Why the “SOGEA stop-gap” is a poor choice for businesses
Andy Wilson, Sales Director, Wholesale Channel at CityFibre shares his thoughts on why FTTP should be the only option, where it’s available.
The 2027 Copper Switch Off is all about retiring the UK’s outdated copper infrastructure in favour of full fibre, and it’s happening at pace! With it, businesses are being challenged to think about their connectivity solutions in a way they haven’t had to before. Worryingly though, many are unwittingly making the wrong choice by switching to Single Order Generic Ethernet Access (SOGEA) as an interim step, rather than biting the bullet on a far superior full fibre connection that would in parallel help boost their productivity, efficiency and growth.
The danger here is that SOGEA feels very familiar for businesses. It resembles what they’ve used for years: copper with an IP wrapper. But it’s the wrong choice because it’s basically a ‘stop-gap’, copper‑based product, that won’t in fact avoid the cost or disruption of their inevitable, ultimate journey to full fibre.
The role we all play in educating businesses and supporting them to make the right choice is key to helping them avoid unnecessary future migrations.
SOGEA means double the disruption
SOGEA is not a strategic solution — it merely postpones the inevitable. Any business choosing it will face:
- Two migrations instead of one
- Double installation charges
- Increased customer downtime
Worse still, they’ll find themselves stuck even longer with the performance ceilings, unstable upload speeds and distance limitations long since associated with copper. None of which will help them to grow their business or serve their own customers better in an increasingly digital world. Plus, it’s more likely to risk you losing them as a customer in the future.
Full Fibre is a ‘single move’ solution for a future‑proof connection
Moving straight to Full Fibre Business FTTP wherever possible, not only waves goodbye to copper immediately, it means
- One upgrade
- One installation
- One long‑term solution that won’t need replacing in a few years
So where does CityFibre fit in?
Quite simply, our network offers businesses a direct route to full fibre, today.
As the UK’s largest independent, wholesale‑only full‑fibre network, CityFibre already serves over around 4.5 million UK premises with speeds up to 5.5 Gbps. Best of all though our network is designed and built for the future using the very latest technology. This means no copper-based products whatsoever and therefore no copper‑to‑fibre migration programme needed at all! In fact, we’re the only major UK network that can make this claim.
We’re not on a race against the clock to shut down over 4,500 old copper ‘telephone’ exchanges either. Our modern, state-of the-art, fibre-only exchanges are all less than 10 years old and entirely independent from BT’s.
All of this means, that if a business chooses CityFibre, they will always be choosing full fibre. No stop gap, no future forced migrations. Just great speeds, better reliability and lower latency from day one.
The message from you to them is therefore quite simple: “Make the move once and make that move straight to Full Fibre”.
And of course, if that’s also a move to CityFibre, we’re also happy, and always on hand to support.