170 New UK Locations Added to Openreach’s FTTP Rollout Plan
Openreach (BT) has just published a new update to the UK rollout plan for their gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network, which appears to add around 170 new locations (towns and villages) as part of their £15bn project to cover 25 million premises by December 2026.
At present the operator’s full fibre deployment has already covered nearly 6 million UK homes and businesses (1.9 million were added during 2020/21), which at the last count was running at a build rate of c.43,000 premises per week but will soon peak at c.75,000 premises per week (i.e. roughly 4 million premises per year).
In addition, Openreach have been seeing orders for this service – via various ISPs (e.g. BT, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk, Vodafone, Zen Internet etc.) – running at an average rate of c.17,000 per week, with overall take-up by consumers reaching around 21%; this is a good figure given the rapid pace of early build, which would normally act to suppress a proportional measure like take-up.
The operator’s last major FTTP rollout announcement was back in June 2021 when they added 551 new UK cities, villages and towns to their plan (here). By comparison, the latest October 2021 Programme Update highlights numerous changes, as well as what appears to be 170 additions – almost all covering the wider April 2021 to December 2026 build window. Oddly, we have not been sent a specific press release about this.. yet.
Sadly, Openreach doesn’t do a very good job of providing much context for these changes, so until they respond all we can do is extract the additions (i.e. those not present in the June update) and reflect them below. The company’s rollout plan, much like that of other network operators, is tentative and so sometimes areas may be removed from the list too, often without any clear notice or reason (these are much harder to spot).
So far as we can tell, most of the changes below are new UK towns and villages, such as Andover, Oldham, Honiton, Lowestoft, Sidbury and many more. Quite a few of these areas are also being targeted by alternative full fibre network operators, such as CityFibre, Jurassic Fibre and others. Some already have a tiny bit of FTTP from Openreach, but haven’t previously been name on their latest plans. Due to the lack of any official press release on the changes from Openreach, we had to pull all of these out manually, and so there might be the odd mistake.
c.170 Additions to Openreach’s FTTP Rollout (Oct 2021)
Aberlady
ALFORD, GRAMPIAN
Andover
Armadale
Ashcott
Auchtermuchty
Aylesbury
Bampton
Bellshill
Biddenden
Birdham
Blackwater
Botesdale
Box
Brenchley
Bridge
Bridgend
Briton Ferry
Buckhaven
Buxton
Cambusnethan
Cardington
Carluke
Caversham
Charing
Chartham
Chatburn
Chilton Polden
Chirnside
Cloughton
Clovenfords
Coldingham
Comrie
Corby
Cruden Bay
Cumbernauld
Downhall
Drayton
Drymen
Dundee Baxter
Dundee Broughty Ferry
Dundee Claverhouse
East Harling
East Kilbride
Eaton Bray
Ecclefechan
Falfield
Falkland
Felixstowe
Feltwell
Ferndown
Fleggburgh
Folkestone
Ford
Forfar
Garelochhead
Gayton
Gorseinon
Grantham
Gravesend
Great Bentley
Great Massingham
Great Oakley
Greenock
Grimsby Tk Subs
Guildford
Ham Street
Havant
Hawk well
Headley Down
Hempnall
Hevingham
Hillington
Honingham
Honiton
Idmiston
Inverkeithing
Inverness Macdui
Irlam
Irvine
Kennford
Kennoway
Kessock
Kidderminster
Kippen
Knebworth
Langbank
Lauder
Letchworth
Leyburn
Lhanbryde
Lincoln Subs
Linlithgow
Lowestoft
Macclesfield
Maidstone
Milton Lee
Muir Of Ord
Musselburgh
Neath
Nelson
Newton Abbot
North Curry
North Finchley
North Trowbridge
Nuneham
Oldham
Overstrand
Painswick
Patrington
Paulerspury
Pencaitland
Philpstoun
Plumpton
Port Ellen
Port Patrick
Port Talbot
Portsoy
Puddletown
Ramsbottom
Reading Central
Reading Tilehurst
Rhu
Riding Mill
Romford South
Rossendale
Rothesay
Rubery
Rugby
Sawtry
Scunthorpe Subs
Seven Sisters
Shaw
Sidbury
Simonswood
Sittingbourne
Skewen
Stadhampton
Stannington
Stanton
Stevenage
Stoke Canon
Stow
Tamworth
Tarbert
Theale
Thornham
Thornhill
Thorpe
Tinto
Tollerton
Tottington
Totton
Trowbridge
Turves
Upper Largo
Washford
Watton at Stone
Weeley
West Runton
Whissendine
Whiting Bay
Wickham
Wickham Market
Wilmslow
Wimborne
Wishaw
Woking
Woolacombe
Woolley
Openreach’s commercial rollout will still leave around 20% of premises unserved, which is what the Government’s £5bn Project Gigabit will aim to tackle. Deployment costs rise disproportionately the further you go outside urban areas and Openreach has previously claimed that those in the final 10% could cost £4K each to pass or more (here), which would not be economically viable for most commercial-only builds.
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 Linkedin.
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Announce all the places, and then prevent other operators from having Project Gigabit funding as commercial rollout has been planned. How can it be allowed to work that way?
Yeah it’s a tricky one. On the other hand that means more public money can go toward the remaining areas. Not all bad.
What’s the incentive to stop BT from simply announcing builds covering every area that might be commercially viable in the next 5/10 years? My understanding is that these announcements are not “binding” on BT and they can reduce the scope of or remove areas at any time.
@SM Read some of the project gigabit consultation documents. You’ll see it hasn’t been allowed to work that way.
The intervention areas are not set in stone. Project gigabit contracts will allow for premises to be brought into scope at a later date if they were excluded due to commercial plans which subsequently fall through. But the intention at this stage is to exclude premises which are likely to be addressed commercially and focus on premises where there’s very little chance of commercial build.
The aim is to avoid subsidising premises until it’s pretty clear that subsidy will be needed.
commercial build alway should reduce the amount of project gigabit activity as there shoudl be less premises needs to be done as part of an intervention (irrelevant who is building , so openreach, city fibre , gigaclear and others all now have commercial build area (some of which would have been considered in ealry views of Project Gigabit — that why you need regular and extensive OMRs to validate what the martket is doing especially as the market is now continually on the move
Glad to see Andover on the list, might have a chance of getting fttp now. Virgin isn’t interested in cabling us up, despite all the nearby roads having it.
No Archer’s Court exchange listed still 🙁
Despite Dover being listed and Archers Court exchange is greater than 5K users connected, most residential on easy streets (as opposed to rural). Some other smaller village exchanges are on the plan though. Thought this exchange would be in the plans now as it had ADSL Max near the start and FTTC.
Here’s hoping next plan that comes out!
Thanks for that, just clipboard not clearing stuff :/
Llanrumney exchange has been left out again, just weird maybe logistics problems
coming soon dont worry
Well I’m on there at last! I had a feeling because some fringe areas here have fttp installed already but the bulk of the town hasn’t.
It’s also present on the streets where BT ducts were used to expand Virgin so the service appears to be present for both.
Scunthorpe Subs < what does that mean ? Suburbs ? IIRC N.Lincs council funded their own fibre project.
Conflicted about this news. I'm sure it's great news for those towns but maybe OR should focus on completing the ones it already started. We've been the rollout phase for 6 months and still no sign of it being available.
“SUBS” were “subscribers” in my days in POT/BT. It “poshed-up” a bit towards the end of my time when they started calling “subs” “Customers”.
They will always be “subs” to me.
Best wishes.
Once again Openreach dislike Telford area
Why are you suddenly using the name Phil, max?
phil if you want FTTP yopu can always fund it your self with your neighbours shou8ld you choose to do it or fund it yourself
What a surprise that Blackwater appears on the list just after Zzoomm, Trooli have spent the past couple months installing their networks across the area (Sandhurst, College Town etc)
Surprised to see Rugby on the list. I’m on the outskirts of Rugby (and my exchange is Rugby) and I’ve already had Openreach FTTP for 18 months now, so I assumed that the whole town was already covered.
Still nothing for Blackburn then. Still stuck with 4-20mg at best broadband in my area. Not only that but can’t even go to virgin because they don’t have any lines installed here. Sick of having to buff to watch a film when everyone else is using my bandwidth slowing it down
Cityfibre starting soon in Blackburn?? Plus Grain Connect
Nope still not on there, I hope the altnets pull through with their supposed plans to put FTTP in my village but who knows when they will be or to which homes?
The U.K. government and markets really did screw up FTTP, I still think the ludicrous voucher scheme was THE most stupid idea they could have come up with. But I’m sure it’s made many people rich and protected massive profits, and no doubt a few MO’s own Open Reach and BT shares.
Even the dump that is Kidderminster is getting FTTP, maybe there’s hope for the world yet 😛
Another disappointing announcement for me at least, no Luton on there
I agree, you’ve got Luton, Leagrave, Dunstable and Houghton Regis all part of the greater Luton area which should be a big enough area to warrant FTTP plus it’s not far from Leighton Buzzard either.
Hopefully someone will come in to give competition to VMO2.
Luton is in the City Fibre rollout plan, watch this space.
Bizarrely they’ve included Eaton Bray which is just on the outskirts of Dunstable. I can see it from my house but my village still isn’t on anyone’s roadmap either BT or altnet :/
What’s City Fibre like compared to Virgin anyone? Is it likely that City Fibre will see the Greater Luton area this year as part of their City Fibre rollout plan or something next year?
As my VM02 contract comes up in the Spring and I’m looking at alternatives if any.
@Actiso cityfibre should be same or faster than VM as its proper fibre.
The press release said it would be by iirc 2022 and there were planner Jobs advertised on indeed.
No harm in registering interest on their site.
My fttc co tract was up and went to Vodafone as they are a partner of CF so if they do co e within 24 months hopefully VF will let me move free, even if they don’t, still better of as getting 5meg more than my old provider
I have a need to know what is meant by Lincoln Subs (Suburbs maybe) I have seen markings pop up on access paneling around my apartment complex so here’s looking forward with crossed fingers and toes.
I wish they’d give more detail about previous announcements estimated go live dates. Between March 2021 and December 2026 doesn’t really offer much.
I appreciate, being announced as the above is still better than not being announced at all.
So the little clump of towns I live in has been missed once again despite most surrounding exchanges already being on the list/have virgin media/other altnet. Sometimes I think small towns will be the most left behind (other than extreme rural). There is funding for rural. Plenty of profit in cities. Smalls towns just get left for an openreach lottery…
I am absolutely happy that FTTP is coming to Kennoway. Finally get rid the silly VDSL2 FTTC because Powerline Adapters the VDSL2 Signal interferes with Powerline Adapters. I know FTTP doesn’t interfere with Powerline adapters because full fibre doesn’t use electricity FTTP uses Light so no interference.
You need to do some serious reading up on VDSL, FTTP and Powerline Adapters as you clearly haven’t got a clue.
Oh really Powerline uses 2 to 86 MHz and VDSL2 uses 17 MHz the Signals can overlap. So yes I do know what am talking you cruel troll
And that bit you said FTTP. FTTP Uses beams of light so it’s immune to interference show get that straight.
It’s not Mr Truth it’s Mr Know it all
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_dispersion
Do you honestly believe the rubbish on Wikipedia anybody could’ve wrote that.
@truefibre
FTTP coming to your area doesn’t mean u will get it, also for Powerline Adapters – these are very dirty and I will NOT recommend it at all. Very poor design and shouldn’t release at all.
Touchy touchy
@TrueFibre
You are clueless but you don’t need me to tell you that 😉
Lol your properly sitting behind a keyboard trolling for a living
Chillout Mr Truth he’s only putting his Point across
Finally Tamworth (Assuming both EMTAM and EMFAZ) makes the list, I was told some time ago that it would be late in the fibre rollout due to the relatively good condition of the copper network, absence of aluminium cables and EO lines.
I’m more than happy with my g.fast line but I’m looking forward to being able to go faster than 330/50 should the need arise!
I’m surprised to see my town on the list given there is no Altnet builds (that I know of, CityFibre is stopping two council areas over), it has pretty full VDSL coverage, and VM don’t seem to want to infill anything built within the last 13-15 years (but they did roll out RFoG 2-3 years ago in the neighbouring town that was previously only about 15-20% HFC in the more densely populated area near the ‘border’).
Saying that, I expect it to take until at least November 2026 before the glass starts arriving on the doorstep.
Nothing for Newcastle-under-Lyme despite alot of office based businesses in the area could benefit from FTTP. We could do with some Openreach FTTP with VXFibre just over the border in Stoke currently installing lines in residential areas and areas with warehouses. Surprisingly Congleton a smaller town 15 miles north has openreach FTTP despite not having much benefit for the area as not alot of businesses and not a high income families either.
“Our day will come”, someone once said.
I doubt I’m ever going to see Greenlaw on these lists, despite Duns being on the list. When FTTC was rolling out, we couldn’t get it until Duns had it, suggesting we were in some way connected to Duns – same area code so not too much of a leap. However no-one can tell us if that means that when Duns supports FTTP, Greenlaw will be upgraded as well….
I can see my exchange on there but given its a rural exchange serving a huge area which still has relatively poor superfast FTTC coverage, I dont think being on this list means very much in reality. Prove me wrong Openreach, please help those that have seen no benefit from the BDUK/FTTC rollout and get the full fibre to them first rather than putting them at the back of the 10 year queue again and then never actually reaching them!
BT/Openreach will upgrade all the rural villages all around you to FTTP, but will not upgrade you if you are just beyond the ourskirts of the village itself, even if it is poles all the way.
I’d love to understand more about the planning process. My exchange serves approx 2400 premises and during BDUK about 2 years ago, 16 houses spread out over a 1.5km
stretch got FTTP. This was the only FTTP supplied in the whole area. New soft dig verges and underground ducting, it took about two weeks for the contractors to install it. It was so weird that such a small number got it whilst entire villages of much more premises were left out and are still on ADSL, 2 Mbps being a good line.
actually, it was much more than 2 years ago, it maybe 4 as it was a long time prior to pandemic.
Just to turn this list on its head, we *are* FTTP enabled (KIRBY MISPERTON as of about 6 weeks ago) but *not* listed.
And I can go and order FTTP via BT, Zen, etc so it’s definitely “live”.
Just waiting for Vodafone to catch up as their 500Mbps offering is the best value.
Go figure 🙂
Not sure how Openreach choose their locations. North Finchley is in London Barnet and is almost completely saturated with Virgin Media. However if you travel two miles down the road to New Barnet/Cockfosters, that part of the Borough is still FTTC and no Virgin.
Is there on coordination between Government and Telecom companies where North Finchley gets double allocation of Gigabyte Broadband and Cockfosters/New Barnet, which is two miles down the road, struggles on FTTC.
They were building out Virgin in New Barnet when I left 3 years ago (Northumberland road area). I was impressed to see the coordination that was required for them to start digging up brand new brick blocked pavements 3 weeks after the council had finished laying them.
My street was the split – one further south (Chandos avenue) was North Finchley, mine on the Barnet exchange. Both were almost exactly the same distance from each.
Me I love all modes of technology that make the Internet work. I remember the days of Dial Up ADSL2+ then VDSL1 and 2 now FTTP
Me I love all modes of technology that make the Internet work. I remember the days of Dial Up ADSL2+ then VDSL1 and 2 now FTTP
I absolutely glad finally upgrading my area
There was a little misunderstanding about FTTP Powerline and VDSL2 I totally understand. I just wished people would explain things to rather than gang up on me. I just got mixed up. Powerline uses electricity cables to transmit the Internet through the house wire’s but it use the same frequency as your VDSL2 phone and broadband line. That means Signals can overlap. I understand that Powerline adapters are not the best Technology I just wished all houses were built with Ethernet cable’s through the walls. Full Fibre Cables do use signals but they just carry beams of light in binary. I do apologise to everyone for the misunderstanding.
No one is ganging up on you, before posting here make sure you understand what you are talking about then you won’t make a fool of yourself.
To be fair, he does have a point. Some initial responses to his comment made the mistake of moaning about something being wrong, rather than constructively and politely educating. ISPreview may have a higher proportion of IT/Networking minded readers than other sites, but it’s also designed and written for those who lack such knowledge.
I recall the worst and most ineffective school teachers always being those who punished for a lack of knowledge, rather than helping to understand and correct for it. People make mistakes in their understanding all the time, on different subjects, none of us are all knowing. Help them, constructively.
Mark, sadly social media has given everyone a voice including those who have very little understand and have done very little reading up before they come onto a website like this making claims about their broadband and devices that are simply not true.
Before complaining about Broadband or anything else people should understand what they are complaining about, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing 🙁
A little advice. I Do Understand how things work. I shoud’ve put it in away so people understand what I mean. It like Mark Jackson said To be fair, he does have a point. Some initial responses to his comment made the mistake of moaning about something being wrong, rather than constructively and politely educating.
TrueFibre. its not others job to spoon feed anyone else via the comments section, there are plenty of factual websites that you or others can go to for self education. The earlier post that you took so much offence of was pointing that out to you before you got offended and started getting defensive and throwing your toys out of the pram. Even now you claim to be fully aware of all the technicalities which I doubt you are.
I do worry if the UK government has the right strategy in place to provide fast broadband speeds across the UK and especially outside main towns and cities.
Main cities and large towns have population sizes that provide a ROI business case for Openreach and Virgin etc to roll out FTTP.
All the 5G operators have a ROI business case to implement 5G infrastructure within cities and large towns.
Villages and Remote areas will be last on the list to recieve FTTP unless the UK Government Strategy is changed to target villages and remote areas through the R100 programme.
Surely the Government should invest money in 5G infrastructure roll out to villages and remote areas now as a stop gap until FTTP eventually reaches the remote parts of the UK?
Can honestly say Internet speed getting crazy speeds now. The government is there own worst enemy because as the internet gets faster they will more security breaches.
Yup those bytes or kilobytes of exploits are really benefiting from being uploaded at gigabit.
These guys will have Gibsons owned before we know it.
Maybe after the U.K Government has Roll Out FTTP thourghout the U.K. They will properly think a Tax