Nokia And Openreach Introduce Intent-based Networking To Build An Open-Access Network, Accelerating UK Fiber Broadband Rollout

Nokia building open access platform to accelerate fiber broadband services for millions of UK homes and businesses

By Oystein Bergmann, Bureau Chief, Scandinavia

Nokia today announced it has been chosen by Openreach to build an open-access fiber network to serve millions of homes and businesses. Built using Nokia’s One Network Platform, the network will help Openreach support its target of connecting 25 million premises by the end of 2026, responding to the increasing demand for high-speed broadband all over the UK.

Openreach’s open wholesale broadband network connects users to around 300 communication providers offering ultrafast full fiber services spanning urban centers, towns, villages and smaller rural communities in some of the hardest-to-reach parts of the UK. The Nokia One Network Platform delivers the flexibility, agility and scale needed to meet these market demands while reducing the number of exchange buildings needed to cover the country.

Nokia’s solution uses a modular data center architecture, enabling Openreach to build a large-scale multi-service open-access network that can help reduce the power and space requirements by over 50 per cent at an exchange site for Ethernet access. The architecture supports various deployment models tailored to different population densities, ensuring communication providers can easily connect end users to the Openreach fiber network.

With Nokia’s Altiplano and NSP network domain controllers, Openreach will be able to automate its fiber connectivity services across Point-to-Point, GPON, and XGS PON technologies through simple Intent-Based management of network complexity. This will simplify operations drastically through a common service-oriented interface and will reduce OSS complexity across the network by 85 per cent. In addition, the solution provides streaming telemetry to provide detailed insights into the network’s behavior and performance.  

Trevor Linney, Director of Network Technology at Openreach, said: “This is the next step in our plans to build a future-proof, multi-service, one network platform – that supports both full Field FTTP and future Ethernet products. Introducing Nokia’s Altiplano and NSP network domain controllers and IXR data center routers will boost automation, network visibility and control, and product flexibility for our Communication Provider customers and their end-user customers. Ultimately, this is about making our network easier to manage, more efficient and reliable, for example, quicker identification of faults via automation, and helping to cut operational costs.”

General Manager of Broadband Networks at Nokia, Geert Heyninck said: “Open-access networks are the future of broadband, and we’re proud to support Openreach in bringing fiber connectivity to millions across the UK. Meeting growing broadband demands requires scalability and flexibility, which is where the intent-based design of our solution really shines. We are motivated to help Openreach automate operations, optimize resources and create a robust, future-ready network that serves both urban and rural communities.”