A Look at Openreach’s Future 4 Port ONT for FTTP Broadband UPDATE

Saturday, Jan 9th, 2021 (12:01 am) – Score 49,776

At present if you order a Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP line on Openreach’s UK network then you’re likely to end up with a single port Optical Network Terminal (ONT) installed on your inside wall (example), but a new 4 port ONT is coming this summer 2021 and we’ve been given a sneak peak.

The ONT is usually installed inside your home (wall hung), near to where the fibre optic cable physically enters the property, and its primary job is simply to take that optical signal and convert it into an electrical one so you can hook-up a broadband router via a standard Local Area Network (Ethernet) port.

NOTE: Openreach aims to cover 4.5 million UK premises with FTTP by March 2021 (current build rate of c.40,000 per week), followed by 5.8m come September 2021 and then 20m by around 2025-30. A max build rate of 3 million per year is envisaged.

Some years ago Openreach did supply 4 port ONTs by default, often with a battery backup, but these days you’re much more likely to see one of their single port ONT’s from Nokia or Huawei with new installs. However, homeworkers, smaller multi-tenant properties and shared households can still benefit from having access to a 4-port unit and to that end some new kit is coming.

The new hardware will initially only be launched via a trial with Nokia at brownfield sites (i.e. existing premises, as opposed to new builds [greenfield]) and Openreach are then expecting this to launch during Summer 2021. A similar development with Huawei is currently being explored, but we don’t yet have any solid details on that.

Initial use of the new GPON Multiport 4+0 ONT would be within Subsequent Provide order journeys, which will enable an engineer attended visit to replace an existing ONT (1+0, 1+1) with a new 4+0 ONT of appropriate vendor type (initially only for Nokia). Exceptions will be made in areas where older ECI kit is still present (the ONT for this is already 4+2 as standard), or a live Fibre Voice Access (FVA) service exists.

The design of the new kit is quite similar to the existing one and thus it can be deployed without the industry having to adopt a new schema, although any ISP wanting to opt-out of using the 4+0 ONT in subsequent provide situations would need to adopt a new schema.

Otherwise, there’s not a lot to say. ONT’s are one of those somewhat less sexy bits of technology that you don’t really have to think about, as they generally just sit there doing their business and without much interaction being needed. Nevertheless, they perform a vital function and it’s always interesting to see what’s coming down the future pipe, as it were.

UPDATE 11th Jan 2021

Some people were keen to get the model (G-040G-B) and see the underside, so here it is. The optical port is also discreetly hidden under here, where the arrow points.