Q4 2021 Progress Update on BT FTTP Broadband Rollout in Wales
The Welsh Government has provided a Q4 2021 progress update on their £52.5 million Phase 2 Superfast Cymru contract with BT (Openreach), which confirms that 25,855 premises (up from 24,515 in Q3) have now gained access to the operator’s gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network.
Just to recap. The contract consists of two stages, the original £22.5m deal (target of 26,000 premises by March 2021 – later reduced to 20k due to the positive impact of commercial builds – here) and the later £30m extension (13,000 premises by June 2022). The reason why the extension costs more, yet doesn’t go as far, is because the cost of build rises disproportionately as you enter increasingly remote rural communities.
According to the latest update from the WG, Openreach has so far built their full fibre network to a total of 25,855 premises (up from 24,515 in Sept 2021 and 20,490 in June 2021) – of these 6,565 are in the Lot 1 area (North West Wales), 8,376 in Lot 2 (East Wales) and 10,914 in Lot 3 (South West Wales).
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Admittedly, tens of thousands of premises are still expected to remain poorly served at the end of this contract, but that figure may yet shrink as a result of commercial builds (e.g. Openreach and Ogi are going much deeper). The rest will probably be tackled by the WG’s voucher schemes and community fund, while others may have to wait for the UK’s £5bn Project Gigabit scheme (Welsh Plan) to work its way – at a painfully slow pace – toward deployment.
Completed Premises – Q4 2021 Breakdown by Local Authority
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, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Here in vale of Glamorgan we’ll be getting FTTP [full fibre] in around 6 months.
We had the for news on Saturday!
Which provider/network?
@Bob.
Openreach will be laying the network. So all providers can take advantage of it.
What an absolute joke. Behind the times with antiquated infrastructure and a roll out plan which will never come to fruition.
A lot of the UK are stuck in the dark ages, and 1000’s of us are destined to never get a high speed connection.
BT currently serve my property with 1mb broadband and plan to roll out fibre by 2026. No thanks!
I have Starlink satellite broadband now, which gives me speeds over 100mb and low enough latency low enough to game online, and watch hours of 4k content without any issues.
Thank you SpaceX. This is the future.
“What an absolute joke. Behind the times with antiquated infrastructure and a roll out plan which will never come to fruition.”
The contract has already delivered nearly 26,000 extra premises (well over halfway to completion) and it’s using full fibre (FTTP), which is the opposite of “antiquated infrastructure”.
Premises – which include business premises. Most of which are located in urban environments, which skews the numbers.
Residential roll out numbers are absolutely appalling.
Dark ages think that refers to you . Clearly an agenda that’s fine but get your facts right
I barely see any FTTP movement in Powys.
live in Powys on small estate of 30 homes Openreach say 4 homes can get fttp now 2 have it the rest of have to wait up until 2026 as Welsh Gove will not pay for more just yet
I don’t know who the 1500 premises in Rhondda are either but it’s not happening anywhere near me.
There are some pockets appearing. Can see the Openreach CBT’s on lamp posts on the main road by Ystrad sports centre. A number of residential streets in Ynyshir too……. no idea if they are part of this or commercial though.
At least YouFibre/Netomnia are rolling out from Tonypandy this year. Let’s hope they cover the Rhondda well.
I’ve seen no movement for FTTP here in Tylorstown/Ferndale in RCT, and no news to when it’ll ever turn up.
Looking at the latest list and on the map, it looks like this part of the Valleys is being missed, I’m hoping I’m wrong and it actually arrives in the next century?
For me the voucher scheme is a waste as I’m registered blind and have various other issues, so for me it’s down to patience…. Which are needed!
Anyone in RCT seen any movement around?
See my comment above
Many thanks Bob, it’ll be interesting to see how this goes! I’ve thing I’ve had to get used to in 5 years of moving here from Walsall is that this are on lampposts
I’m not moving back either…
From Openreach Checker
“We’re sorry, our fibre products aren’t available for you yet.
We don’t have plans to upgrade your area yet to our fibre services as your area isn’t worth it to us until government give us begging bowl cash, but you may still be able to get our Standard copper products and we will milk you for maximum profit due to no competition”
My local exchange, fibre enabled and only 1 mile up the road. Unable to order. E.O Line strikes again. Openreach want 100k to sting some fibre on some existing poles to provide service. I guess a dozen properties and a couple of farms are not profitable enough for them.
So you build something that’s cost X thousands and then some say they will pay you 10 a month for the next 20 next year’s or so to get you money back .bet you not keen with that but you expect an infrastructure nfrastructure provider to do it for you
@Fastman, on a multi-million contract, BT has only added 1,300 premises in a quarter. It is not a money matter, it is either resource shortage or failure to plan resources appropriate to the task.
The start up Fibrus in Northern Ireland have 22k of their rural contract in a year.
A fortune is owed. Last August £568m of the reported clawback was untriggered or owed. The early Welsh contracts were all based on inflated unit costs, so much of that needs turning around. It should be easy to contract for another 30k premises given the funds outstanding.
Can you explain the slow progress? Is it resource shortage, or a failure to plan?
The excesses found in the administration of the B-USO scheme should also return a bit.
so where do you get your figures from , where is that specifics and what is the time and where are those premises and what was the challenges to get to them – or is one of your X – Y and because x never equated y your figures are out of kilter if like a ship that sets sail from England to Netherlands and because the compass and the assumption are incorrect at the beginning you end in Norway !!!!! all contracts would have been based on clawback that will have been determined in extended coverage – some of your analogies are just barking bear no resembelence to the real world — remember you only get paid on what you deliver so not sure what point you are trying to make really (you dont deliver you dont get paid – Gigaclear found that out in CDS , it feels like you trying to cobble a whole series of unconnected this into something that aligns with your very blinkered narrative
I have worked in network & comms industry for over 12 years, and have seen actual figures from said company regarding FTTP availability for residential vs business across the UK.
The roll out plan/time is a joke, and the comments in this tiny thread alone, from people who live in counties with poor connectivity (inc myself) is a true reflection of reality.
Millions of pounds available in funding, but little impact in actually connecting Wales to the 21st century.
@Fastman a few highlights, NAO 2015 reported 38% inflation in BT’s BDUK 2012 cost models. No re-set occurred. Welsh audit confirm the £200 (per premise past for most FTTC) unit cost charged in Welsh contracts – perhaps reconciled later but no report on that.
NI audit 2021 said they could not confirm value for money.
DCMS 2016 inquiry called for and got great separation of Openreach but failed to report on who paid for what.
BT confirmed the untriggered clawback in August 2021, something the then Minister Vaizey said was paid in full in his evidence to DCMS select committee in 2016 – all on Hansard.
While much of the embedded normalised deviancy has been unpicked, we are still lacking any true-up which was promised and remains outstanding. In the meantime the blackmail of rural customers waiting for upgrades is ongoing.
Your reduced to comparing BT the B-USO holder with a company that did not exist in 2012. Worse still BT loses to Fibrus in NI who employed ex BT relationship directors to duplicate BT’s bid response. (See second NI audit.)
NGA
my comment around gigaclear was about cost per premise on a BDUK contract –(not sure the argument about when it was formed is relevant or appropriate or valid) — it was about a cost per premise on a BDUK contract (or does that not interest you as your too busy grinding your personal axe – the rest is scymantics and frankly irrelevant not sure what Fibrus is to do with anything — and from memory . the rest is just hogwash and conspriracy theory
not sure what the USO comment was about either
@fastman the url references have set out previously, and across nine inquiries and supporting audit function reports BT’s reluctance to invest is proven. The most recent BT CEO has little difficulty in expressing the need to have invested more.
The B-USO case, where Ofcom found BT to have applied in-appropriate cost recovery processes is relevant in that Ofcom failed to check whether the revised cost recovery processes to the BDUK work and to the community build projects.
Fibrus, a start up in NI is relevant as they are completing work in very rural areas at a much quicker rate that BT is doing in Wales or Scotland. The original question remains outstanding and relevant for those waiting for upgrades.
Dark Ages
this thread is a definite version of something — the one thing it is not is reality based or also any understanding of the actualities of building and funding a bespoke open access fibre network at scale and based on my level of recognised industry expertise and understanding in this industry
Openreach’s attempt to build at scale were interrupted by a BT Group gambit to game its costs and capital so it could fund an accumulated loss of £2bn in football – imho.
Much has been unpicked but there is no particular reason why anyone in Wales should be left without an upgrade.
There should be no particular reason why these works are taking so long in Wales.
Claims on scale are at odds with the start/stop effort taking place while squeezing for more funds.
I do not question your technical expertise, but there has been a total failure to be transparent on the timing of BT’s investment, and the interaction between the ‘gap funding model’ and the clawback. The lack of transparency will have stopped Openreach doing more at scale and planning more future proof solutions. The latter impacted customers and shareholders.