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Articles for Category Tag - Openreach

Openreach Warn 500K UK Business Lines Haven’t Switched Away from Legacy Phones

5th February, 2026 (68 Comments)

National operator Openreach (BT) has today warned that “more than half a million business lines” still haven’t migrated away from the old Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) to new IP-based digital phone (VoIP etc.) alternatives, which with only 12-months to go until the service is switched-off risks firms being exposed to price hikes, as well as “failing equipment and eventual loss of service“.

Broadband ISP VISPA Informs UK Customers of Closure and Liquidation

5th February, 2026 (6 Comments)

Long-running UK ISP VISPA, which was first launched way back in 1999, appears to have begun informing customers that they’ve “ceased trading and decided to commence liquidation proceedings“. The provider’s remaining broadband subscribers have been told they will need to “immediately” find an alternative.

VodafoneThree Top 1.77 Million UK Broadband Users as Mobile Shrinks to 28.6M

5th February, 2026 (7 Comments)

Broadband and mobile operator Vodafone (VodafoneThree) has today published their latest Q3 FY26 financial results. The figures show that they now have 1.768 million fixed broadband customers (up strongly by 64k in Q3 vs 50k in Q2) and a huge combined mobile base of 28.619m (down from 28.824m).

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BT Results – Openreach Lose 210k UK Broadband Lines as FTTP Cover Hits 21.4M

5th February, 2026 (28 Comments)

Telecoms giant BT Group just published a short trading update to the end December 2025 (Q3 FY26), which reveals that Openreach lost a total of 210,000 broadband lines to rivals over the past quarter (down from 242k in Sept 2025). But their “full fibre” (FTTP) coverage grew to 21.4 million premises (up from 20.3m) and take-up increased to 38% (up from 37.66%).

Openreach 2025 Engineers looking at tablet

Openreach Rolls Out New Safety App to Help Protect UK Broadband Engineers

2nd February, 2026 (13 Comments)

Network access provider Openreach (BT) has today announced the launch of a new mobile safety app to help combat a surge in abuse and assaults on its UK telecoms engineers. Since April last year, there’s been around 700 incidents of either physical or verbal assaults and threats, including some cases where people have needed time off work to recover.

The Curious Case of Openreach’s Vanishing UK FTTP Broadband Coverage UPDATE

2nd February, 2026 (25 Comments)

Independent data analysis has recently revealed a curious trend where patches of Openreach’s full fibre (FTTP) broadband network, often within urban areas and usually but not always associated to installs that require a more complex stage 2 process, suddenly vanish (i.e. no longer available to order). The issue is estimated to be impacting 0.3% of UK premises.

London Big Ben Over Thames by MJackson - IMG20250111113401

Concerns Over UK Funding Shortfall for Gigabit Broadband Raised in Parliament

29th January, 2026 (18 Comments)

The Conservative MP for Bridgwater, Sir Ashley Fox, this week informed other Ministers that Openreach (BT) had raised “concerns that there is a shortfall in funding from the last spending review“, which he said meant there is a “risk that the Government do not meet their 99% gigabit-coverage target by 2032“.

Strathaven Openreach Exchange Screenshot by Google Streetview

Openreach Exchange Fire Disrupts Broadband Services in Strathaven

26th January, 2026 (10 Comments)

Broadband internet connectivity, phone and some Ethernet services being delivered by the Strathaven Telephone Exchange in South Lanarkshire (Scotland) have been disrupted after the site was hit by a serious fire. Approximately 1,500 customers on Openreach’s (BT) local network are understood to have been impacted.

Openreach 10Gbps Nokia ONT from SIN Document

Openreach Publish UK Pilot Pricing for FTTP Broadband Speeds to 8500Mbps UPDATE

22nd January, 2026 (82 Comments)

National network operator Openreach (BT) has this afternoon published pricing details for their forthcoming pilot of XGS-PON based Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) home broadband ISP lines, which now includes the 5.5Gbps (550Mbps upload) and 8.5Gbps (850Mbps upload) tiers. The launch date for the pilot has also been put back slightly from 1st to 23rd March 2026.

VIDEO Police Catch Three Openreach Broadband Cable Thieves in the Act

22nd January, 2026 (14 Comments)

Bang to rights! The West Midlands Police have a reason to be cheerful today after they arrested a gang of three people who were in the process of trying to steal Openreach’s (BT) copper broadband and phone cables from an underground site in central Birmingham, which most likely caused some significant and costly connectivity problems for locals.

2,500 Lincolnshire UK Premises Offline After Cable Thieves Strike Openreach

21st January, 2026 (8 Comments)

Some 2,500 properties around the village of Moulton Chapel in Lincolnshire (England) are suffering “significant disruption” to their broadband and phone connectivity, which occurred after criminals cut and then stole an unspecified amount of Openreach’s copper telecoms cable in the area.

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Openreach Expands Scotland’s Project Gigabit Broadband Rollout Contract UPDATE

21st January, 2026 (4 Comments)

The UK Government’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) has issued a contract modification notice for Openreach’s £157m (public subsidy) Project Gigabit broadband roll-out contract in Scotland (Call off 6), which originally aimed to reach 65,070 premises in remote rural areas. But the change means it will now be expanded to tackle 77,639 premises.

Broadband ISP VISPA UK Faces Compulsory Strike-off Action Again

21st January, 2026 (3 Comments)

Broadband provider VISPA has recently become subject to another “First Gazette notice for compulsory strike-off” (petitioner: HMRC) – as shown on the Companies House (CH) website, which follows both a significant delay to the publication of their latest accounts (CH’s website states their next accounts were “due by 31 January 2025“) and adoption of CH’s default address.

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BDUK Updates on Project Gigabit Broadband Contract for Cheshire UK

20th January, 2026 (3 Comments)

The Government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency recently provided a small but useful update on their stalled £43m (public subsidy) Project Gigabit broadband roll-out contract for Cheshire (Lot 17), which was originally held by Freedom Fibre until they “mutually agreed to terminate” it in March 2025 (here). But Openreach (BT) may now be set to take it on.

Openreach exchange engineer testing fibre

Openreach List Next 132 UK Areas for Copper to FTTP Switch – Tranche 23

19th January, 2026 (6 Comments)

Openreach (BT) has just published the next batch (Tranche 23) of 132 exchanges in their “FTTP Priority Exchange” stop sell programme – covering 1.23 million premises. This reflects areas where over 75% of premises are able to get full fibre lines and will thus stop selling copper based legacy phone and broadband products (i.e. FTTP becomes the only product option, where it’s available).

Openreach Pick Garret Kavanagh to Lead UK Complex Engineering Unit

15th January, 2026 (0 Comments)

Network access provider Openreach (BT), which is currently busy investing £15bn to deploy Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband technology to 25 million UK premises by the end of 2026 (currently 21m premises passed), has today announced that they’ve promoted Garret Kavanagh to be their new Managing Director for Complex Engineering, effective April 2026.

Openreach UK Leave Rural Wales Villagers Cut-off from Broadband for 6 Weeks

13th January, 2026 (10 Comments)

A couple of homes in a remote rural area near the village of Llanelidan in Denbighshire (Wales) have been left without access to broadband and internet-connected TV services for nearly six long weeks. The situation began after some nearby overhead lines (poles) were damaged in an unspecified event on 6th December 2025.