Copper to fibre – the utilities industry’s biggest data challenge yet?
The UK’s transition from copper to fibre infrastructure presents both challenges and transformative opportunities for telecommunications providers across the consumer, business and wholesale markets—particularly for incumbents like TalkTalk (and PXC) and Sky. Getting the data layer right—through a blend of data engineering and AI—is critical to successfully navigating “the copper switch-off”.
This shift demands adaptation, agility, and significant investment as the industry moves away from legacy copper systems to adopt full-fibre solutions that promise higher bandwidth and more reliable service delivery. Compounding issues is the growing presence of altnet providers, such as CityFibre, which is creating new offerings across its networks.
The copper to fibre transition represents a multifaceted challenge: from customer migration and legacy system integration to the need for adaptable operational frameworks that can accommodate new fibre-based network providers.
At the heart of this is a data and information problem. Once solved, business leaders will have the clarity to make effective decisions and execute clear strategies. Given the competition in the fixed telecom market, there will be winners and losers, and having the right data and insights will be the difference in deciding your fate.
Softwire’s data engineering and AI expertise can be pivotal in overcoming these challenges and supporting a telco’s journey to profitability and sustainability in a fibre-first landscape.
Key challenges and data architecture frameworks
Using data to accelerate decision-making
Many current providers have legacy software, embedded data, and incoming external data from BT and altnet providers, which is hard to understand, process and use. Overhauling these systems (at the speed at which the industry and the broader economic environment are changing) is a huge undertaking.
Creating an abstraction layer, however, is not. Softwire’s expertise in mapping and breaking down data silos enables providers to rapidly adopt new technologies and capabilities without requiring large-scale organisational change – whether this data be internal or from disparate external supplier sources.
Customer data migration and intelligent customer journey mapping
Migrating a large customer base from copper to fibre involves significant data management and operational challenges across the operational and business domains. Typically, providers have built their capability around operational and business support systems (OSS & BSS) that have evolved to meet the needs of ‘today’.
As time has passed, these systems are preventing providers from taking the necessary transformative step to revitalise their businesses, as they have too many interdependencies across the estate. In this area, Softwire’s data engineering practices help structure and streamline customer data to ensure efficient migration with minimal service disruption.
By surfacing relevant datasets and applying data science and AI, providers can develop insight into optimal migration strategies, tailoring this to customer usage patterns and needs and, equally importantly, clearly demonstrating capital requirements for the transition.
Leveraging this capability further, implementing AI/ML-powered customer lifecycle models will allow providers to predict and pre-empt service issues, enhancing customer satisfaction and retention and increasing customer value.
Leveraging data and AI for network optimisation and predictive maintenance
A fibre-based infrastructure, while typically much more reliable than copper, still requires proactive management and benefits significantly from predictive analytics. Softwire can implement data engineering pipelines and AI-driven solutions to help clients visualise network performance, surface issues early and make faster decisions.
Predictive maintenance—powered by machine learning models that can consume data from all areas of the business—from supply chain through to personnel, can identify potential issues before they have an impact. Automated alerts can deliver actionable insights to relevant staff, enabling quick and painless prioritisation. This results in high service reliability – a crucial factor in retaining customers during and after the transition to fibre.
Profitability through efficient cost management
Managing costs in the face of rising capital expenditures and onboarding fees to third-party access networks is critical. Softwire’s experience in data-driven digital transformation could help analyse operational expenses, resource allocation, and customer acquisition costs and provide key data for the management and enforcement of SLAs.
AI and data analytics can support cost-efficiency efforts by identifying cost-saving areas and refining pricing models to align with the new fibre infrastructure. They also help analyse operational expenses, resource allocation, and customer acquisition costs – as well as support management and enforcement of SLAs.
Scalable and agile integration of new fibre providers (altnets)
Altnet integration requires agile systems that can onboard multiple providers quickly to increase network reach and customer choice. Implementing a flexible integration layer that simplifies altnet onboarding is necessary to maximise footprint early.
This integration layer, backed by a robust API and flexible middleware, empowers clients to diversify their supplier base without the extensive development times that typically accompany such partnerships. This ensures fast time-to-market and enables a wider customer base.
Strategic insights to navigate the transition
There are difficult times ahead. But telcos with forward-thinking leadership and next-gen technology will be poised for success in the all-fibre market.
Through a collaborative approach, Softwire can help clients turn the copper to fibre transition from an operational headache into a competitive advantage. By leveraging data for strategic insights, data and planning will be the key to navigating the copper-to-fibre transition.
There is a need to balance sales effort/cost, revenue loss (attrition from closing exchanges) and product availability. With the right information at your fingertips, clients can effectively combine strategic direction with tactical actions. Softwire can help make this data available and usable to the right people at the right time..