IPStream Equivalence of Inputs (EoI) in Practice

To meet part of the BT Undertakings BT Wholesale are changing some aspects of the Broadband products to ensure we deliver Equivalence of Inputs (EoI). Product EoI means that specified products and services must be delivered to BT and other Communications Providers:

• To the same timescales, terms and conditions

• Using the same systems and processes

• Systems and processes operating with the same reliability and performance

• Sharing the same commercial information.

All Communications Providers (including other parts of BT) must have the same customer experience when purchasing products and services which are subject to equivalence.

For example this means BT Wholesale taking Openreach LLU products (SMPF/MPF) as inputs to BTW IPStream and BT Retail and BT Global Services taking IPStream as an input product to their Broadband service offerings in exactly the same way as any other Broadband Service Provider. The term EoI is precisely defined in Section 2 of BT’s Undertakings.

For IPStream, the product that is offered to Service Providers has not generally changed, it is the way in which Openreach and BT Wholesale delivers products to its downstream divisions i.e. Global Services and BT Retail that have seen the biggest changes.

As from December 2005 BT Retail and Global Services now use the same e.Co ordering system and Business to Business as external Service Providers for IPStream service fulfilment. For service assurance they use the same test and diagnostic facility (such as WOOSH) which is available to all SPs. BT Retail and Global Services also monitor progress of orders via standard BT Wholesale system interfaces and customer reports ensuring equivalence with other SPs.

Plans are being put in place to ensure that all new orders for IPStream products will be built upon the LLU products (Metallic Path Facility - MPF and the Shared Metallic Path Facility SMPF) supplied from Openreach. Only Openreach will have access to the SMPF/MPF workflow database used for the fulfilment of LLU (MPF/SMPF) orders.