Openreach Confirm 12 New UK Areas for FTTP Ultrafast Broadband

Network access provider Openreach (BT) has announced that their “Fibre First” deployment of Gigabit capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP technology has now covered over 1.2 million UK premises. On top of that they’ve confirmed the next batch of 12 UK areas that will start to benefit over the next 12 months.

Since the project began in February last year, Openreach’s engineers have deployed around 2.6 million kilometres of optical fibre. The massive engineering project has also involved a dedicated team of around 2,000 fibre engineers, using hundreds of heavy plant machinery, pole erection units, cherry pickers, mini-diggers, 3000 spades and a small fleet of drones.

The overall target is to reach 3 million premises across the United Kingdom by the end of 2020 and possibly 10 million by 2025. Meanwhile, in order to celebrate the progress so far, Openreach has also gifted the one millionth home passed (Shaun Duffield’s family of 8 children in Leeds) with free “full fibre” broadband for a year (selected at random from the most recent batch of fibre enabled premises).

But perhaps the biggest news today is that they’ve announced another batch of 12 locations (mostly focused upon Northern Ireland) for their FTTP roll-out, which will all start to see civil engineering take place over the next 12 months. Sadly Openreach has not said how many premises will benefit in each area.

The 12 New Locations (April 2019)
Stockport
Armagh
Bangor
Ballymena
Greater Belfast
Coleraine
Derry-Londonderry
Enniskillen
Lisburn
Larne
Newry
Newtownards.

In terms of ISP choice, BT has a bunch of their own BT Ultrafast packages (G.fast and FTTP based) on sale, but we also recommend checking out other ISPs like Zen Internet, iDNET, AAISP, Freeola and Cerberus Networks for some rival options on the same network. Naturally this is only available to those covered by Openreach’s full fibre and for the time being that coverage is still very limited.

Clive Selley, CEO of Openreach, said:

“Our full fibre build is speeding ahead and we’re now ready to connect more than a million consumers and businesses if they decide to order from a service provider that’s using our FTTP network.

Since the launch of our build programme last year we’ve made huge progress – honing our skills, tools and techniques, driving our costs down and helping our engineers to go ever further, faster and more efficiently. Last month we announced plans for Salisbury to become the first entire city in the country to have access to our FTTP network – in what is expected to be the fastest city-wide network build in the UK.

But it’s not all about being a fast builder, we’re also keen to encourage fast adoption. We recently launched a consultation with industry to decide how and when we upgrade customers to this new future-proofed digital network.

Ultimately our ambition is to deliver the best possible digital connectivity to everyone, everywhere, across the entire country. I believe the progress we have made to date proves that we’re making good on that promise, but there’s more to do.

None of this would be possible without our engineering workforce – which is why it is fantastic to see so many new people wanting to join the country’s largest team of telecoms experts working to expand, upgrade, maintain and install services over Openreach’s national broadband network.”

All of this will no doubt help the Government to achieve their current target of supporting FTTP networks to cover 10 million UK premises by the end of 2022, then 15 million by the end of 2025 (here) and they also have an ambition to see a “nationwide full-fibre” network by 2033. This will of course involve input from many alternative network ISPs and not just Openreach (summary of UK full fibre deployments).

Margot James, UK Minister for Digital, said:

“The Future Telecoms Infrastructure Review set out our approach to maximising full fibre coverage, and I’m delighted that Openreach has now reached one million homes and businesses. Significant investment like this from network operators is critical to deliver our plans for nationwide coverage, and we’re working with industry and Ofcom to create an environment that supports and encourages the commercial rollout of full fibre broadband.”

As usual you can check out the fibre first roll-out page on their website, which includes a more detailed exchange level roll-out plan for each of those areas. Direct link here. But take note that this plan is being updated as new exchange builds begin and so it’s constantly changing.

Otherwise the general locations confirmed so far are as follows..

UPDATE 1:38pm

Corrected the new list of 12 areas (used the wrong one by accident).