How long will SoGEA remain available?

I am happy with the speed I am getting with FTTC and therefore SoGEA would be an acceptable alternative for me when the PSTN switch-off occurs. It would solve the cabling issues FTTP would cause because of the nature of my home. What I would like to know is how long SoGEA is likely to remain available? Will SoGEA users be forced to "upgrade" to FTTP when it is available in a locality?

SOGEA will only be available to order if either (or both) of the following is true

- You are NOT in a copper stop sell area
- FTTP is NOT available at your address

Once neither of those is true then SOGEA will no longer be available to order. At that point you will continue to have access to your existing SOGEA service but anything which requires modification of it (e.g. changing to another provider) would not be possible.

At some point I expect that Openreach will actively withdraw SOGEA but that will be in a longer timeframe and your provider would probably force you to fibre before that point.

Dassa, thanks for your reply. What is your source for this info?

That is not the complete picture, even in FTTP priority areas it will still be possible to change providers and perform working line takeovers of FTTC/SoGEA circuits provided the new provision is 40/10 SoGEA.

The full pathways are described in the Openreach 'Stop sell' information https://www.openreach.co.uk/cpportal/products/the-al...

Openreach will eventually want to shut down their FTTC cabinets and stop paying the electricity bill on them, your focus will be far better spent resolving the cabling issues that you believe are going to cause an issue with FTTC as opposed to trying to keep a SOGEA service once your area is served by FTTP.

Even if Openreach are still happy to provide you with SOGEA you would have to find an ISP that will allow you to take that service where FTTP exists, and I can't see any of the consumer-oriented (read: competitively priced) ISPs being prepared to do this.

In reply to a post by Terryphi:

Dassa, thanks for your reply. What is your source for this info?

It is all publicly available on the Openreach All-IP website. The effects of copper stop sell at an exchange are detailed there.

What is less defined is what happens at the tail of the process where there are a set of customers who have been with the same provider on FTTC for a long time in locations covered by FTTP and show no signs of moving. I suspect that either there will be some form of cost differential introduced such that it becomes increasingly uneconomic to stay on FTTC or Openreach will simply give a withdrawal date (probably a couple of years notice) and terminate the service.

As others have noted there is an exception for low speed FTTC services but I suspect that that exception will not last very long, for both financial (why run two networks in the same area) and political (are less well off people not entitled to FTTP?) reasons.

As your seem unlikely to have FTTP available for some time yet I'd say FTTC will remain available to you for many years yet.
I'd face the issues of FTTP if and when it arrives, but doubt they insurmountable