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Nottingham and Belfast Join Openreach’s FTTP Broadband Rollout

Monday, Nov 5th, 2018 (3:58 pm) - Score 3,660

Openreach (BT) has today announced that the next UK cities and towns 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 premises by the end of 2020, will be Nottingham and Belfast.

So far the national telecom operator’s new “full fibre” network, which takes their optical fibre cable all the way to your home or business, has covered 682,000 premises (homes and businesses) across the United Kingdom and thousands more are expected to benefit from today’s expansion (as usual they haven’t given us a solid ‘premises passed’ figure).

The roll-out in Nottingham (East Midlands of England) has already begun around Gedling, while over in Belfast (Northern Ireland) their initial focus will be on the Crumlin, Falls, Shankill, Shore, Malone, Ormeau, Lisburn and Upper Newtownards Road areas.

Both locations join Openreach’s existing FTTP roll-out locations including Coventry, Bristol, Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Exeter, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester and The Wirral.

Kay Cutts, Leader of Nottinghamshire County Council, said:

“Our partnership work with Openreach through the Better Broadband for Nottinghamshire programme in recent years has helped make us one of the best connected counties in the country, with more than 98 percent of homes and businesses able to access superfast broadband.

Being part of the first Fibre City roll out will ensure Nottinghamshire remains at the forefront of digital infrastructure, with all the economic and social benefits that provides. Having access to the fastest and most reliable broadband is not only great for today, but future-proofed for generations to come. I am delighted that Openreach is supporting our ambitions for growth in Nottinghamshire.”

Cllr Donal Lyons, Chairman of Belfast’s City Growth Committee, said:

“It is brilliant news that Belfast will be the first full fibre city in Northern Ireland. At the heart of our Belfast Region City Deal vision is a drive to deliver inclusive growth and to focus efforts on areas such as the digital sector where we can become genuinely world class.

Improving our infrastructure is absolutely vital to our future success, so it is very exciting to know that Belfast is leading the way again in becoming a fibre city. In laying fibre optic cables directly to people’s front doors, Openreach is supporting the next generation of faster broadband technology, and helping to secure our digital future for years to come.”

Kim Mears, Openreach’s Managing Director, said:

“This announcement in Nottingham is building towards our target of reaching three million premises by the end of 2020/21 and we want to get to 10 million by the mid-2020s, if the conditions are right.”

Openreach’s commitment to Belfast comes just weeks after the announcement of a Belfast Region City Deal, which separately proposes significant co-investment in a range of catalytic digital innovation projects across the city and wider region to help embed a culture of innovation and drive increased productivity.

As usual the biggest problem for Openreach in both areas is that Virgin Media’s 363Mbps cable network, which will reach Gigabit speeds once the DOCSIS 3.1 upgrade arrives, can already cover the vast majority of premises in both cities. Not to mention the presence of rival “full fibre” networks from Hyperoptic and Cityfibre etc. in Nottingham.

NOTE: Openreach has a target of connecting 25% of homes and businesses in Northern Ireland to ultra-fast broadband by the end of 2019, although they’re also aiming to go beyond this.
Mark-Jackson
By Mark Jackson
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 .
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Comments
36 Responses
  1. Avatar photo openreach says:

    Is that’s all? Just two named. Pretty very slow rollout. But why Belfast?

    1. Avatar photo Matthew says:

      Northern Ireland is just as important as the rest of UK. So why not

    2. Avatar photo Low hanging fruit says:

      Belfast already has 98% superfast coverage, with Fermanagh and South Tyrone having 69% coverage and is in last place when it comes to UK superfast broadband. Low hanging fruit as usual!

    3. Avatar photo Guy Cashmore says:

      @Low hanging fruit

      I’m thinking the same, not a penny been spent by BT here since 2005, no cabinet installed so we are stuck with ADSL, its wrong that some areas are now getting a second free upgrade before we have had a first..

    4. Avatar photo mike says:

      @Guy

      Tried 4G?

    5. Avatar photo Guy Cashmore says:

      @mike

      Yes been on 4G and nothing else for over 2 years, it works OK, actually just switched from EE to Three, both have good and bad points, isn’t a long term solution though.

    6. Avatar photo Mike says:

      Using an external antenna setup pointed at the EE/Three mast?

    7. Avatar photo New_Londoner says:

      @Guy, low hanging fruit
      “its wrong that some areas are now getting a second free upgrade before we have had a first..”

      Why? All the companies are making commercial investment decisions, are not going to invest in areas that don’t generate a decent return. That will inevitably mean that some areas will not get any investment without government intervention. Of course other areas may attract investment from multiple companies, but that’s how markets work.

    8. Avatar photo Fastman says:

      guy

      the issue is your miles from any infrastructure ans so wont be covered by any commercial or BDUk , — you would be circa over 10 a premises or more that not viable for anyoine in any shape or form

    9. Avatar photo Alex says:

      Its not just two – they’ve announced 13 locations so far including these and say they’re planning to get to 3m by 2020 and then going further – 10m by mid 20s.

    10. Avatar photo CarlT says:

      Translation: ‘Why not Cuckoo Oak, Telford?’

  2. Avatar photo chris conder says:

    the key phrase is ‘if the conditions are right’ which basically translates to ‘let’s pick the low hanging fruit’.
    anyone difficult will still have a very long wait. Unless an altnet steps in to do the job properly.

    1. Avatar photo FibreFred says:

      Your BT trolling is getting tiresome Chris. How about something more constructive or… not at all?

      Constantly slagging off competitors isn’t a good picture to paint.

      I thought you’d be glad more FTTP is getting rolled out? Of course conditions have to be right.

      Why don’t you set-up B4RN in Ireland? Of course to do so, conditions would also need to be right?

    2. Avatar photo Low Hanging Fruit says:

      @chris conder: You are right as usual. Keep doing the good work you do.
      Ignore the trolls/BT cronies that come along such as FibreFred, TheFacts, CarlT, etc who try to continually try to bully you.

    3. Avatar photo New_Londonet says:

      @Chris
      “anyone difficult will still have a very long wait. Unless an altnet steps in to do the job properly.”

      You’re ignoring the very slow build rates of some altnets then, including B4RN?

      From what has been stated here and elsewhere, Openreach will soon be delivering the equivalent of three B4RN networks a week. Many of the altnets are subscale in contrast and unlikely to be able to ramp up to decent build rates. Or is it okay if people have to wait a very long time as long as it’s for an altnet?

    4. Avatar photo A_Builder says:

      @ Chris

      You make a fair comment about main providers choosing low handing fruit.

      However, imagine if a commercial provider launched and started going just the difficult stuff: there would not be an adequate ROI and funding would dry up.

      I am afraid that I too would start with low hanging fruit and demonstrate ROI and scalability. I would then mix in some more challenging areas.

      @New_Londonet

      I think it is very unfair to compare a multi £Bn Gorilla with B4RN.

      It is even more unfair to compare rollout rates of B4RN and the Gorilla.

      To be honest I, and having dealt a lot with the Gorilla over the years, I would respectfully suggest that if the Gorilla was doing stuff as difficult as B4RN are doing the roll out would be appreciably slower.

      Anyway both the Gorilla, finally now it is on a high fibre diet, and B4RN are doing stuff that is very useful to UK PLC so lets be happy about that now.

    5. Avatar photo satta says:

      The people of grit will roll out to 10 Million people in half a dozen years. Bringing a choice of provider from AAISP to Zen.

      One wonders why the B4RN spokesman is campaigning against a fibre future for the masses like some vigilante luddite.

    6. Avatar photo FibreFred says:

      I don’t think its unfair to compare B4RN to BT. Chris does it frequently.

      When you are looking at it from a customer perceptive. The size of the supplier doesn’t really matter. All you are interested in is availability, price, speed, reliability.

    7. Avatar photo CarlT says:

      You have a strange definition of continually trying to bully, Mr Fruit.

    8. Avatar photo CarlT says:

      Addressing the point for the benefit of the audience nearly all operators pick the ‘low hanging fruit’ within their own area.

      Virgin Media in fact had to start picking the low hanging fruit more as they were seeing costs go out of budget. They went into 4 figures per premises at the back end of the build in Middleton and to get to Rothwell and Robin Hood had an unexpected 2.5km of hard dig.

      I would be interested in how B4RN would have reacted to being unable to get a wayleave and having to carry out a couple of kilometers of dig through pavement and carriageway when the original plan was to soft dig through private property. No volunteers with tractors just 150 grand+ of contractor charges. The answer is, of course, obvious, and the question rhetorical. Everyone from large operators to small ones would react in a similar manner initially – it would trigger a moment of pause followed by cancellation if there weren’t enough premises to make it worth the dig. In urban areas they might have enough premises on the other side to make it worthwhile as VM did, rural areas to reach a handful of premises the dig isn’t happening: altnet, cable company, incumbent, whomever.

      Regardless, co-operatives / non-profits aside without this low hanging fruit to start bringing in the money and present the case for further build nothing gets done. It’s not quite as clear cut as it may seem and the idea that a for-profit altnet isn’t picking their own kind of low hanging fruit is simply incorrect – even B4RN do.

    9. Avatar photo CarlT says:

      I didn’t actually pick up on this statement very clearly.

      ‘the key phrase is ‘if the conditions are right’ which basically translates to ‘let’s pick the low hanging fruit’.’

      See my earlier reply. If people don’t provide free wayleave to B4RN conditions aren’t right and they don’t build either. It’s a perfectly reasonable statement all things considered.

      Cases in point: https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/07/lancashire-council-stall-b4rns-1gbps-broadband-build-for-schools.html

      No-one is completely without caveats on their network build whether incumbent or alternative network.

  3. Avatar photo Lyncol says:

    I was under the impression that Openreach did not have a presence in N. Ireland. BT Ireland look after everything ‘hybrid’.

    1. Avatar photo StevenNT says:

      Until recently it was BT but with in the last month the engineering arm of BT in Northern Ireland has been renamed Openreach Northern Ireland to bring it into line with the rest of the UK.

  4. Avatar photo Clive says:

    There are a few new locations listed for full fibre roll out, but progress in some that have already been announce seems slow or non existent – Exeter for example.

    1. Avatar photo Joe says:

      It was something like 29 Jun 2018 for the exeter announcement so I think you are expecting a bit much. There may be plenty going on in the background.

  5. Avatar photo satta says:

    “As usual the biggest problem for Openreach in both areas is that Virgin Media’s 363Mbps cable network, which will reach Gigabit speeds once the DOCSIS 3.1 upgrade arrives, can already cover the vast majority of premises in both cities. Not to mention the presence of rival “full fibre” networks from Hyperoptic and Cityfibre etc. in Nottingham.”

    As usual, the biggest problem for Virgin, Hyperoptic, and CityFibre in both areas is that Openreach will reach Gigabit speeds once the Fibre First upgrade arrives.

    1. Avatar photo CarlT says:

      Here’s hoping that, by then, it’s at a sane price point. At the moment it’s so expensive the demand is so low BT Wholesale don’t sell it to their customers, just a few operators that have direct GEA connections are selling it to businesses in isolated areas.

      It’s 80GBP/month + VAT to get from the exchange to the premises. Not a great look compared to the gigabit pricing, where it is available in the UK, coming in at less than that end-to-end with unlimited usage and those products being symmetrical, not worse than 4:1 downstream:upstream ratio.

    2. Avatar photo joe says:

      “As usual, the biggest problem for Virgin, Hyperoptic, and CityFibre in both areas is that Openreach will reach Gigabit speeds once the Fibre First upgrade arrives.”

      You must be joking their is no commitment to anything from BT it is all just “AIMS” again.

      “..towns 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 premises by the end of 2020″

      So how are they going with FTTP?

      “So far the national telecom operator’s new “full fibre” network, which takes their optical fibre cable all the way to your home or business, has covered 682,000 premises (homes and businesses)”

      So they basically need to do over 1.1 Million premises in 2019 and another 1.1 Million in 2020 to reach that AIM,b/> of 3 Million.

      First there was an 1 Million aim for FTTP then there was a 2 Million aim for FTTP now there is a 3 Million aim……… They have not met any of their FTTP “aims”.

      If for once they are going to reach that goal they are going to have to be announcing more than a couple of areas of a few thousand premises at a time.

      The whole of Northern Ireland only has around 700,000 premises, Belfast on its own is only if lucky is only just around a third of that figure.
      Its a laughable BT PR release.

    3. Avatar photo Fastman says:

      joe the build is now happening at pace you can snipe as much as choose but im sure mark Jackson will be able to plot a run rate of premises passed to get FTTP over the next few months , and im sure it will be x Thousand (FTTP) and X Thousand (GFAST) each month (if you compare the half year announcement, 770k and this announment (800k) and this announcement that’s circa 30,000 and if you increases that as you do as you ramp up in one month you do that from for 2years . that’s a massive amount of premises in real build, no talk about . no press release hype but real build

    4. Avatar photo Carlson says:

      I do not think he is sniping, and the figures have nothing to do with G.Fast. He is actually correct to meet their aim for this scheme they will need to do at least 1.1 Million premises each year to reach the 3 Million mark by the end of 2020. I frankly do not see that a reality.

      TBB has also noted similar last month and said “The pace of the FTTP roll-out has increased in the last quarter but is still shy of the 89,000 premises needed per month to hit the 3 million target.”

      At that time in the same news item it was available to 600,272 compared to this months figure of 682,000. That still puts them over 7 thousand short just for this month. The more they fall short each month the bigger that 89,000 per month deficit is going to get. I do not care how much faster they are going if they have not met the targets in prior months that is going to be a heck of a lot of an increase in rollout they are going to have to do in the next 2 years, more than they intended originally and likely more than they physically can.

      Hopefully Openreach can prove doubters such as myself wrong. However even the most positive person can only listen a certain amount of times to “aims” which are never met and do not look like they will be met, before they lose faith and just ignore them and their unrealistic ambitions.

    5. Avatar photo FibreFred says:

      3 Million is an aim. Don’t think it is set in stone. Anything and everything can get in the way of that figure

    6. Avatar photo joe says:

      Indeed Fred, my response was more to satta who seemed to think “aims” of an organisation (even when they have made and unfortunately not met them before should cause basically every competitor to panic. He/she also seems to have been confused about what the product actually does at the moment and its theoretical capability.

      I actually wish OR the very best with their deployment. I want them to meet their “aims” also. I do not assume an aim is something set in stone or anything any opposing organisation need worry about. As you correctly state ‘Anything and everything can get in the way of that figure’.

  6. Avatar photo Martin says:

    Yeah my area is on the list, yet openreach say it will be sometime 2020 when I can get it, so don’t hold your breath!

  7. Avatar photo Nettie says:

    It’s all politics Lucent technologies and Nortel networks where the founders of the internet

    1. Avatar photo Meadmodj says:

      The internet developed it wasn’t invented. The original ARPANET was based on Honeywell mini computers as IMPs.

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