UK fixed line wholesaler Openreach is installing some new toolkits from Viavi to give everyone a glimpse of the speeds its network offers.
US-based Viavi is a major player in the test and measurement space. It has a product called 'Fusion' which is designed to help with remote performance management. One of the things it claims to enable is an on-demand network speedometer, which reveals the speeds experienced by end users on any network on which it is installed.
Understandably, Openreach thinks this is useful information for it and is plugging Fusion into its fibre network. This is apparently the first time that active network testing of end user speeds has been deployed on a fibre access network in the UK, independent of the customer's internet connection.
"Openreach plays such an important role in the UK's digital economy that the improvements they are making are having a broad and positive impact across the UK," it will enable Openreach to perform fault isolation faster and more efficiently, benefiting CPs, businesses and consumers. They will be able to reduce the number of house calls and site visits they perform because they will be able to get better intelligence remotely.
Openreach's canned offer is a typically pointless self-promotional marketing presentation that we wouldn't dream of imposing on you. Suffice to say, Openreach is great, and this initiative is going to make it even bigger. Viavi won some beta work for Openreach from Openreach a year ago, so we can deduce from this latest win that all is well.
If Openreach really wants to impress its customers, preferably end users, it should make these real-time performance figures public. Sure, sometimes the numbers may not be so good, but what better way to demonstrate its "already strong service performance" than with a firm commitment to transparency? Similarly, if Openreach customers provide their own customers with an easily accessible performance dashboard, this can provide a strong differentiator over competitors.
