Although level 2 will continue to be available for residential lines, Level 2.5 will become the new entry level for business use going forward. Following release of this update, Openreach will immediately begin upgrading existing premium single lines from level 2 to 2.5. Once all premium single lines have been upgraded this new care level will be activated and available for use.
Level 2.5 will adhere to the same service level agreements currently provided by level 2 but, in order to provide an expedited service more suitable for business requirements, faults reported on level 2.5 will be given priority over level 2 faults. This new care level will however be chargeable and could therefore have significant cost implications for communication providers.
Vincent Disneur, Head of Sales at Union Street comments, “R2600 is likely to be the most user impacting update Openreach has introduced for quite some time, and many of our clients have expressed to us their quite understandable concern regarding the impact that the associated costs will have on their business.
“As a software vendor our priority is to ensure we maintain full compatibility with Openreach following the update and in this regard we foresee no problems. Updates for our WLR3 module will be rolled out to our clients automatically so our clients will experience no disruption of service.”