required to meet the needs of retail service providers of all sizes. Capable of supporting gigabit and multi-gigabit access links on the same OLT port, Openreach’s retail customers can deliver the right mix of enterprise, business and residential services based on their own demographics, industry type and residential interests.

“ADTRAN is thrilled to be part of Openreach’s plan to upgrade the UK’s broadband infrastructure and the selection is a proof point that ADTRAN’s open, disaggregated approach to service creation and delivery is a blueprint for the telecommunications industry,” said Dan Whalen, ADTRAN’s Chief Product Officer. “Given the breadth of Openreach’s Full Fibre network, having the ability to deliver GPON and XGS-PON services from the same OLT port streamlines service delivery and reduces the complexity of network design. We make it possible for any service provider, based anywhere in the country, to have the service options they require to fit their customer’s needs.”