The companies have been awarded contracts to provide new electronics that support Openreach’s exchange based equipment – known as the headend. The kit acts as a digital gateway, managing and translating high-speed data signals between customers’ premises and the wider network.
Huawei has already started to deploy the new kit across the Openreach fibre network, whilst Nokia is expected to start installing equipment from July next year.
Peter Bell, CTO & NGA Operations Director, Openreach said: “We’ll be going flat out to make FTTP available to three million homes by the end of 2020, and we want to reach 10 million by the mid-2020s, so using cutting-edge technology will be integral to achieving that. Britons consume more than double the amount of data they did just three years ago and whilst we’re already a leading digital economy, Openreach continues to invest in network upgrades to make sure we can repeat that success and keep well ahead of demand.”
Jeffrey Zhou, president of Huawei Access network, said: “As a long-term strategic partner of Openreach, we look forward to continuing our work with the fibre and network delivery team. We welcome the opportunity to help build a better, faster and intelligent network that helps Openreach customers stay connected. Huawei is committed to building a better connected UK.”
Frederic Guillén, President of Nokia Fixed Networks, added: “We’re excited about this new five-year collaboration with Openreach and are confident that our innovation, strength and operational expertise will benefit all broadband subscribers in the UK.”
Both deployments will play a critical role in supporting Openreach’s ‘Fibre First’ programme to reach three million premises by the end of 2020, using ‘Fibre-to-the-Premises’ technology where fibre optic cables are laid from the exchange right to people’s front doors. Openreach wants to extend this rollout still further to around 10 million premises by the mid-2020s, and ultimately the majority of homes and businesses across Britain if it has the right conditions to invest.