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Openreach’s FTTP Broadband Covers 2.5 Million UK Premises

Saturday, May 2nd, 2020 (12:01 am) - Score 7,214
fibre optic bt boom

Several industry sources have enabled us to confirm that Openreach’s new gigabit capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband ISP network has now reached an official coverage figure of just over 2.5 million UK premises (end of March 2020 / Q4 financial), which leaves 1.5 million left to do in order to hit 4m by March 2021.

Just to recap. Openreach are well on their way to achieving their initial goal of 4 million premises (homes and businesses) passed with “full fibre” (FTTP) by the end of March 2021, which is then expected to be followed by 15 million around 2025 (provided some of the changes they want from Ofcom and the Government are realised, such as easier wayleaves, protection for their investment and a longer business rates holiday on new fibre).

NOTE: The 2.5 million premises are usually Commercial Ready For Service (CRFS).

At the last official count the operator was building at a pace of around 27,000 premises per week and they recently forecast that this could reach 30,000 when they exit the 2019/20 period (Q4 financial). So far this is all being delivered at the “lower end” of their £300 – £400 per premises passed cost range and they eventually expect to “pass around 50% of UK premises within this range of costs” (likely to cost c.£5bn+ for 15m).

Precise figures won’t be published until BT Group’s next set of financial results (due later next week), but we note that the pace of build actually increased by a noticeably larger than normal amount between the end of February and the end of March 2020. This is interesting given Openreach’s change in working due to the COVID-19 lockdown (here).

We have seen big “ramping-up” jumps like the aforementioned one before (e.g. between July and August 2019), but at present it’s difficult to know if the jump in March was due to COVID-19 related aspects (e.g. lower road congestion) or was already part of their existing plan as more engineers joined the effort. The lockdown impact itself didn’t hit till late March, so won’t have too much of an impact on progress in Q1 (calendar).

The bigger question is whether this roll-out will now suffer, particularly through April and June, due to the impact of COVID-19 on their available workforce and complex supply / support chains (other operators have had these issues). Openreach’s FTTP roll-out is currently under review due to the current crisis (a normal response) and we’ll have to wait until the early summer to know for sure what kind of impact the virus has had.

In the meantime there’s still 1.5 million premises yet to build over the next 12 months (from the end of March 2020), which equates to a build pace of 125,000 premises per month or around 31,250 – 28,000 per week. If we ignore the uncertain impact of COVID-19 then it’s clear that Openreach would, in normal times, have no difficulty in achieving the 2021 target.

One small side note is that hybrid fibre G.fast coverage still seems to be hovering at above 2.7 million premises passed in March 2020, which is also roughly where it was at the end of December 2019. Assuming this is supported by the next set of results then it would appear as if Openreach have indeed shelved the main roll-out of this technology, which wouldn’t come as a surprise to ISPreview.co.uk’s readership (here). The outcome of their related review was recently put on pause due to COVID-19 and so we’ll have to wait a little longer before knowing its true fate.

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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
61 Responses
  1. Avatar photo Tim says:

    It’s good to see progress being made with FTTH roll out. However it is disappointing that this has meant that rural areas have been forgotten again before FTTC even reached them. There are still loads of areas with sub 10Mbps that now won’t get a fixed line service any faster. These locations will have to rely on limited capacity/coverage of 4G.

    Has Openreach completely shelved the roll out of new FTTC cabinets now? What’s the plan for areas too far for FTTC and therefore also very expensive to deliver FTTH to?

    1. Avatar photo Andrew Ferguson says:

      Your rural location may have missed out but rural areas are still seeing roll-out of FTTP and FTTC is seeing stuff delivered that has been in build for a year or so.

    2. Avatar photo A_Builder says:

      As I’ve written a few times before on here – OR had run out of viable FTTC locations, in the maine.

      There is no point in wasting resources on short term fixes. Fortunately the penny dropped at BT central that FTTP was the future and was investable. It is also a much better solution for rural given its passive nature.

      I am aware from contacts in OR that copper performance and fault cost fixes as well as ease of upgrade and potential uptake are part of complex equation used to determine which rural areas get FTTP. It is not a simple picture but OR are doing rural at scale – no question – it won’t be quick but it is getting done step by step.

    3. Avatar photo 5G_Infinity says:

      FTTC in rural areas is mostly covered by BDUK and its agreements with County Councils and contracts let for Wave’s 1 through 3, if not Wave 4.

      Hampshire mid-last year saw a turning point where many FTTC rollouts were either stopped or shortened and FTTP on overhead poles (new or existing) become the way forward. Many villages now have 330/50Mbps service, especially if there is an adjacent exchange (next village or town) to leverage.

    4. Avatar photo Marek says:

      Isn’t this a bit dissapointing? Poland biggest national operator which was bought by Orange have 4 milion adresses that can use their fiber as FTTH, mind you Poland have smaller population and we also have massive DSL network (10 milions adresses can use DSL out of 14 milion adresses in country overall).

    5. Avatar photo Marek says:

      Oh this is UK, not just England? So this looks even worse in comparison to Poland, not to mention countries like Romania or Sweden.

  2. Avatar photo Fastman says:

    if they were not covered previously by FTTC that means either they were not in distance from an exisiting cab that had it been upgraded would have provided enough premises enough coverage in excess of 24 m/bps . , or the cost implication of building a new FTTC cabinet and the associated network rearrangement work far exceeded the financial benefits of doing that work (there will be be some cabs not done that might be on recent developments pre FTTP agreement in 2016 for new developments (over a certain amount of plots with a specific notice period before first occupancy date

    I would think based on the direction of travel around full fibre there will be little or no FTTc moving forward unless Is it specifically provided as part of BDUK (so where the premises ask is > that 30 m/pbs there might be some FTTC assuming the premises were substantial enough and close enough together to ensure a high coverage of > 30 m/bps

  3. Avatar photo Martin Bingle says:

    GL115DJ has super SLOW broadband at about 5Mb, not a mistype. Fibre is about 3metres from my foot but Openreach will only connect new houses to it, not the existing properties. They and BT are totally useless and charge a fortune for poor service. I started to download a film this week and with a bit of luck I will be able to watch it a Christmas.

    1. Avatar photo Yesyes says:

      Just because fibre is 3m away doesn’t necessarily mean you can just intercept it like that, it could be a spine cable. What has virgin media or gigaclear said, they’re all commercial providers not just Openreach.

    2. Avatar photo fastman says:

      so what exchnange and what cabinet are you and what does the Wholesale checker say – is that realtively recently new build in the last 5 years

    3. Avatar photo Meadmodj says:

      @Martin
      Box Road area only shown as ADSL. TBB shows one of new builds (Brunel Road) as FTTH, but this is an Altnet (ISPs are DirectSaveTelecom or SeeTheLight). Other developments do not appear to be provided with either Superfast or FTTP which must have been a decision by the developer. Nearest OR FTTC appears to finish north of CAM and partly up Drayton Road. Some in Box Road can get above 8Mbps but BT currently only commits to >2Mbps for your post code.
      You have an outdoor 4G so my recommendation is that you register with BT for USO eligibility. They can then confirm the actual possible speed of your premise, any proposed plans (OR FF, BTUK) or may offer you a 4G Broadband with external aerial. FYO nearest mast is Voda/O2 (all mobile masts are west of Cam).

    4. Avatar photo Fastman says:

      So If that is see the light it’s an INFL site which means no openreach network on that site in any shape or form

  4. Avatar photo Rob says:

    My FTTP install, which was scheduled for install in early April, got cancelled due to Covid and BT’s temporary ADSL repeatedly got delayed so I went with 3 unlimited broadband instead.

    1. Avatar photo Tim Procter says:

      My FTTP was also scheduled for completion April but sadly COVID-19 stepped in and ruined any chance of that.
      I looked at the 3 packages but glad I never went that route as it looks to be saturated now.
      Fingers crossed for a completion in June subject to engineers being allowed in homes again.

  5. Avatar photo Archie says:

    How many premises are planned to be covered by Openreach’s FTTP build? I’ve got FTTC and Virgin Media FTTP in my area. Does that mean that where I live will be missed? Be a shame if we were, I’d really like as much choice as possible.

    1. Avatar photo Andrew Ferguson says:

      4 million by March 2021, plans to go for 15 million by 2025

      So whether you will or will not is a lottery

    2. Avatar photo Roger_Gooner says:

      Just be thankful that you’ve got Virgin Media regardless of whether it’s FTTP or HFC, lots of people have neither VM nor FTTP from another operator.

    3. Avatar photo Archie says:

      I am Roger. I’m also lucky enough to get the full speed all of the time. Had very few outages or problems. Excellent service. Ultimately, would prefer to be with an Openreach provider.

  6. Avatar photo GNewton says:

    We are in 2020, and so far only 2.5 Millions premises are covered by BT’s FTTP?

    This is very poor record, this country is a decade behind where it should be by now, thanks to the whole wrong cherry-picking patches approach and the madness for a number of places to build multiple access networks to the same premises whereas many other areas are still without fibre.

    Nothing to be proud of!

    1. Avatar photo Andrew Ferguson says:

      Around 140,000 premises have Openreach FTTP and someone elses FTTP service too. So hardly madness.

      The two incumbents account for 8% of UK premises, then another 5.5% to add from the other providers.

      The path was always clear for others to start building at scale many years ago, and there was the small matter of 2 to 3 years of back and fro while the fate of Openreach was decided, which stymied appetite for investment both in Openreach and probably others watching to see what the outcome was.

      Hindsight is a wonderful tool, as is outrage.

    2. Avatar photo New_Londoner says:

      @Andrew
      It goes without saying that the armchair engineers could have done a better job, would have installed FTTP to the whole country by now for half the cost. Obviously most have no prior experience but are nevertheless confident of their abilities to lead from the comfort of their own homes! 😉

    3. Avatar photo Marek says:

      Why some countries have better coverage per person or adress, even those with massive DSL networks? Look at Sweden, Romania, even Poland.

    4. Avatar photo Andrew Ferguson says:

      Some countries have a lot better because of how network was built, e.g. chunks of the Bucharest FTTP network is spiders webs hanging off uttility poles running up to individual flats on the outside of buildings, or direct buried in ground besides a road.

      Other factors can be little or no presence of a cable TV operator and when they arrived staring with DOCSIS made so sense so went with FTTP.

      Add in the low proportion of appartment living in the UK and the economics of doing FTTB make them low hanging fruit, i.e. cheap and quick to do. Hence why Hyperoptic is 3rd largest operator in UK at this time.

    5. Avatar photo openstench says:

      “We are in 2020, and so far only 2.5 Millions premises are covered by BT’s FTTP?

      This is very poor record, this country is a decade behind where it should be by now…”

      Indeed, failed their original “goal”….
      http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2013/04/bt-abandons-native-uk-fttp-broadband-rollout-for-fttpod-and-fttc.html

      then failed this “goal”….
      http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2013/04/bt-abandons-native-uk-fttp-broadband-rollout-for-fttpod-and-fttc.html

      That was a month late (if you believe their figures for 2020 thus far)

      Oh and the funniest thing is we are expected to believe since…
      http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2019/04/2-million-uk-premises-can-now-access-full-fibre-broadband-isp-lines.html

      They have now done 2.5 Million so another half a million in only a month. Yet its taken them neigh on a decade to do the other 2 Million????

      If it stinks of BS, looks like BS, talks BS, its BS.

      Either BT BS figures or another news source (i can guess which) this story was from fudges the figures instead. Either way FAKE NEWS.

    6. Avatar photo openstench says:

      ^^^ That one paragraph should read
      “They have now done 2.5 Million so another half a million in only one year and one month. Yet its taken them neigh on a decade to do the other 2 Million????”

    7. Avatar photo Andrew Ferguson says:

      I can only assume Openreach did something bad to previous commentator.

      The current build rate is running at around 100,000 premises a month, i.e. an awful lot faster than a decade ago.

      Of course facts are less important today than emotional upset.

    8. Avatar photo New_Londoner says:

      @Andrew
      He/she may be upset for some reason but that doesn’t make your post fake news! It’s a shame when someone is unable to differentiate between their unstated personal issues and facts.

    9. Avatar photo dumdum says:

      “The current build rate is running at around 100,000 premises a month, i.e. an awful lot faster than a decade ago.”

      Rather than attack a poster its best to try to look at the point they are making.

      The prior poster has a point (presented as a poorly constructed rant i grant) which they did not explain very well.

      The link they gave of…
      http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2019/04/2-million-uk-premises-can-now-access-full-fibre-broadband-isp-lines.html

      Claimed just over 1 year ago (article dated April 2019) there were “full fibre (FTTP) style ultrafast broadband ISP networks are now available to 2,047,954 premises”

      This latest news item (1 year and a bit later) claims “Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband ISP network has now reached an official coverage figure of just over 2.5 million UK premises (end of March 2020 / Q4 financial)”

      So that is ONLY APPROX 500,000 done in 1 year….

      THAT IS NOT an increase of 25,000 or 100,000 average per month as TBB and BT have for well OVER a year been stating.

      If it were then over a space of 12 months at 100,000 per month, in the year March/April 19 to March/April 20 Another 1.2 Million should had been complete NOT just 500,000 (LESS than half) they and you it appears are now claiming.

      The total NOW if that April 2019 story was accurate and TBBs + BTs 100,000 a month claims were accurate should be well over 3 Million premise TOTAL done by now… Its not though.

    10. Avatar photo dumdum says:

      Or another way to look at this if you would prefer 500,00-600,00 (ish) more premises done in ONE year would equal only 40,000 – 50,000 per MONTH. (thats 10,000 – 12,500 per week).

      BT (was it also TBB?????) have been claiming double that per week…

      https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/01/bt-build-fttp-and-g-fast-broadband-to-4-9-million-uk-premises.html

      QUOTE “Otherwise we note that FTTP broadband build pace was 23,000 premises passed per week in October 2019, then 26,000 premises in January 2020 and Openreach expects to exit 2019/20 (i.e. next quarter) with an impressive run rate of around 30,000 per week.”

      So hmm yeah they had a good point presented poorly. But the conclusion was right

      Bu1154it claims. Figures of 23,000 – 30,000 per month.

      Even if we are kind and say they they were only doing 20,000 per week (that is a whole 10,000 less per week that their PEAK figure they claim) throughout 2019 then that would be another 960,000 in a year not a bit over 500,000 which has been done.

      I also imagine around half of whatever it is they have ACTUALLY done when it comes to FTTP is NEW build rather than current homes, which illustrate just how bad the situation is and how long many waiting on BT/Openreach are likely going to have to wait.

      You and the BT party pampers carry on though, perhaps you could blame them only doing less than half of what they have been claiming over a year of the 2 months of the covid “crisis” or some other nonsense.

    11. Avatar photo New_Londoner says:

      @dumdum
      Thank you for trying to decode the rant! If your explanation is correct, it is based on false data.

      The article actually says that in April 2019 FTTP was available to 2,047,954 premises and that Openreach infrastructure accounted for half of those (1,003,094 premises). So that’s an increase of roughly 1.5 million premises in 12 months if the 2.5 million figure is correct for Openreach now.

    12. Avatar photo Andrew Ferguson says:

      https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/8691-march-2020-update-on-how-fast-openreach-is-deploying-fttp

      https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/8470-time-for-a-revisit-of-how-openreach-fttp-is-split-up

      Have been splitting out openreach build each month for a while. Always on 12th

      7th of each month uk wide figures that add/merge other operators

      What more in terms of tracking and keeping an eye on operators figures do people want?

    13. Avatar photo GNewton says:

      @dumdum: Just to clarify: The 2 Million figure from 2019 includes both BT Openreach and other fibre network providers, with half of that from Openreach. The new 2020 2.5 million figure is from BT Openreach coverage only, and if I understand the article correctly doesn’t include other fibre network providers.

      It would be interesting to have a total fibre coverage figure, and there will likely to be a lot of overlaps.

      Either way, this country has a very poor record, and is hopelessly behind of where it should be. We are in the year 2020 now, and the majority in this country does NOT have fibre access! BT, along with wrong government policies, and a prevalent Can’t Do culture are all contributing factors to this failure.

    14. Avatar photo Andrew Ferguson says:

      https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/8715-march-2020-update-on-broadband-availability-across-the-uk-nations-and-regions

      As of 7th April 2020 3,960,831 FTTP All Operators and overlaps taken into account.

      As of 5th May 2020 4,106,847 FTTP All Operators – no link but figure will increase in next day or two.

      My Openreach FTTP figure is 2,245,081 premises. So yes behind the figures Mark got from industry sources, i.e. it was not me. Am always behind as until providers have built it and available to the public I cannot find it.

    15. Avatar photo dumdum says:

      @NewLondoner @GNewton

      You are correct it was late the first link i gave does indeed say only 1+ Million of those were Openreach premises back in 2019.

      It still brings up questions though…

      I am still a little perplexed as to how long they have been doing the claimed 100,000 premises (if they have) per month though. Is it only the last year or two??

      At that rate they should as i stated be doing 1.2 Million per year and for us to only be at the 2.5 Million stage that would only be 2 years worth of work at that claimed rate.

      What have they been doing FTTP wise between 2014 and 2018? It must of been basically nothing if they have indeed been doing 100,000 per month for the last say couple of years.

      Also would be interesting what percent of those 2.5 Million are from new builds? Rather than upgrading people which is what all their news pieces while not directly stating make it sound like they have upgraded/rollout to.

      Where i live very few places have been upgraded beyond FTTC, id say there are more G.Fast than FTTP (which makes sense as that is still out there in higher numbers than FTTP) but also where i live all new builds seem to be FTTP, so from what i see it seems a VERY large chunk of FTTP is probably new build.

      Personally NEARLY every time i read any Openreach news item involving claimed figures something just looks off and every time something gets questioned a new explanation seems to be made. All their press releases are like a dodgy car sales man, claiming this and that. While not out right lying its manipulating. In my experience if there are often a lot of questions and each time needs a new explanation (in ANYTHING in life) its often not an explanation but shadiness of some sort.

      Maybe its just me, either way im in no hurry for their FTTP. There are other options in my area (Altnets and VM) so with my personal feelings towards them, their news pieces, the defending of them of forums like this and just them as a company as a whole, id not be running to them or the dodgy car sales person either any time soon.

    16. Avatar photo Andrew Ferguson says:

      Perhaps these links will help you

      https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/8074-june-update-on-state-of-broadband-coverage-across-the-uk-nations-and-regions
      Openreach/KCOM total FTTP 659,000 premises passed

      https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/8394-april-2019-update-on-broadband-availability-across-the-uk-nations-and-regions
      Openreach/KCOM 1.3 million premises passed

      https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/8557-september-2019-update-on-broadband-availability-across-the-uk-nations-and-regions
      Openreach/KCOM 1.77 million

      https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/8715-march-2020-update-on-broadband-availability-across-the-uk-nations-and-regions
      Openreach/KCOM 2.355 million

      On your New Build idea
      https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/8717-april-2020-update-on-how-fast-openreach-is-deploying-fttp gives you a figure and
      https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/8674-83-of-new-build-homes-appearing-in-2019-had-full-fibre-as-standard is focuse on just new build over the years

      NOTE: In no way defending the wording of their press releases, just pointing out that the numbers you are asking about and trends over time are all out there if you look

    17. Avatar photo dumdum says:

      Thank you Andrew so it looks as far as i can tell roughly 20-25% of the current 2.5 (ish) Million figure is likely new build either complete, in progress or due.

      It also appears as suggested any real pace and significant rollout of FTTP in general has only taken place in the last couple of years, which again does make me wonder what have they been doing for most of the decade?

      Is it indeed only in the last couple of years that rates of over 15,000 properties a week have occurred?

  7. Avatar photo Gary says:

    Would be nice to see the numbers for active service vs these passed claims.

    I don’t know how achievable that is in reality mind you, I’d understand if Openreach don’t release the numbers of actual active connections.

    1. Avatar photo Andrew Ferguson says:

      The number of active connections is part of the financial reports each quarter, so you’ll find last quarters figures in the news

    2. Avatar photo Gary says:

      Ah, Cheers Andrew.

    3. Mark-Jackson Mark Jackson says:

      Take-up was at 21.57% at the last report, but we can probably expect this figure to reduce because the rapid rate of build will weigh against growth in adoption during the roll-out phase. Openreach also had a fair bit of FTTP from pre-Fibre First deployments, which had a chance to grow take-up during a lull and this has helped to prop up the numbers until now.

  8. Avatar photo David R says:

    Openreach has recently attached notices to various lampposts in my street regarding the upcoming placement of new poles that will be placed in locations where there’s never been a pole and every house on the street already has a line connected to an existing pole. There’s a row of houses who even have their line fed underground and yet a pole is to erected there too.

    This seems odd, especially as there’s no new builds here, or could it be FTTP?

    1. Avatar photo GNewton says:

      This is indeed quite odd.

      On a bigger scale, BT already has a countrywide network of ducts and poles, yet over the past decade and more hasn’t been able to build a nationwide fibre network. There is something seriously wrong with this company!

  9. Avatar photo Paul Robinson says:

    Im lucky to have had fttp since late 2011 when my area was upgraded but its appalling how the rest of the country is so far behind

  10. Avatar photo Jamie Simms says:

    Not sure if there is a bad case of Wood Worm all over Leicester but have noticed that Openreach are going round replacing nearly every single telephone pole over the next few weeks.

    Also my sister lives on a housing estate in Birstall Leicester with over 1000 houses and most have got no FTTC which has shown as planned for last 2 year but no cabinets have been installed. The area does have VM but is massively over subscribed as around 7/10 are on VM I wonder if this is why Openreach have not installed FTTC, so I wonder if they will ever do the work or just skip straight to FTTP

    1. Avatar photo Archie says:

      I’m surprised Birstall is over subscribed since it’s had VM’s FTTP like most of Charnwood for a while now. Are you sure? I don’t live too far away and have their FTTP with no issues. Full speed all of the time.

    2. Avatar photo Jamie Simms says:

      Archie- Birstall has not got VM FFTP its all Co-Ax apart from possibly a few new builds on the Hallam Fields development. Virgin speeds in the evening are way below promised speeds and my sister has twice tried to move onto the top package with 500Mbps as she works in TV production so pulls massive files for editing but both times orders have been cancelled as lack of capacity in network in Birstall which is not surprising with how Openreach have treated the area.

      She has also enquired about FTTPOD but was not told costs would not be considered as so far from aggregation node and also looked at leased lines but again far too expensive construction charges

      Nearly all of the Greengate Lane estate has no FTTC and as mentioned previously has been in the being planned stage since early 2018 with no progress being made , best hope is that they will just do FTTP now or that Cityfibre decide to cover the area

  11. Avatar photo I Hate BT says:

    FTTC is utter crap, what’s the point of putting shiny fibre to a cabinet when you run from the cabinet to the end user over decades old rotten bell wire that has all the robustness of wet string ? BT is the reason FTTP has been so slow roll out in the UK, not the reason for it, too busy wanting to sweat as much as possible it’s crappy old copper/aluminium asset.

    1. Avatar photo The Facts says:

      Other companies have been able to install for the last 30 years.

    2. Avatar photo 125us says:

      The point which you seem unable to ascertain is to upgrade a large number of customers quickly at a fairly low cost. If BT had gone straight to FTTP we’d have maybe 10% of the country with that and the rest still on ADSL.

      There’s clearly a huge difference in the cost and time taken between upgrading one cabinet that serves hundreds of customers versus laying a fibre into each of those buildings instead.

    3. Avatar photo A_Builder says:

      @125us

      Yup but the FTTC rollout was supposed to have then been followed by a ca 1M FTTP rollout 10 years ago. According to one Liv Garfield then at BT.

      I agree that FTTC was a necessary stepping stone. But the delay between the tail off of the FTTC rollout and the start of commercial FTTP and the Fibre First has been unconscionable and actually not in BT commercial interests either.

      Not helped by all the messing around with GFast.

    4. Avatar photo Fastman says:

      really

      the issue with FTTP then and FTTP now is that FTTP was manifold and splitter and now its connectorised block (so significantly easier to build and provide service to than what is was back in 2012/3 which is when I think liv was CEO — if you can deliver 10x more FTTC for example for the same price and 1/10 FTTP what you deliver — – Commercial sense , don’t forget target than was > 24 M/bps

    5. Avatar photo Fastman says:

      that figures was mean to reflect 10X FTTC for same price as 1/10 premises FTTP as an example

    6. Avatar photo dumdum says:

      “Yup but the FTTC rollout was supposed to have then been followed by a ca 1M FTTP rollout 10 years ago. According to one Liv Garfield then at BT.”

      10 years ago their “goal” (these change like the wind direction) was only what we have reached now (IE the 2-2.5 Million) premises.

      Given a large chunk of FTTP in the last 2-3 years seems to have been from new build housing and that in the last 1-2 years its only just reached the 100,000 per month milestones it does indeed make you wonder what exactly they have been doing for most of the decade with regards to FTTP.

      Most of it seems to have been done in the last 2 years making all their PR blub since 2009 about their FTTP and what they were going to do basically emptiness.

      It will not it seems stop fans, employees, shareholders (or whatever their motivation is) defending the painfully slow and useless progress.

    7. Avatar photo CarlT says:

      Must’ve missed the part where we were building enough houses in England or the UK that they could be considered a large chunk of 100,000 premises a month.

      Not that this’ll stop the clueless trolls with no idea what they’re talking about attacking the progress with no suggestions whatsoever about how it could be done more quickly.

    8. Avatar photo Andrew Ferguson says:

      https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/8674-83-of-new-build-homes-appearing-in-2019-had-full-fibre-as-standard

      The numbers the poster is missing 73.6% of 151,375 new premises in 2019 (Nov/Dec missing as not in ONS postcode set)

      https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/8691-march-2020-update-on-how-fast-openreach-is-deploying-fttp

      349,000 Openreach FTTP in new build since 2016

    9. Avatar photo GNewton says:

      “Other companies have been able to install for the last 30 years.”

      Stop spreading half-truths here, and do a proper research as to why it didn’t happen!

    10. Avatar photo dumdum says:

      “Must’ve missed the part where we were building enough houses in England or the UK that they could be considered a large chunk of 100,000 premises a month.”

      So have i, which is part of my point about figures. According to Andrews data unless i am reading it wrong around 20% of that 2.5 Million is likely New build premises.

      If the progress to rolling out FTTP has mainly taken place in the last couple of years, then that suggests ON AVERAGE according to BT anyway (based on the 100,000 per month AVERAGE figures) that they are hooking up around 20,000 new build premises per month (or 5000 a week).

      Personally i did not think new homes were being built at that rate either, yet it seems if the figures you are reading from BT are true then they must be, are they?

      “Not that this’ll stop the clueless trolls with no idea what they’re talking about attacking the progress with no suggestions whatsoever about how it could be done more quickly.”

      I have never said it should be done quicker or slower for that matter. I have simply questioned if the rate is 100,000 per month and that rate or anything close to it has happened for say the last 2 years then what have they done for the rest of the last decade?

      If BT figures (not my opinion) is to be believed then any FTTP progress has only taken place in the last 2 years or so, despite all their PR and news release over the last decade with their various lofty “goals”.

      I fail to see how asking what then have done in the last 10 years is trolling.

      @ANDREW…

      Thank you again for providing that information for the last couple of years.

    11. Avatar photo Andrew Ferguson says:

      What was going on for the previous years?

      Heard of the VDSL2 roll-out?
      Heard of the BDUK contracts with penalties for not delivering on time?
      Heard of the protracted split or no split of Openreach? This killed a few years of roll-out

      Visit https://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/ click History button and the gold line shows progress of FTTP roll-outs (all operators) since 2010.

      Want to see what Fibre First activity looks like over time look at https://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/E08000035 and the history graphs

      Yes the UK is building around 200,000 properties per year, a lot are flats plus various estates.

      So to answer question yes current rate is around 100,000 per month, but no one has ever tried to suggest that they’ve been building at that rate for lots of years.

    12. Avatar photo dumdum says:

      So it would appear the majority of Openreaches FTTP deployment has indeed taken place over the last couple of years or so. Which does indeed make any “goals” they said they were going to meet (sorry try to meet) over the last decade mute.

      I note today the new goal of 20 Million by 2025-2030. That will be interesting considering to just reach the 15 Million by 2025 they need to be doing 50,000 per week (or roughly double what they are doing at the moment if its still around 100,000 per month or 25,000 per week).

      Funny how these lofty “goals” if we look back which they announce (like the 2.5 million FTTP goal back around 2009) seem to always come about when their share price is in the crapper and about to be flushed right down it, just enough used car sales person like blub to hopefully halt the flush.

    13. Avatar photo New_Londoner says:

      @dumdum
      It would be much easier if you only posted a comment once rather than multiple postings of the same point against the same story. Saying it twice doesn’t make it right!

      Andrew has given you some of the background, you can always read up on this yourself if you’re really that interested. For example, you can easily find references to the original FTTP target by Openreach being dropped in favour of further FTTC as the latter was performing far better than expected in terms of reach and speed.

      As for future targets, the company seems to be on track to hit its 4m milestone for 2021, is showing a pretty decent ability to ramp up build to get to the 15m target. The next 5m after that becomes harder of course, and likely more expensive per premise and is, I believe, dependent on overdue government decisions on business rates etc (that may apply to the 15m target too).

  12. Avatar photo New_Londoner says:

    @GNewton
    Quote “Stop spreading half-truths here, and do a proper research as to why it didn’t happen!”

    What is your understanding of the position here. Are you suggesting that the cable companies and, more recently, the “alt nets” could not install FTTP if they wished? Some examples would be helpful.

Comments are closed

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