Due to end-of-life hardware and software, we are giving formal notice of decommissioning the REN on 30 June 2024. To recap, the REN is our legacy aggregation platform, most aggregation already takes place over the newer Fibre Aggregation Network (FAN). 

The services impacted are: 

• Handovers for HSNS, HSNS lite, eDMR Backhaul, UBA and BBIP, 
• TES for HSNS, HSNS lite, VDSL/UBA, and BBIP (due to handover changes) 

The key changes are: 

• Handover locations will align with Fibre POI sites, where we have FAN nodes.  
• In most cases, this is just a port change at the same location. There are a small number of sites where the handover location will change which will affect a handful of customers. We will actively work with you to find an appropriate alternative site. 
• There would be a short outage as we swap from the REN port to the FAN port. 
• The extent of the impact on you will depend partly on your handover demand at certain locations, so we’d like  to understand your forecasted demand for our planning purposes. 
• We are considering what additional migration support is appropriate and will advise. 

Background to REN shutdown 

• Lifecycle issues have been raised before and the network is already in a state of elevated risk, but it is forecast this will start to escalate further 
• We have a growing risk to the integrity of the network equipment meaning we will see more service impacting faults that take longer to restore: 
  • New spare parts are not available & old parts are no longer repairable 
  • Recovery of field equipment is having low success on reuse 
  • Forecast to run out of some spare parts from mid-2024 
• We also have an issue with the support of the software running on the network that has wider implications for network security.  
• The level of lifecycle issues means the only solution is a complete decommissioning: 
  • Shut down and remove all network devices 
  • Decommission management software for the REN 

Next steps 

Your Chorus account team will be in touch to: 

• provide a list of impacted services and begin developing a migration plan 
• work through the options to clean up any unused services and migrate to the FAN, which may also involve consolidation or alternative products  
• request FAN Handover demand and location forecasting 

We will proactively work with you to migrate services off prior to the June 2024 decommissioning date.