FTTH Council Europe Forecasts Huge UK Fibre Broadband Growth

The FTTH Council Europe has published their annual market forecast for the growth of “full fibre” (FTTP/B) broadband ISP networks, which finds that some countries are expected to see an “outstanding growth” in the number of homes passed in 2026 compared to 2019, such as Germany (+730%), the United Kingdom (+548%) and Italy (+218%).

At present a large number of UK network operators, such as Openreach (BT), Virgin Media, Cityfibre, Hyperoptic and many more (summary of build progress), are in the process of building Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) infrastructure across the country. The deployment pace is also ramping-up, thanks to the market becoming more competitive, as well as greater support from the Government (e.g. a business rates holiday on new fibre, voucher schemes, gap funding etc.) and Ofcom’s regulatory changes (e.g. easier access to the incumbents existing cable ducts).

The Government’s new £5bn UK Gigabit Programme, which is focused on trying to identify and tackle the final 20% (aka – F20) of hardest to reach locations (up to 6 million premises) using an an “outside-in” approach to deployment (i.e. build out from rural areas first, rather than leaving them until last), is also set to further boost this effort by targeting 85%+ coverage of gigabit-capable networks by the end of 2025.

On the flip side it’s also true to say that the UK was some years late to the FTTP party and, as a result, we continue to have some of the lowest full fibre coverage in Europe (here). But the changes above mean that this picture is going through a rapid adjustment. Suffice to say, we might have been late to the party, but the council’s new forecast for growth – between now and 2026 – shows that we’re catching up extremely fast.

At this point we should caveat that the council’s figures will be unable to accurately account for the level of predicted overbuild between rival networks, particularly in dense urban areas. On top of that they’ll no doubt be looking at the most optimistic or aspirational future deployment expectations from operators, which in some cases may not come to pass or will fall short.

In short, the council’s forecast for 2026 remains overly optimistic and should be taken with a pinch of salt, although we’ll get a better idea of progress over the next 2-3 years when the pace of build is expected to reach its peak. Nevertheless, the UK’s current upward trend is still very clear and nothing seems likely to change that for a while.

Otherwise the estimates plan for a massive surge to around 202 million homes passed for FTTP/B in 2026 in the EU27+UK (or 317m if looking at the EU39), which compares to just 26.2 million in 2012. The number of subscribers could also increase to around 148 million in 2026 for the EU27+UK and approximately 208 million for EU38+UK, while the FTTP/B take-up rate would reach 73.3% in 2026 (up from 23.4% in 2012).