Openreach Extend New Build FTTP Discounts to Commercial Premises

Last year’s move by Openreach (BT) to drop the deployment cost of their 1Gbps Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based ultrafast broadband ISP network infrastructure by an average of 75% (here), which focused upon new build UK homes at sites with fewer than 30 premises, has been extended to include commercial premises.

The operator already offers all new developments of 30+ homes the ability to get FTTP built for free, while last year’s change also introduced a “revised rate card” for smaller developments that may be building between just 2 to 29 premises in an area (developers can register here).

For example, under the old system a site of 20 premises (homes) would previously have contributed £25,000 for an upgrade to FTTP but with the new rate card Openreach merely required a contribution of just £223 per premises (amounting to a total of £4,460 across all 20 premises). As this was on a sliding scale then somebody with, for example, 29 homes (plots) would have paid just £17 per plot or £493 total.

At the time the operator estimated that more than 40,000 homes across 5,000 small developments could benefit. Openreach has now informed ISPreview.co.uk of some more good news for developers, which is that from today the same pricing structure (set rate card) as applies to residential premises will also be extended to commercial ones.

Openreach Statement

Previously every commercial site was costed individually, with a bespoke rate offered at the end of a survey process. This new pricing structure will offer developers a simple way of costing their site for fibre, which is becoming essential for cloud computing, IP services and online commerce.

Single sites will still need a bespoke costing.

By commercial premises they of course mean small businesses, offices and sole traders. All of this will no doubt go toward supporting the operator’s on-going work to cover 4 million UK premises with “full fibre” FTTP by March 2021, which could be extended to 15 million by around 2025 and they may even go beyond that if the conditions are right (e.g. easier wayleave agreements, extension to the business rates relief on new fibre etc.).