Swansea Named as Next UK Openreach FTTP Broadband Rollout City
Openreach (BT) has announced that Swansea in Wales will be the next UK city to benefit from their “Fibre First” programme, which aims to roll-out a 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network to cover 3 million homes and businesses by the end of 2020.
So far the operator’s new “full fibre” network, which takes an optical fibre cable all the way to your home or business, has covered 682,000 premises across the United Kingdom and “tens of thousands” more are expected to benefit from today’s expansion (as usual they haven’t given us a solid “premises passed” figure).
The first areas to benefit from this new roll-out in Swansea will be SA1, SA2 and SA5. The city joins several other locations that have already been confirmed under Openreach’s full fibre deployment programme, including Coventry, Belfast, Bristol, Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Exeter, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Nottingham and The Wirral.
Rob Stewart, Swansea City Council Leader, said:
“Swansea is a city of ambition and we want to become a hotbed of innovation.”
This investment by Openreach in Swansea will provide us with the best internet connectivity possible and enable companies to turbo charge their business opportunities.
The roll-out of ultrafast broadband across the city will prepare Swansea for the future, provide the right conditions for our businesses to thrive and support our economy.”
At this point it’s worth highlighting that Swansea is already very well covered by Virgin Media’s 362Mbps capable cable (EuroDOCSIS) network and Openreach has also deployed a lot of 330Mbps capable G.fast across the area.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and Linkedin.
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Not the other Swansea then?
I find that when writing content it’s best not to assume that every single reader will have an inherent understanding of such things.
Why is this a news-worthy item? The telecoms are expected to deploy fibre anyway.
You’re on an information site that is dedicated toward covering all things broadband and telecoms related, both for the industry and consumers alike. So yes it’s “news-worthy”, obviously. We’ve worked this way for nearly 20 years and if you don’t like to be kept informed then visiting is optional 🙂 .
I’m certainly interested in when FTTP is coming to my city, so yeah. Newsworthy.
Obviously if it was anyone else OTHER than BT.
THEN you would consider it news 😉
Not going to complain about it being reported on here, but I just don’t see why Openreach are making announcements like these.
They have FTTP all over the place, not just in these so called “fibre cities”. In some places it’s a significant rollout, not just to cover the odd street.
Truro is one such place. I look forward to it being announced with great fanfare as a “Fibre City” – because it is technically a city!
IIRC Cornwall comprises a large chunk of OR FTTP progress to date – “Fibre First County” it is!
Same thinking!
I also don’t see a reason why they should make an announcement. First of all Openreach should get into the job and start laying the Fibre cables!
For me those announcements are like someone making an announcement “I’m going to lose weight for new years! or build 6 pack abs” Until it does not happen, I won’t take announcements seriously. I have a friend on Facebook who makes such announcements, even had people say they will quit Facebook as an example and it never happened.
Birmingham, Bristol, Belfast, Cardiff, Coventry, Edinburgh, Exeter, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Nottingham, Swansea, Wirral.
With 14 cities announced, this for me is only apparently positive when you consider the fact that Fibre First is an ambition for the first 3 million by 2020. Initially Openreach Aimed FTTP Broadband for 3 Million Premises in 8 UK Cities. That was acceptable.
But now we have 6 more cities added to that list. This is very disappointing and not good news. It is bad news because it means 3 million premises divided across 14 cities. That means each city will get a very small fraction of FTTP coverage. Despite someone telling me a few months ago that some of those cities have smaller populations. Even with the smaller populations the coverage will still be a fraction.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Openreach announce the 15th city soon without hardly starting on any of their works yet!!
There are deployments ongoing all over however in at least one of the cities mentioned the majority of premises will be G.fast. In the case of Leeds the more densely populated areas are getting FTTP.
Sorry I live in Truro and FTTP here is a myth as far as I can tell. As in, nobody will allow you to order it. Sure it says “available in some areas” on SamKnows, but if you can’t order it via any provider…
Also the local loop is so bad in many places that even in central Truro you get speeds of <5 Mb on ADSL2. VDSL might give you a bit more if you're very lucky.
Always bloody swansea – why not do it in Newport instead? give us a chance to have at least 1 service!
G.fast is being deployed in Newport. I imagine some FTTP will follow. There are still a lot of areas not live, though I remember you saying your own cabinet was being worked on.
Thought you said it was always Cardiff or posh places that got the FTTP?
Seriously – get FoD, move or wait. Still pretty early on the rollout and a lot of premises from the batch to 2020 to be announced.
FTTP is a hundred metres from my place. G.fast is never going to be available. Like you I have VM so can’t complain too loudly. Plenty have no option other than VDSL, some don’t even have that.
Talking of G.fast this is probably preparation work for it. https://roadworks.org/?111924082
FTTP work is usually given away by lots of duct unblocking and new pole installation when built in brownfield areas.
Anyway, chill. They will make their way to you, however if G.fast is available in a single dwelling unit FTTP overbuild is extremely unlikely.
I’m a swansea resident..my cabinet has just gone from No fibre availability to Ultrafast Fibre Available overnight…How do I go about getting it…or any “type” of fibre connection……HOW DO I GET IT !!!
I saw Openreach putting in fiber in to the ducts outside mine today. I’m on Swansea Exchange cabinet P56. Almost all areas covered by that cabinet mention upto 300meg as being there, but it cant be ordered.
How long till you can order?
I got my info from CodeLook
Is there any plans for SA7 postcode?
Just been quoted £8k for a FTTPoD service! Just wondering if anyone knows the timescales?