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Openreach Name 67 UK Areas for Next FTTP Broadband Rollout

Tuesday, Sep 15th, 2020 (8:37 am) - Score 118,163
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Openreach (BT) have today added 67 new locations into their UK “Fibre Cities” roll-out programme for 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP technology, which forms part of their £12bn project to cover 20 million premises by around the mid to late 2020s (2025 – 2030).

Until now Openreach had mostly released enough “full fibre” planning to achieve their first target of 4.5 million premises by March 2021 (except for the rural commitment mentioned further below). After that they also hold an ambition to invest £12bn in order to cover 20 million premises by the “mid – to late-2020s” (here) – at an “average build cost of £300 – £400 per premises.

NOTE: Openreach has so far covered 3 million+ premises with FTTP and they now expect to hit 4.5 million by March 2021 (current average build rate of c.34,000 per week). A max build rate of 3 million per year is envisaged.

In short, we’ve been patiently awaiting more news of the operator’s roll-out plan for beyond March 2021 and this reflects that, with work due to start on this phase in that same month. We should point out that today’s update is only the first in what will be a string of future announcements over the next few years, but given their revised expectation for March 2021 it would appear as if Openreach aren’t expecting the COVID-19 crisis to have too much of a negative impact.

The previous decision to aim for a fairly open roll-out window until the “late 2020s” also gives them plenty of wriggle room later on.

The 67 New Locations (Sept 2020 Update)
Alloway
Amber Valley
Basildon
Bedford
Beith
Boston Spa
Brighouse
Broxtowe
Burton
Castleford
Chorley
Crownhill
Daventry
Egham
Ellesmere Port
Epping Forest
Galgate
Gateshead
Helsby
Hemel Hempstead
Herongate
Hest Bank
Heysham
Highworth
Hooton
Hounslow
Ivybridge
Keynsham
Kilbirnie
Kings Langley
Kirklees
Lambeth
Lancaster
Lewisham
Long Ashton
Maybole
Medway
Midlothian
Monmouthshire
Morecambe
Motherwell
Newcastle-under-Lyme
Newport
Normanton
Paignton
Park Street
Plympton
Prescot
Prestwick
Purfleet
Redbourn
Royal Wootton Bassett
Sandwell
South Ribble
St Neots
Stewarton
Tameside
Thurrock
Troon
Walsall
Waltham Forest
Wellingborough
Wetherby
Wheathampstead
Willowcroft
Worcester
Wraysbury

We should remind readers that this predominantly reflects Openreach’s commercial build, which for the time being is still mainly focused upon lucrative urban areas (cities and towns). However, the operator did recently confirm that their future plan would involve connecting 3.2 million premises in rural communities by 2025/26 too (here).

Separately they’re also still deploying some FTTP into rural area via Building Digital UK linked state aid schemes and gigabit vouchers (here), which may grow if they win contracts under the future £5bn F20 gigabit fund (here) – this is focused on the final 20% of hardest to reach premises.

The Government has a related ambition to reach every home with a “gigabit-capable” broadband connection by the end of 2025, which in our view remains an over-optimistic target but it can also be delivered by hybrid fibre (e.g. Virgin Media’s DOCSIS) or fixed wireless (e.g. 5G) networks, rather than just “full fibre” ones (the prior target for universal FTTP coverage was 2033). Altnet ISPs will play a big role (here).

NOTE: Deployment costs rise disproportionately the further you go outside of urban areas. Openreach claim those in the final 10% could cost £4K each to pass or more (here).

Clive Selley, CEO of Openreach, said:

“Despite the challenges of the pandemic we’re continuing to make great strides towards our goal to build ultrafast, ultra-reliable broadband to 20 million homes and businesses.

This new digital platform can help the UK’s economy bounce back quicker from the Covid-19 crisis and, whilst a full recovery is likely to be measured in years rather than months, there’s strong evidence that Full Fibre broadband could help to turbo-charge that process.

For homes, shops, GP surgeries and schools across the country it will mean fewer broadband faults, faster connections, and a consistent reliable network that will serve them for decades to come.”

The top fastest consumer (residential) focused FTTP tier on Openreach’s network is currently 1Gbps (115Mbps upload), although so far only some ISPs have had a chance to adopt their fastest tiers (introduced in March 2020) and thus the 330Mbps option tends to be the most commonly available one but that is changing. You can also get a good idea of the different ISP choices here.

Otherwise we note that take-up on Openreach’s FTTP network is currently at 18.6%, although a lot of that stems from their slower pre-2018 builds and as such the high rate of deployment over the next few years will inevitably out-pace adoption (i.e. the take-up rate will go down as build ramps-up). In order to properly measure early take-up you really have to look at areas that have been live for 12-24 months.

Finally, since the latest build programme began in February 2018, Openreach engineers have deployed around 2.6 million kilometres of fibre – enough to travel to the moon and back three times.

NOTE: We expect to see a 1Gbps symmetric option for businesses in the future (here).

UPDATE 11:53am

Anybody interested in seeing which sub-contractor will be responsible for building in each of the above areas – as a complement to Openreach’s own teams – can now do so (here).

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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
104 Responses
  1. Avatar photo Ricardo says:

    Wow Bedford is on the list.
    Now I need to find something new to moan about.

    1. Avatar photo Jason D says:

      Maybe I need to stand corrected. Over the last 11 months I have been checking and couldn’t find anything on Openreach site about a definite start date, bar October 2019.

      Just checked the new line someone posted further down, and it looks like the will be starting in the next 3 months?!? Woohoo! Fingers crossed.

    2. Avatar photo Andy M says:

      Tell me about it.
      I’ve been waiting forever for this!

  2. Avatar photo Ryan says:

    Anyone in the previous list of 229 locations (market towns) had any movement?

    I know I am being overly keen but when you can see the light at the very distant end of the tunnel I would love to know when they are planning to start and wondered if any market town had building work starting.

    1. Avatar photo Roger says:

      I live in Neston which was on that list, OR stated checking the ducts etc. in March and I’m expecting it to be available in October/November time.

    2. Avatar photo Random Precision says:

      I’m in North Tyneside and they are pulling fibre cables in on the next estate to mine, won’t be long before they start here judging by the markings on pavements etc.

    3. Avatar photo Pete nik says:

      Market Drayton here did not see the original list but no sign of any activity just gas

    4. Avatar photo Jason D says:

      Not for me in Watford. Was on original list and still no further news than October 2019! And nothing new since.
      Have contacted lots of other suppliers, Hyperoptic etc and nothing planned for residential areas. A few have installed FTTP in business parks.
      Am with Virgin, but they not the greatest and would like options rather than Virgin or 27mpbs with everyone else.

    5. Avatar photo Ryan says:

      Thanks all,

      I put my postcode in on the open reach site and it says we have no plans of yet to bring FTTP but on the map it shows our town as in the plan.

      I know I shouldn’t moan, but we have a light at the end of the tunnel and it would be great to even have a rough timeline if possible from what I can see no work or markings are taking place at the moment. Hopefully it will all just happen overnight. Until then, it’s 25/3 for the future – maybe Virgin will install in the meantime as they have put a few boxes up at the edge of the town but no movement in 3 years since.

      Thanks all.

    6. Avatar photo Rik says:

      I’m in Skelmersdale and we’ve not really had any movement bar a couple of new build estates getting FTTP which I believe is normal under their Fibre First plans.

  3. Avatar photo Ryan says:

    Well done openreach ! Proper cracking on with this

  4. Avatar photo Colin Scott says:

    And not one of them in Northern Ireland. Typical of openreach.always last on the list even though we pay the same for rubbish service.

    1. Avatar photo Terry Dactil says:

      Openreach have already announced a significant rollout in Northern Ireland

    2. Avatar photo Jake4 says:

      You do know Openreach covers 45.50% in Northern Ireland, this is 3x the % of Britain.

    3. Avatar photo joe says:

      @jake. Never let the facts get in the way…

    4. Avatar photo Roger says:

      I would suggest you look at the map link posted by Random Precision.
      You have much better coverage than the rest of the UK

    5. Avatar photo Sunil Sood says:

      @Colin

      94 rural towns and villages in Northern Ireland were announced in July

  5. Avatar photo a welshman says:

    my village was announced at the start of the year but i have not seen anything being done so far apart from an extra small extension to the cab

  6. Avatar photo Ryan says:

    Those area names mean nothing really do they?
    Like Tameside, covers a whole bunch of exchanges, but I’m guessing they’re not going to do them all.
    Stockport is on the current list, and there’s about 2 exchanges that have been done, but none of the others are listed as planned.
    So I don’t understand the point of those lists, unless I’m just missing something.

    1. Avatar photo gary says:

      Indeed Ryan, I dont live there but picked ‘Monmouthshire’ to google, an area of some 850,000 square KM, I know its a long term plan but wooly doesnt cover it.

      So much can change in the timescales theyre talking about, Like you there seems little point other than someting to press release.

    2. Avatar photo Ian Croft says:

      Gary mentioned Monmouthshire; I live there and a great deal of it is rural. So I don’t see anything happening to improve my 2mps download anytime soon.

    3. Avatar photo kaalus says:

      850,000 square kilometers? Blimey, that’s nearly four times the size of the entire UK.

  7. Avatar photo Peter says:

    I’m on that list.

    Is there a website where you can check progress with this?

    1. Avatar photo Billy Mayes says:

      I’m in the list too, checking the link Random Precision sent it tells me
      “We don’t have plans to upgrade your area yet. Tell us you’re interested and we’ll update you when things change.”

    2. Avatar photo James says:

      Same here – “We don’t have any plans to upgrade your area right now”

  8. Avatar photo CJ says:

    Motherwell is on the list but I already have it in Motherwell. I know only small patches of the town currently have it.

  9. Avatar photo Summer Is Here says:

    Whats the difference between “Fibre Cities” and “Fibre First”

  10. Avatar photo Jamie Simms says:

    What a surprise yet again another extensive list of locations revealed but like every time no new locations in Leicestershire it seems like this is the county and City that Openreach have forgotten about apart from in new housing builds.

    The thing I can see is that the network is in such a poor state in the area that they are leaving it as long as they can to have to do the upgrades.

    Like always Openreach are chasing after the same areas as VM Gig1 and CityFibre as well

    1. Avatar photo Alex says:

      And yet 97% of Leicestershire has access to 30mbps, 94% of which is down to Openreach. https://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/E10000018
      But yeah, it’s all their fault and they don’t invest in the area.

    2. Avatar photo Archie says:

      Amen, Alex. We’re the forgotten county! Lucky enough that Virgin Media has cabled a lot of Charnwood. However, preferably would’ve been cabled by Openreach.

    3. Avatar photo Alex says:

      Ha, I was being sarcastic Archie.

      People always blame Openreach, but last time i looked it was a free market where others can build networks if they wish to. Meanwhile Openreach has also built superfast broadband to 94% of Leicestershire, so it makes no sense that they’re at the top of Jamie’s list for complaints about investment.

    4. Avatar photo Archie says:

      No sh*t. You were being sardonic?

      Leicestershire overall is and always has been crap for broadband. I’m merely saying, as you’ve misunderstood, that I would prefer to have a choice that includes Openreach. Ta.

  11. Avatar photo Malcolm Smith says:

    Are there any post code for Boston Spa for future FTTP?

  12. Avatar photo Jon says:

    Why as ever nothing for Leicestershire??

    1. Avatar photo GNewton says:

      You will notice that vast areas, probably the majority of it, are still not in the plans to be upgraded to fibre broadband. While the recent efforts of BT are to commended, it’s all quite late. We should have been in this stage more than a decade ago. There is still a lot of catchup work to do, you can’t undo past mistakes from one to day to another.

      Also, what is worrisome is the plan of the £5bn F20 gigabit fund! This will be a lot of money going into private companies, like BT, who will will then reap in the whole benefits and profits of it, whereas the taxpayer will have no share in these newly built fibre networks or its future revenues. That can’t be right.

    2. Avatar photo A_Builder says:

      “ Also, what is worrisome is the plan of the £5bn F20 gigabit fund! This will be a lot of money going into private companies, like BT, who will will then reap in the whole benefits and profits of it, whereas the taxpayer will have no share in these newly built fibre networks or its future revenues. That can’t be right.”

      What would be more worrisome would be not spending the money so as not to get the job done.

      Momentum is the key here while everyone is interested.

      Yes it is public money but the boost it will give the UK SME economy will be well worth it. As well as making WFH workable for everyone. M

      I’ll be the first to criticise BT for not implementing the 1M Garfield plan 10 years ago but they didn’t and that is history.

  13. Avatar photo Andrew Fieldhouse says:

    Nothing for Telford 🙁

    1. Avatar photo Phil McCracken says:

      I put my postcode in and it says that we are in the rollout plan.
      Have been loads of open reach vans in the estate in Dawley Bank recently putting in cable so fingers crossed it will be here soon.

  14. Avatar photo Declan M says:

    It states Midlothian but Midlothian is a council area not a town or city, do you think this means the whole of Midlothian ?

    1. Avatar photo joe says:

      the heart of Midlothian perhaps ;-)?

    2. Avatar photo Peter says:

      Yeah I was wondering that as well since Virgin Media pulled the fibre building out from Newtongrange and Gorebridge I have had to think about the possibly of moving house in the longer term.

      Fingers, toes, legs and arms crossed this means they will hit all the major towns, villages and their exchanges in Midlothian.

    3. Avatar photo John says:

      Parts of Newtongrange (seventh, sixth, fifth Street etc) are marked as FTTP coming.

      They did my development in Mayfield recently as part of the retro new build work.

      I expect them to cover Girebridge at some point under this plan.

      By Midlothian they mean the county, excluding Edinburgh which is already on Fibre First.

    4. Avatar photo Granger says:

      @Peter – have Virgin definitely canned the Newtongrange and Gorebridge expansions or just postponed them until things settle down?

    5. Avatar photo Declan M says:

      On my wavelength Joe

    6. Avatar photo Declan M says:

      I stay in Dalkeith (Woodburn) we have Virgin, but the new housing at the top and over near the campus has never been touched by Virgin which I thought was a bit strange.

    7. Avatar photo Peter says:

      @Granger – Not sure if this is forever or temp but all the dates have been removed from the works tracking sites so its likely they were pulled at council level.

      New dates may either not be set at VM or it could be a back log at the council level due to the lack of staff to log new works.

      I have some contacts at VMB but they haven’t been able to give me a contact on the residential side of the business to chat to or ask.

      I would prefer a 1Gbit link via Openreach anyway since I can still use iDNet as my ISP rather than VM which can be hit and miss (Past experience, twice)

    8. Avatar photo John says:

      Declan OpenReach have covered all the new housing round the top of Woodburn, dish by the High School and the new development at Kippielaw with FTTP in the last couple months.

      Virgin might not cover them at all now.

      Fortunately i have both in Mayfield, having recently switched from Virgin to BTFTTP.

      My brother lives in Woodburn and struggles on 20Mb FTTC.

      Hopefully you’ll both very covered soon.

  15. Avatar photo M J Hunt says:

    Once again It seems that a small rural town like Melton Mowbray has been forgotten, The powers that be are allowing house building and attracting more families to the area without upgrading the Comms infrastructure, looks like I won’t be getting a much needed boost to my already woefully bad broadband..

    1. Avatar photo CarlT says:

      The new properties will almost certainly be full fibre.

  16. Avatar photo John says:

    Is that Newport Wales or Newport Isle of Wight?

  17. Avatar photo ComicBookAssassin says:

    Nothing in Aylesbury, they are planning to keep there aluminium opps I mean copper cable running for life!

  18. Avatar photo Adam Crump says:

    I am a little surprised that Market Harborough is not on the list as Openreach have been all over the town in the last month or so working 7 days a week pulling what I was told was the “Fibre spline for FTTP to enable it by December. At times there has been around 15 engineers doing bits

  19. Avatar photo Granola says:

    A town is on the Jul 29 list and again on the 15 Sept list (therfore it is not an extra). Does it indicate that the start date has been put back or pulled forward ?

  20. Avatar photo kris says:

    Anyone know why London is under-severed in deploying FTTP.. Think so far Richmond / Wimbledon have been done plus 4 other small locations. The density of housing you’d expect make the economic investment much quicker to realise.

    1. Avatar photo A_Builder says:

      There is a lot of very very old infrastructure – as befits the starting point for UK telephony.

      Stir in the issues around red routes and LA/exchange overlaps and it all gets a bit harder and a bit slower and a bit more expensive.

      None of this is insuperable but OR are looking for low hanging fruit to justify the investment. Anything with complicated on it is put in the next drawer down for later.

      On the flip side Community Fibre and Hyperoptic are making fast inroads into the MDU segment and talking some quite big funded numbers to roll out very good fast cheap services.

    2. Avatar photo Peach says:

      Thornton Heath, Balham, Dagenham, Ifold, Hatch End, Orpington, Crayford, Thames Ditton, Molesey, Thamesmead…

    3. Avatar photo A_Builder says:

      “ Balham”

      Is the one shining exception on that list.

      The rest are outer London!

      I do take the point that progress is being made is some areas.

    4. Avatar photo Roger_Gooner says:

      Bear in mind that much of London is served by Virgin Media which should have near-gigabit speeds on offer to everyone within 16 months.

  21. Avatar photo David adams says:

    Come on please Huxley road welling
    Only be waiting since 2007

    1. Avatar photo Fastman says:

      looks like a planned FTTC Cab either pulled for commercial of siting reasons

  22. Avatar photo Debra DOWNS says:

    Nothing in Cornwall need fibre in Newquay.

    1. Avatar photo CarlT says:

      Cornwall is nearly 40% full fibre.

      Falmouth, Penryn, Truro and Bodmin were all announced to have more work on them in July.

      Thanks to the Superfast Cornwall scheme and subsequent schemes Cornwall is doing pretty well!

  23. Avatar photo Marc says:

    And yet I live within a 5 min walk of Bristol city centre and can’t get FTTC let alone FTTP.

    1. Avatar photo Somerset says:

      Virgin Media?

  24. Avatar photo Pezza says:

    Lovely, I’ll just continue to live with my FTTC line with ‘fibre on demand’ should I wish to pay the high price it costs for installation… If we ever get 5G, which I doubt, I would leave the hardline.

  25. Avatar photo Paddy Teggart says:

    I notice that none of the towns are in N.Ireland.Isn’t that a surprise!

    1. Avatar photo John says:

      Are you serious?

      The last announcement of 94 towns and villages was entirely made of up places in Northern Ireland.

      https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/07/openreach-add-94-rural-villages-and-towns-to-fttp-broadband-plan.html

      It currently has over 45% coverage from OpenReach FTTP.
      A figure the mainland could only dream of.

  26. Avatar photo Dave says:

    Hopefully they will do a better job elsewhere than they have in Sevenoaks where openreach damaged our copper cable while digging up the road to lay fibre, and are unable to fix the copper cable nor get around to setting up fibre installation to the house until March next year. So no internet at all for the time being and BT seem unable to do anything to force them to fix it.

  27. Avatar photo Neil Edgson says:

    1Gb! Excellent. Can I get an upgrade from 2.9 Mb so I can do email while my daughter watches Netflix? Let’s get reasonable broadband to everyone before we get super fast broadband to people living in towns who already have a good connection. It seems so unfair to rural communities who, let’s face it, are those that need fast access more.

    1. Avatar photo Ryan says:

      Why does that matter. You put in the fibre cable, and it’s capable of that speed.
      People don’t have to automatically buy the gigabit package when they take out FTTP.
      It won’t make a blind bit of difference if we give houses 100mbit or 1000 in terms of roll out progress.

    2. Avatar photo AnotherTim says:

      I think the point was that areas that already have superfast broadband available are being upgraded while areas that don’t aren’t (there are a few exceptions).
      I’m one of the people that think sub-superfast (especially sub-USO) should be prioritised, but there are lots and lots of people that disagree. The commercial roll-outs will of course go to profitable areas – which are not the sub-superfast areas.

  28. Avatar photo Sam says:

    Leicester – Missing – Again! Shock Horror!

  29. Avatar photo Edward Pointer says:

    Glad to see Norfolk is missed out like usual

  30. Avatar photo Nicolas says:

    I would like to know if the fiber is coming soon to Tower Hamlets. Literally the street next to mine has optic fiber but not mine. Ainsley Street has optic fiber, Corfield Street is where I live and literally Ainsley is next to mine and we don’t have optic fiber.

  31. Avatar photo Karuna Shah says:

    Which areas?

  32. Avatar photo LB says:

    Yet again duplication of installations. If the country is going to reach 90% coverage by 2025, then Openreach need to start roll outs where there is no VM. For example the exchanges between Chelmsford and Colchester where VM refuse to extend so residents stuck with aging OR networks that are falling apart at the seams.

    1. Avatar photo Alex says:

      Oh yes too right. Openreach shouldn’t be able to compete with anyone. They should only build where no-one else has and where it’s commercial suicide.

    2. Avatar photo Meadmodj says:

      Why is it Openreach’s fault that other suppliers only target a percentage coverage of an area (60-85%). BT may have had a near monopoly on copper but they do not on FTTP and nor do they have an obligation to provide FTTP. If OR were to be restricted from the commercial areas they would end up with a higher per premises cost and less revenue to rollout FTTP.
      VM have been offering Ultrafast for some time and other Altnets are free to join them in their patches. Whilst there may have considered an element of heading off competition my view is that OR are mainly taking into account marketing data to retain revenue, their location reduction strategy and the availability of resource. In commercial areas they are taking a contiguous approach and have a motive to remove 100% copper longer term. So the published list should be good news for many in these and surrounding areas.
      We will hear next year how the £5bn “sprouting” will be divided for rural but the Government/Ofcom need to do more to encourage OR and the Altnets to ramp up. If we are to be anywhere near 2026/27 then it will require more resource regardless of provider and visibility their plans.

    3. Avatar photo Common Sense says:

      @Meadmodj – What a dreadful and ridiculous comment.

      BT having a monopoly on copper means an artificial situation is created depressing FTTP demand. If they had a brain and installed FTTP to all these copper line properties, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that virtually ALL of these properties would upgrade to FTTP.

      Building multiple FTTP lines to the same properties seems a tremendous waste of resources. This country’s infrastructure is a complete joke. The article here the other day showed us lightyears behind South Korea, Japan, Spain etc. Even the French were ahead. If the French are ahead, there’s nothing to be proud about.

    4. Avatar photo Lee B says:

      You seem to be missing the point I was making.

      The amount of areas/exchanges that already have a FTTP provider shouldn’t be on Openreachs roll out plans until all exchanges are FTTP enabled, the exchanges and areas where no FTTP providers currently active would make more sense to reach the targets.

      The exchanges of Tiptree, Silver End, Kelvedon & Coggeshall have OFNL fibre backbones installed by Openreach for the new build houses popping up everywhere, yet there’s no plans to infill to the copper network that’s not been renewed for at least 30+ years and is rapidly becoming more expensive to maintain.

      Residents of Kelvedon and Feering have had to start a Community Fibre Partnership to even get Openreach to think about it.

      Yet local FTTP providers like County Broadband won’t come near as Openreach have made it nearly impossible.

    5. Avatar photo Fastman says:

      common sense your statement below means you have Zero (zro) understanding of the market openreach operates

      BT having a monopoly on copper means an artificial situation is created depressing FTTP demand. If they had a brain and installed FTTP to all these copper line properties, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that virtually ALL of these properties would upgrade to FTTP.

      Openreach treats all providers in an equivalent way
      Openreach is now allowed to worse ADSL to drive subcribers to fibre
      doing the above would break every rule in the book and commercially disadvange the many copper only ISP and openreach would be up in front of licence for breaking its condition of Licence and (what was previously known as the undertakings)

    6. Avatar photo Fastman says:

      Lee B

      Residents of Kelvedon and Feering have had to start a Community Fibre Partnership to even get Openreach to think about it.

      Yet local FTTP providers like County Broadband won’t come near as Openreach have made it nearly impossible.

      thats funny assume you checked with superfast essex was that area or delivered under Phase 1 and other phases of Superfast essex – im sure some of was with FTTC) if you in any plan or covered in any plan (best plans are to build

      Openreach have made it impossible for county broadband — who on earth told you that — dont believe everything you get told –

    7. Avatar photo CarlT says:

      The OFNL stuff may use Openreach ducts but it can’t be used by them to deploy FTTP. OFNL use PIA to place their own fibre in Openreach passive infrastructure. This fibre does not belong to Openreach and they may not connect anything to it.

      It being there is meaningless as far as Openreach FTTP viability goes.

    8. Avatar photo LB says:

      The OFNL cable to the site was laid by Openreach and uses existing ducting to the Openreach fibre aggregation point (about 500m), which then carries it back to the relevant backhaul. Openreach have pulled fibres for all of the OFNL properties, why not spend some time and do the rest of the villages? That’s why I don’t get.

      In response to County Broadband, that came from themselves as BT when they last did work in this area, made the ducts go in a diagonal across the pavements, so that no one else could lay a duct in the pavement. Which is probably why NTL avoided the area as well.

      Superfast Essex has no plans for FTTP roll out to Kelvedon as we have FTTC.

    9. Avatar photo Fastman says:

      In response to County Broadband, that came from themselves as BT when they last did work in this area, made the ducts go in a diagonal across the pavements, so that no one else could lay a duct in the pavement.

      so they could lay their own ducts but have chosen not to (which they have done in other places)- standard response then blame openreach

  33. Avatar photo James says:

    Amber Valley includes Belper for FTTP rollout which is great, but if you look at the map you can see it’s only a few towns in Amber Valley rather than everything.

  34. Avatar photo Cameron Coleman says:

    Hm the town where my exchange is located is on the list but my village isn’t. I wonder if this means Openreach will then begin to roll out FTTP in phases outwards from the exchange.

    They always seem to be at my cabinet and BT recently said it was at capacity so we will see what happens. Hopefully not too long!!! Does anyone have experience of how their rollout works?

  35. Avatar photo Nick Roberts says:

    How random can you get ?

    Watford (Herfordshire, 15 miles from the centre of London)population 100,000, mostly the young.

    Wheathampstead, (20 miles away in rural Hertfordshire) pop. 6,000 twee oldies – Some might not know their VPN from their what’s app.

    Seems to be a bit of a reverse application of economics i.e. serve those with the most money but least interest in the mass data transfer services first . . what could be causing that distortion ? I know . . its money they don’t have to pay for i.e. from the Taxpayers.

    Its almost as if they believe that land-line optics will soon be trounced by 5G and therefore are just in it for the max money against min outlay.

    Locally, I see that details provided on the Broadband Availability Checker for my number have now reclassified what was previously listed as the FTTC G.fast service @300Mbps down as FTTP On Demand @300Mbps. That’ll be interesting, seeing them ripping-up 300 yards of road to install one fibre optic just for my place – no wonder its so expensive – I’d be paying the access chareges for the other 70 + premises in the road.

    Any more for “Stroke of the pen” marketing from BT.

    1. Avatar photo New_Londoner says:

      @Nick
      “its money they don’t have to pay for i.e. from the Taxpayer”

      A good theory except of course that this isn’t being funded by the public purse.

    2. Avatar photo Nick Roberts says:

      Not even by losses set against tax . . . . . . stranger things have been done over a transatlantic connection.

  36. Avatar photo Gary says:

    I wonder how long it will be before everyone understands thaat Openreach and BT are not the GPO, and don’t have some sort of obligation to provide loss making services anymore.

    Openreach get alot of flak some no doubt very deservedly, but they do seem to always fighting their corner against regulation and demands based on their former Nationalised industry ‘advantage’. Alts want access to the good bits of Openreachs network to run their own deployments cheaply, but dont have the burden of the old crappy parts.

  37. Avatar photo Jo says:

    Am I missing something here, it says on the news by the mid to late 2020s (not mid to late 2020) Does this means that this could be 5 or 10 years away still?

  38. Avatar photo Wrexham lad says:

    So I do fiber availability and it says fftp coming soon but it’s not on the roll out list?
    How many decades do I have to wait?
    (Wrexham)

  39. Avatar photo Timz says:

    I don’t like that paragraph: “The Government has a related ambition to reach every home with a “gigabit-capable” broadband connection by the end of 2025, which in our view remains an over-optimistic target but it can also be delivered by hybrid fibre (e.g. Virgin Media’s DOCSIS) or fixed wireless (e.g. 5G) networks, rather than just “full fibre” ones (the prior target for universal FTTP coverage was 2033). Altnet ISPs will play a big role (here).”

    We do NOT want half-baked cables like DOCSIS which is hybrid copper/fibre. No way. Invest in Full Fibre for long term. Period. No excuses, no G.Fast, no Hybrid, no dithering or dallying. Just get this done with, FTTP, please. Thank you.

  40. Avatar photo Guy Roberts says:

    Lambeth is on the list, but when I checked the BT Openreach website, my address in Lambeth was described as “address isn’t part of our current rollout programme”. Will that be changing soon?

  41. Avatar photo Kevin Gibbs says:

    Not a single Welsh town – typical

  42. Avatar photo Greg says:

    So just came here to check the rollout and find Lewisham on the list. Start to get excited and look about and wonder how long it might take. Go to put some rubbish outside and there are three Openreach vans parked 20 metres away. Looks like the “sub ducts” team is now beginning their work to make a new home for the cables to be pulled through. What’s the chances of that…. Get the teaser from the news story and able to get an update from the people digging the trenches instead of trawling forums. His initial time to go live he joked was 10 years. Seems 6 months is a reasonable time frame to have the cables in and me being able to order now according to the people about to start digging.

  43. Avatar photo Karlos says:

    Out of interest Royal Wootton Bassett is in the list and I live here. Going back to the start of lock down I switched to 4G broadband because my “fibre” was abismal (<14mb). I am on a new build estate as well (8 years old).

    Anyway a couple of weeks after switching to 4G Openreach were doing something outside my house. I asked and they said they are exploring the ducts ready for fibre. They said it could be months before it is laid though. Literally a few days later they were back laying the fibre. Openreachs site now also says we are on the rollout plan. So fingers crossed I can get proper fibre soon.

    1. Avatar photo Tom Bowes says:

      Nice to see they have done the posh areas first….

  44. Avatar photo Gaz E says:

    Nothing in Cardiff. Openreach are a joke

  45. Avatar photo Chris Stephens says:

    Small businesses in my town have ultrafast broadband, but no plans for households yet. Major town in SW london suburbs.

  46. Avatar photo Adrian says:

    Does anyone know if this is still happening? I was pleased to see Amber Valley on the list, however after contacting several departments in Openreach and via Email & Twitter, no one will confirm if and when I can expect to be able to order the increased speeds available, don’t want to sign a new 18 month agreement if around the corner

  47. Avatar photo Sarah r says:

    Sick of this i have 3 kids with autism can do home schooling cause my internet is rubbish so there education is down the drain cause open reach can’t be arsed to put me to fibre to cabinet i have been living at this address for 5 years and still no joy my kids are so bored.

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