Ofcom Predict 97 Percent of UK Covered by Gigabit Broadband in Jan 2028

Somehow, we overlooked that the telecoms regulator had published the fourth edition of their forecast for Planned Network Deployments, which has revised down its expectations of future coverage after UK broadband operators did the same. The report now predicts that full fibre (FTTP) lines will reach 86-95% of homes by January 2028 – rising to 91-97% for gigabit-capable networks (i.e. FTTP and Cable).

According to the regulator’s latest data to January 2025 (here), some 74% (23.68 million) of UK homes are currently within reach of a Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network (up from 62% in Jan 2024) and this rises to 86% for gigabit-capable networks (up from 80%). The latter is being driven by both FTTP from multiple operators and Virgin Media’s older DOCSIS 3.1 powered cable network (there’s a lot of overbuild between these in urban areas).

The new report goes further and, based on the stated deployment plans of network operators as of January 2025 (looking up to 3 years in advance), attempts to predict how much coverage will be achieved by January 2028. These plans include those that are privately funded as well as any plans that are supported through public funds/intervention.

The vast majority of this FTTP and gigabit-capable broadband coverage tends to come from commercial builds – mostly in urban areas, although rural areas will also see substantial network upgrades. The UK Government’s £5bn Project Gigabit programme is specifically focused on the final 10-20% of hardest to reach premises (i.e. aiming to extend gigabit coverage to around 99% “nationwide” by 2032).

However, we must apologise because Ofcom actually published this update in May 2025, but for some reason it was never mentioned in their email updates to us. In that sense, this news update is intended as somewhat of a catch-up piece and also helps to give context for the Government’s recent decision to push back their Project Gigabit delivery target from 2030 to 2032 (here).

As Ofcom itself explains: “Operators have revised their build plans downwards from last year, both in scope and confidence of achieving,” which we suspect can be taken as a reflection of the many news reports we’ve written over the past 2-3 years about individual network operators slowing their builds; often due to a combination of factors (i.e. rising build costs, high interest rates and strong competition in areas of overbuild).

What’s the revised projection for 2028?

If all of the planned deployments are realised, Ofcom’s report forecasts that gigabit-capable networks in urban areas could increase from 23.4 million (90%) as of January 2025 to 25.5 million (98%) by January 2028, and from 2.5 million (58%) to 3.8 million (89%) in rural areas. This picture will of course vary across regions and local authorities.

The following forecast splits the figures down across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Ofcom typically gives two figures for each technology type, which reflects the range between their most optimistic build forecast and the more pessimistic, albeit highest confidence, one. This is why the January 2028 expectations for UK gigabit coverage range from 91% (high confidence) to 97% (most optimistic). The reality may thus sit somewhere in-between.

The regulator also estimates that 79% of UK homes will have access to two or more gigabit-capable networks by the end of 2027.