COVID-19 – Openreach Update on Future G.fast and FTTP Plans

In an unsurprising development Openreach (BT) has informed UK broadband ISPs that, due to the current COVID-19 (Coronavirus) crisis, future G.fast and Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) build plans beyond last month “are not available.” Related engineering work to extend the network continues but has been scaled-back.

Until recently Openreach was happily ramping-up their gigabit-capable “full fibre” (FTTP) network build and had reached a peak of about 27,000 premises per week. The effort had put them well on their way to achieving the initial goal of 4 million premises passed by the end of March 2021 (expected to be followed by 15 million in 2025).

On top of that the operator was also due to announce the outcome of their G.fast review at the end of last month. The hybrid fibre technology currently covers 2,725,000 UK premises, but it remains unclear whether it will be extended much beyond this point because further deployments were placed under review last year (here); due in no small part to the greater focus on FTTP as the more future proof solution.

Sadly the COVID-19 situation and its impact on the workforce has already forced Openreach to scale-back a significant amount of non-essential engineering work (here). Despite this their core network expansion was still on-going and indeed the build pace hasn’t been too heavily impacted.. yet.

However on Wednesday last week Openreach put out a notice (POR), which said: “Due to Covid19 20/21 build plans beyond March 20 are not available, we will supply these as soon as possible.” Some delay to the FTTP roll-out – as well as other connectivity solutions – is a possibility and likewise the notice has also effectively put the outcome of their G.fast review on-hold.

A Spokesperson for Openreach told ISPreview.co.uk:

“Despite the impact of the current Covid-19 pandemic, Openreach is very much on track to reach its full fibre target of 4m homes and businesses by March 2021. At the current time, we have delayed giving our Communications Provider customers specific updated build forecast figures beyond March 2020 while we assess any potential impact of Covid-19 on the overall programme.

In general though, we’re continuing to build full fibre as this work mostly happens at a safe distance from members of the public, for example digging trenches along highways and verges. We have stopped a few activities however, like extending the network into multi dwelling units and we’re assessing any potential impact on the overall programme by working closely with the Government to factor in the new guidelines.”

We suspect that Openreach won’t be able to give a clear indication of how much the COVID-19 situation has impacted their deployment or future plans until the current crisis has started to subside. Some in the Government have suggested that we might start to see a softening of restrictions by June (lest we forget that the ultimate solution of a vaccine is still 1 year+ away), but the current crisis remains on-going and as such it’s very difficult for anybody right now to plan for an uncertain future.

In case it wasn’t obvious, the same is likely to be true for other network builders too. Few, if any, will escape this crisis without their plans suffering some change or delay.

UPDATE 11:19am

We’ve had an updated statement from Openreach.

A Spokesperson for Openreach said:

“Despite the impact of the current Covid-19 pandemic, Openreach is very much on track to reach its full fibre target of 4m homes and businesses by March 2021. At the current time, we have delayed giving our Communication Customers updated build forecast figures beyond March ’20 while we assess any potential impact of Covid-19 on the overall programme.”