Openreach Begin FTTP Rollout in Edinburgh and Train New Engineers

Openreach (BT) has today confirmed that they’ve begun the rollout of Gigabit capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband technology in Scotland’s capital city of Edinburgh. As part of that they’ve also invested £400,000 in a new “fibre training school” for the region that is based in Livingston.

The urban deployment has already begun in Corstorphine and Newington, with places like Murrayfield, Abbeyhill and western Dalry expected to follow. The capital joins places like Altnaharra in Sutherland and Innerleithen in the Scottish Borders which already have some FTTP capabilities, alongside around 8,000 premises that now have access to FTTP as part of the separate state aid fuelled Digital Scotland “superfast broadband” project.

All of this forms part of the operator’s new “Fibre First” commitment that will push their new “full fibre” network out to cover a total of 3 million UK premises by the end of 2020 using private investment. After that there’s also a tentative plan to reach 10 million premises passed by around 2025.

Across the UK Openreach has already committed to support this rollout by hiring 3,500 new trainee engineers over the next 12 months (here) and many of these will be needed north of the border. So far more than 4,000 people have applied for 400 new trainee engineering roles being created in Scotland.

In total around 1,700 trainees are expected to pass through the doors in Livingston throughout 2018/19, with numbers rising once work completes on the fibre school later this year. Openreach also has similar training schools in Bradford, Bolton, Cardiff, Croydon, Hertford, Nursling, Peterborough, Thornaby and Yarnfield (buildings in Exeter and the Thames Valley are opening soon).

Clive Selley, Openreach CEO, said:

“When it comes to delivering world class digital infrastructure, Openreach people in Scotland have unrivalled experience, expertise and capability – and we want that to continue.

Our new engineers are helping us provide better service, broader coverage and faster broadband speeds throughout the country, and this new training school will make sure they have the skills they need to get the job done.

We’re confident that our investment in people and networks across Scotland have a big role to play in the country’s future economic success.”

Happily Openreach also confirmed that they expected to announce more locations to be upgraded to ultrafast FTTP during the course of this year and we hope this isn’t as piecemeal as we’ve seen so far. However BT Group’s CEO, Gavin Patterson, did recently suggest the plan was to publish quarterly updates (we hope they do this for G.fast too). So far the operator has only identified their first 8 cities.

The 8 Major UK Cities (Initial FTTP Rollout)
Birmingham
Bristol
Cardiff
Edinburgh
Leeds
Liverpool
London
Manchester