Openreach Confirm G.fast Broadband Rollout Paused Until 2021 UPDATE

Openreach (BT) has confirmed to ISPreview.co.uk that they do not intend to build their G.fast based “ultrafast broadband” (100Mbps+) ISP network to any more UK homes until April 2021. The service has been on pause since last year, when the operator re-focused toward gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) technology.

In a hybrid fibre G.fast setup the fibre optic cable only goes as far as your local PCP street cabinet (similar to FTTC / VDSL2 technology) and then runs to your home via an existing copper line. G.fast can make use of 106-212MHz of spectrum and thus delivers its best speeds for those within c.100-300 metres of a cabinet (variable speeds of up to 300Mbps), but it’s fairly useless for those on longer lines.

By comparison FTTP takes a high-capacity optical fibre cable all the way to your home, which removes the reliability problems of copper and makes gigabit (1Gbps+) speeds a possibility. The advantage of G.fast is that it was quick and cheap to deploy, but Openreach’s cabinet (side pod extension on PCP) based approach hasn’t always produced the best speeds and suffered as the political impetus switched to “full fibre” and “gigabit” networks.

Suffice to say that few were surprised when Openreach announced, in September 2019, that they would review the plans for G.fast build beyond March 2020 (here). Unfortunately the conclusion of this review ended up being delayed by the COVID-19 crisis, but the operator has just now begun to inform UK ISPs about their latest position.

An Openreach Spokesperson told ISPreview.co.uk:

“We recently announced that we’ll be building Full Fibre broadband technology to 20m homes by the mid-to-late 2020s, so that’s our priority.

We do still expect to use Gfast in some circumstances, but we don’t expect to be building Gfast to more premises this year.”

In other words, G.fast deployments will officially remain on pause until at least April 2021, but in reality it’s unlikely to ever play a big role in the future of UK broadband again. Openreach does however still see a potential role for G.fast in some specific scenarios, such as via in-fill in certain hard to reach areas (including certain types of MDU / apartment blocks).

The decision makes perfect sense in light of the greater focus on full fibre (right across the market), the desire to withdraw copper services further down the line and the fact that take-up of the G.fast service by consumers hasn’t been particularly strong (here).

However the decision to keep G.fast on pause may create some problems. For example, ISPreview.co.uk is aware via the London Grid for Learning (LGfL) that some schools in certain authorities are being promised G.fast this Autumn 2020, which judging by the above announcement may not happen (they may go with slow VDSL2 instead or wait much longer for FTTP).

UPDATE 4:32pm

We’ve had a small update from Openreach.

A Spokesperson for Openreach added:

“Although we don’t expect to build Gfast to more premises this year, the technology is available to 2.8m homes and businesses across the country. Anyone who has already placed an order for Gfast will still be able to get a service, and we will continue to accept Gfast customer orders on the 2.8m premises so customers can benefit from faster speeds. People can see what broadband services are available to them by using the Openreach fibre checker.”