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Openreach Publish UK FTTP Broadband Build Plan for 84 Exchanges

Tuesday, Feb 19th, 2019 (8:17 am) - Score 29,162

As promised Openreach’s (BT) “Fibre First” programme has recently published a full list of 84 UK exchange areas where their Gigabit capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP technology is either already being deployed or will start to be deployed within the next three months.

At the end of last month Openreach confirmed the names for a total of 26 UK cities, towns and boroughs that were now included in their full fibre roll-out programme (here). As part of that we linked to a new page on their website, which included a more detailed exchange level roll-out plan for each of those areas. But at the time of actually writing our article this list was not yet online and when it did appear they stuck it in the small print (below the interactive map).

The 12 month forward looking plan comes in a PDF document (here) and will be updated on a quarterly basis as they deploy toward their 3 million premises target by the end of 2020 (i.e. March 2021 financial). Crucially this plan is focused on their commercial “Fibre First” roll-out and thus does not show FTTP deployment related to Broadband Delivery UK linked projects, new sites and other small scale infill.

It’s worth noting that the term “Programme Build Complete” used below refers to the exchanges where build has been completed but does not mean that services will be available from this date. We should add that exchange based roll-out plans are only of limited use since most people will be more interested in street level coverage for their local area (you’ll probably spot when this is happening via local street or pole works teams).

NOTE: So far Openreach have deployed FTTP to cover 893,000 UK premises, currently running at a rate of +13,000 passed per week and rising rapidly (here).

openreach 2019 q1 fttp build plan
Sorry for being slower than usual to post this (thought I’d already done it.. getting old 🙂 ).

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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
13 Responses
  1. Avatar photo CarlT says:

    In before the complaints because xxx exchange isn’t on this list.

  2. Avatar photo Brett says:

    Not a complaint that my works exchange isn’t on the list, however we do have fttp available. So, keep it under your hats

  3. Avatar photo John says:

    There’s dozens of exchanges with FTTP not on that list.

    That map/list is for the Fibre First rollout only and doesn’t include any new site or BDUK.

    1. Avatar photo JamesMJohnson says:

      Think you’ll find there’s hundreds of FTTP Exchanges.
      It’s not the Exchange that’s the issue… it’s the rollout of FTTP past your door.
      I live where there’s a FTTP Exchange and the FTTP network runs 3m from my doorstep but because I’m connected to a FTTC cab 650-700m away I’m stuck with FTTC with intermittent FEC errors (I know… broken record).

      The point of this list is it’s the areas where they are putting everyone onto FTTP (that’s my understanding).

    2. Avatar photo Rahul says:

      Like for example in this list for City of London we only see Faraday, Baynard and Fleet Street for FTTP Fibre First.
      However, according to this map… https://www.ispreview.co.uk/wp-content/gallery/2018-article-illustrations/colc_fttp_openreach_map_plan.png
      We can see Monument, Moorgate, Wapping, Wood Street, Bishopsgate, Clerkenwell, Holborn.

      That means not all of these Exchanges have been named in this list despite being part of Fibre First Programme. Yet, these works have not been completed because the checker will show on a plan for FTTP. Even though the map shows that they are due to go live by the end of 2018.

      If I’m not mistaken there seems to be a delay in the completion works for Fleet Street and Faraday as they are meant to go live from May 2018. Unless of-course Openreach plan to cover the entire exchanges of these areas.

      But then at the same time we know Fibre First is not going to cover 100% of the entire Fibre First Exchange Areas! So those exchanges with FTTC won’t get FTTP. Likewise, even though Fibre First shows a particular exchange as planned area e.g. not all Exchange Only Lines will be upgraded to FTTP by end of 2020.

      Only certain residential/business buildings will be cherry picked out of the 3 million Fibre First Programme by end of 2020 by Openreach. This is why covering the entire exchanges will take many more years than that. 3 million is very little compared to the entire premises from all exchange area. The probability of any of us getting FTTP is very low even if our exchanges show as planned areas for Fibre First.

  4. Avatar photo AndyC says:

    Am i correct in thinking that these exchanges will not be fully FTTP and only a certain amount of property’s within the exchange areas will be upgraded?

    I ask as i got excited when carlisle was mentioned on the g.fast rollout just to find out they only did a handful of cabs all at the other end of the city and as for project lightning we live in the only part of carlisle they did not go to so i suspect that when openreach do get to carlisle they most likely wont come here either as there is no competition to fight with.

    1. Avatar photo A_Builder says:

      @AndyC

      I wouldn’t be so negative.

      Ultimately is OR want to shut down copper, everything connected to the exchange has to be connected either to a DSLAM or FTTP. Assuming current tech is going to be used.

      I am pretty sure there will be pockets of rural ADSL served from a DSLAM type unit that is on or near the historical copper cable run. I hope OFCOM have the sense to say to OR ‘yes you can do short term reengineering this but you have to commit to reinvesting the savings from copper switch off into copper eradication and you can only use ADSL from the DSLAM for say 5 years max otherwise you pay £x per month per line that is not able to go over the USO.” and as you cannot meet a 30Mb USO on ADSL or ADSL2+ then it sort of self enforces if £x is high enough to force the economic flip to flop.

      Now before everyone screams ‘why are we charging OR for these lines’ lets remember that OR will want to get shot of the exchange building costs and OR want to get rid of the copper. Here is a hypothetical a short term stepping stone to make it pragmatic with importantly a time limit on the sunset. I am also pretty sure that the £x should ramp up over time to make OR holdouts more and more painful. That way a lot of though goes into overcoming the ‘engineering issues’.

    2. Avatar photo Joe says:

      Correct. Upside No Gfast ur more likely to get Fttp. Depends on you location/line speed. Fttp is often going to adsl areas where a fttc upgrade won’t get them good speeds or so few lines that its not cost effective.

    3. Avatar photo Joe says:

      @A-Builder. I’ve never really looked into it but the rates/tax on exchanges/cabs must be significant that they can save (mostly) with fibre.

    4. Avatar photo AndyC says:

      We have FTTC and im lucky enough to get good down speeds but the overhead wires are all really old and we have had issues in the past with crackles on the line that they could never locate the cause.

      I like the sound of fibre only as it seems much more reliable then copper, just worryied where i live will be left out again even though we are only about 2 mile from the exchange as the crow flies.

    5. Avatar photo Chipmunk says:

      Yeah – it’s not a whole exchange, at least here (Edinburgh) it’s an exercise in covering gaps. Large parts of the town with higher population density (and lots of <150 metre lines) have had gfast installed, while the suburban areas are getting FTTP, presumably because gfast would only get them 100-150mbit.

  5. Avatar photo JK says:

    Nothing in Cumbria! That a shock NOT

  6. Avatar photo Brian says:

    Still waiting for ADSL2+

Comments are closed

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