Top and Bottom 10 UK Local Authorities by Full Fibre Coverage
New data from Point Topic has revealed the top and bottom ten UK local authorities for coverage by gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband ISP networks, which perhaps pegs Hull in East Yorkshire (99.2% premises passed) to the top and pushes Oadby and Wigston in Leicestershire (1.4%) to the bottom.
At the end of 2021 a little over 30% of premises across the United Kingdom were able to access a full fibre network (here), which is up from 24.33% in mid-2021. The coverage figure roughly equates to a total of around 8.5-9 million premises passed – excluding any duplication of coverage due to overbuild between rival networks (mostly in urban areas).
Naturally, the top ten UK local authorities for FTTP coverage tend to reflect urban areas, particularly those that have been building the network for longer than others (e.g. KCOM’s deployment in Hull). By comparison, the bottom local authorities, with the notable exception of a few places like Oxford, are usually much more remote and rural locations.
We should point out that Oxford probably won’t remain in the bottom table for long because Openreach have some big upgrade plans for the city, or at least part of it.
Top 10 UK Local Authorities by % of Premises Passed
| Local authority | % Premises Passed by FTTP |
| Kingston upon Hull |
99.2 |
| Belfast | 89.0 |
| Milton Keynes | 87.5 |
| Ards and North Down | 85.8 |
| Coventry | 83.0 |
| Antrim and Newtownabbey | 81.9 |
| Derry City and Strabane | 80.5 |
| Mid and East Antrim | 79.4 |
| Peterborough | 79.3 |
| East Riding of Yorkshire | 78.8 |
Bottom 10 UK Local Authorities by % of Premises Passed
| Local authority | % Premises Passed by FTTP |
| Luton | 2.0 |
| Burnley | 1.9 |
| Argyll and Bute | 1.9 |
| Oxford | 1.8 |
| Havant | 1.8 |
| Shetland Islands | 1.7 |
| North East Lincolnshire | 1.7 |
| Orkney Islands | 1.6 |
| Isles of Scilly | 1.5 |
| Oadby and Wigston | 1.4 |
Taking a broader view. In 42% of all local authorities, the total FTTP coverage is still lower than 20% of premises. However, you’ll note from the map below that some rural counties, such as Cornwall, have strong full fibre coverage. The latter stems from the fact that Openreach deployed quite a lot of FTTP across Cornwall some years ago, which occurred as part of the original £132m Superfast Cornwall project between BT and the EU.
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.
« AltNets Raise Concerns Over Openreach’s UK Exchange Closures
Latest UK ISP News
- FTTP (5540)
- BT (3518)
- Politics (2543)
- Openreach (2300)
- Business (2268)
- Building Digital UK (2248)
- FTTC (2045)
- Mobile Broadband (1979)
- Statistics (1790)
- 4G (1670)
- Virgin Media (1625)
- Ofcom Regulation (1467)
- Fibre Optic (1396)
- Wireless Internet (1393)
- FTTH (1382)
The one I am most surprised about is Oxford. As you’d think this would have been in the top 10 due to the prestigious university there.
Cambridge isn’t in the top 10 either. I suspect that Oxford may well appear much higher in a gigabit rather than FTTP ranking.
I have noticed that the London Boroughs
have not been mentioned at all
I guess they’re in neither the top or bottom 10, alongside everyone else not in the top or bottom 10.
Northern Ireland is doing particularly well compared to the rest of the country.
That’s because it gets lots of the rest of the country’s money to do it.
“Northern Ireland is doing particularly well compared to the rest of the country.”
What a stupid comment.
CityFibre are currently cabling Wigston (albeit at a snails pace), so hopefully won’t be bottom of the pile for too much longer.
For some reason Openreach seems to forget most of Leicestershire exists.
For all BT’s harping on about how well they’re putting in fiber everywhere, it sure looks very different when you see the reality of the situation.
Little bit here, little bit there innit.
As long as your reality is the size of a single, carefully selected local authority sure.
They aren’t going in between towns/cities/local authorities enabling a street at a time in each in rotation. Your ongoing butthurt at not having FTTP available already causing you to troll basically every article on coverage is pretty tiresome.
If you’ve some way they can deliver it faster I’m sure they’ll be delighted to hear it and you can stop complaining about cost of living rises as you’ll be insanely wealthy.
@CarlT: “They aren’t going in between towns/cities/local authorities enabling a street at a time in each in rotation”
Are you sure? I know of many towns where just a small portion, often only one street, has Openreach FTTP infrastructure. And I am not talking here about minor infills either. Sometimes BT gives in as a result of community pressure or local campaigns where it would not have touched a road otherwise. Or sometimes a single residents pays excessive amounts for a FTTPoD, with other along the same road then benefiting from a subsequent native FTTP.
The lack of transparency is a disaster!
My point was about the implication that because Openreach aren’t enabling all local authorities equally they’re doing nothing.
Areas are worked on while others are being finished, of course, as resources become available. It’s not the same group of people surveying, proving out the network, doing the civil engineering then doing the cabling work, nor is the whole thing immediate so of course you see them come and go.
They hit an unexpected problem in one area it’s a poor use of resources doing nothing waiting for that issue to be resolved.
If the scenario you describe were the rule it wouldn’t be interesting. I’m confused why someone paying for FTTPoD, basically co-paying for infrastructure, makes it surprising Openreach would build out more properties when they’ve just had the costs cut right down. Small pockets where there’re high levels of interest make sense, too. Openreach have to play politics as well as business.
Some of the areas are BDUK. A few properties that weren’t uplifted by FTTC. The USO programme will also do this.
None of this is surprising and it’s quite irrelevant to my point so I’m not sure what you’re trying to say?
The reality of the situation is BT is only interested in putting FTTP in new build estates in large towns and cities, anywhere else is of no interest to them whatsoever.
Except that’s your reality and bears no resemblance to objective reality. If you seriously believe that despite the evidence rather than trolling as you’re bored or butthurt about not having access to FTTP, even though you won’t/can’t pay for higher end ultrafast you really should consider seeking help.
https://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/index.php?tab=2&election=1#7/52.616/-0.961/geafttp/
https://fullfact.org/economy/house-building-england/
https://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/
Unsurprised to see a Leicestershire location at the bottom, my experiences with the broadband team at the council there have been nothing but frustrating.
Ditto with Hampshire (Havant). They are busy patting themselves on the back for delivering FTTC across most of the county. Every attempt to speak to them regarding FTTP has been a frustrating experience; they simply don’t care. There are zero plans for my city (Winchester), for instance.
Not just FTTP. Mobile coverage across most of the county is pretty abysmal too.
Openreach are building FTTP off their own back in Winchester right now, Sonic. It’s already becoming available. VM will be delivering FTTP there also.
CarlT – really? Do you know which areas/postcodes are being covered? The Fibre Cities map (https://api.superfastmaps.co.uk/fibrecities/2.0/) shows nothing for the city of Winchester. Twyford and New Alresford have made it on to the map, but nothing else.
Virgin only covers around 50% of properties in Winchester. Again – any ideas on timescales for Virgin’s FTTP deployment in Winchester?
Cityfibre has no plans, and I contacted a few other alt-nets and none of them have Winchester on their rollout list.
Interesting, and the map is especially very useful. Thanks.
Is the full list available somewhere?
Interesting to note: Burnley, despite being in the bottom 10 list at 1.9% FTTP coverage, has already announced a copper stop sell – to take effect from 8th February 2023.
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2022/01/openreach-name-98-new-uk-areas-for-copper-phone-to-fibre-switch-tranche-7.html
They must be planning a huge transformation there over the next 10 months.
Brsk are in Burnley now, delivering gigabit fttp
The Openreach plans for Oxford cover the least populated, but most floody side of the City and on the whole will miss where the students from the ‘other’ university are living.
Looking at the map it doesn’t show a great deal of premises that have access to FTTP.
My question is `what have the ISP’s done with the governments money. (I can probably guess but please break it to me gently).
I feel really lucky now as I can get both Virgin FTTP and Openreach FTTP now and I live in the south west.
The map shows land area, not premises count so impossible to get that from the data there.
In Greater London there are over 9 million people in 607 square miles. Building full fibre to everyone in London is an instant 14% of the UK’s premises in less than 0.7% of the area. Argyll and Bute is 2,668 square miles and 86,260 people. A little over a third of the population Islington house in 5.7 square miles.
It’s the same thing as mobile phone coverage. You can cover a fraction of the land mass and a majority of the population by building out to the most populated large towns and cities.
Yes looking at the map, Plymouth has less than 20% fttp coverage so I count myself lucky too as we have Openreach FTTP installed Jan 2022. I also have choice of Virgin if I wanted and Cityfibre are due to go live in next few weeks I believe
North East Lincolnshire is predominantly covered by Virgin sand with FTTC provision is considered category 3 for deregulation as a fully competitive market. Therefore I think this area has been long since forgotten in the race to FTTP. Additionally, neighbouring areas that fall outside the council boundaries but are still served by exchanges within the boundaries don’t even have FTTC, the council for Central Lincolnshire with where OnLincolnshire service refuses to support builds wherever Virgin exist citing a super fast connection exists, leaving these residents in a sort of no man’s land accept Virgin or be consigned to 2Mbps.
Steve: why should the taxpayer subsidise builds to folks with access to gigabit?
Grain are building FTTP in North-East Lincolnshire. Openreach are building FTTP in North-East Lincolnshire. VMO2 are upgrading all their cable network to FTTP.
It’s fair to say there are way better uses for the money than providing people an alternative to VMO2 more quickly.
CarlT – I haven’t suggested that at all, I’ve highlighted reasons providers are using. I note you’re very keen to be on with your general comments to others here, is there any particular reason behind your position on this topic?
Steve – to be fair to Carl, I read your final sentence the same way as he did. It reads as if you believe OnLincolnshire should be supporting builds where Virgin exist rather than leaving them in “a sort of no man’s land“.
Those of us with no access to FTTP or Virgin, which is currently about 1 in 3 homes, would strongly disagree with the idea that an area with Virgin is any sort of no man’s land, or that having to choose between Virgin and a 2Mbps openreach connection is in any way a bad thing.
BT would be far better off ditching FTTP completely and building a “world leading” NSA 5G deployment (with national wifi mesh network) to provide high speed broadband across the entire UK. Even the concept of FTTP being viable for the future is just stupid at this point IMHO.
Here we come back to your opinion, and reality, being objectively wrong. 5G has a place but there isn’t the spectrum to support it being an FTTP replacement. FTTP is slow and expensive to build but once it’s done it’s done for decades, only need to change the kit either side.
A third of the country can get FTTP now, going up a percentage point every 3-4 weeks. It’d be moronic to ignore that evidence and claim that wireless can solve every issue.
If you want to see somewhere the telco has largely abandoned FTTP in favour of wireless check Verizon in the United States. Then note that AT&T and other telcos are continuing their fibre build.
Buggerlugz, you are factually incorrect in almost everything you post . May i ask, what experience do you have in the telecoms industry ?
Prob customer service or just customer
Not surprised to see Havant on the list. I’m in Waterlooville, city fiber are in Portsmouth and plan to expand north, but only to Havant.
Lucky I can get virgin media but fed up with the price
Milton Keynes near the top due to Cityfibre.