The industry-led One Touch Switching Company (TOTSCo), which holds responsibility for implementing Ofcom’s heavily delayed One Touch Switch (OTS) migration system for faster consumer switching between UK internet service providers, has reported its “first successful residential customer switches” during the final trial phase.
The OTS system was originally due to go live in April 2023, but it’s since suffered big delays (details here, here and here) and is now planned to launch on 12th September 2024 (here). Ofcom has placed most of the blame for this at the feet of the major broadband ISPs, with the regulator singling out BT, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk and Virgin Media (VMO2) for being slow to complete the necessary testing and trials (here). But that’s another story.
The good news this week is that TOTSCo’s trials of their OTS system have at least managed to achieve an important milestone with the placement of the first residential consumer switch orders, which is despite the company suffering some recent criticism due to issues with remaining bugs, feature freezes and questionable standardisation etc. (here).
Paul Bradbury, CEO of TOTSCo, said:
“This week marks a significant milestone as we enter the ramp stage of industry trials with the placement of the first residential consumer switch orders. During the ramp stage, participants [ISPs] will place an increasing share of switch orders through OTS, until OTS go-live on 12 September.
With only seven weeks remaining until the OTS go-live, this achievement is both a crucial milestone and a very encouraging sign of our progress. I would like to thank everyone for their hard work and dedication in getting us to this stage. Your continued efforts are crucial as we move forward, and I appreciate all the work still to come.”
The reality is that the OTS system TOTSCo implements is likely to suffer from a few teething problems at launch, so if any savvy consumers are waiting on its launch before committing to a change of ISP then it might be wise to wait a little longer (past the launch date) in order to allow a bit more time for any nasty launch day bugs to be squashed.