Top 30 Full Fibre Operators by Share of UK New Build Homes
New data has given us our first indication of which network operators hold the greatest share of the new build homes market, at least with respect to those catering for such sites by deploying Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP technology. But it’s perhaps no surprise to find that Openreach (BT) tops the table.
At present around 93% of new build homes are already being created with support for full fibre (FTTP) infrastructure, which is up sharply from a little over 60% back in 2017 (here). Meanwhile, around 67% of all premises across the UK can today access a gigabit-capable broadband network (includes both FTTP and Hybrid Fibre Coax technologies), but this falls to 34%+ when only looking at full fibre.
However, one area that we haven’t looked at much before is the question of which full fibre operators hold the greatest share in the new build homes market, but that’s about to change. Data provided via Thinkbroadband’s independent database of network coverage has enabled ISPreview.co.uk to identify what kind of footprint each operator has.
In order to capture as much of the market as possible, we’ve opted to focus on new build homes that were built between January 2018 and April 2022, which reflects the period when full fibre build started to become the primary focus for most UK network operators. In addition, we’ve included an entry for Virgin Media’s Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) network for context (this also provides gigabit download speeds).
Top 30 Full Fibre Operators for New Build Homes
As usual, there’s the caveat that some very recent builds may be too new to have been spotted by this table – it takes a lot of time and effort to identify everything, thus the latest data may sometimes lag a few months behind the reality of the build. In addition, some tiny or individual developments may also be missed (e.g. personal single house projects or property conversions) and the availability of new postcode data can cause a further lag.
On top of that, Thinkbroadband will only identify live services (i.e. completed builds where consumers can get connected to FTTP via an ISP), but otherwise the table below should, broadly, provide a reasonable reflection of the market. If any operators want to ensure that all of their new build home sites are being included, then please contact Andrew at Thinkbroadband to help him fill in any blanks.
Overall, the following table finds that a total of 813,117 new homes were, during the period, built with full fibre broadband coverage, which rises to 858,301 if we also include Virgin Media’s HFC network. Openreach are naturally top of this table and dominate the new build homes market with 603,836 premises, with Hyperoptic a distant second on 99,235 (they’ve focused heavily on new build apartment blocks since 2012) and Open Fibre Networks Limited – a long-time new build operator – some way back on 51,695.
In the future, we may return to this and look at how many new build homes with full fibre coverage were added during 2022, to see how the shares have shifted. But it will be spring 2023 before the data is solid enough to construct the output for that. We should add that the Government are currently working to mandate gigabit-capable broadband for almost all new build homes (here).
| Network Operator | New Build Premises (Jan 2018 onwards) |
| Openreach | 603,836 |
| Hyperoptic | 99,235 |
| OFNL (GTC / BUUK / IFNL) | 51,695 |
| Virgin Media (Cable / HFC) | 45,184 |
| Virgin Media (FTTP / RFoG) | 23,672 |
| FibreNest (Persimmon) | 11,764 |
| KCOM | 4,344 |
| Netomnia (YouFibre) | 2,292 |
| Trooli | 2,275 |
| G.Network | 2,143 |
| CommunityFibre | 1,842 |
| ITS Technology Group | 1,778 |
| VISPA / BFN | 1,411 |
| Jurassic Fibre | 996 |
| CityFibre | 785 |
| Internetty | 739 |
| Box Broadband (Community Fibre) | 665 |
| Fibrus | 618 |
| Gigaclear | 516 |
| Pine Media | 410 |
| Glide | 318 |
| F&W Networks | 294 |
| Blackfibre (Clearfibre) | 248 |
| Grain Connect | 178 |
| WightFibre | 176 |
| B4RN | 136 |
| County Broadband | 136 |
| Zzoomm | 118 |
| Truespeed | 112 |
| Fibre First Limited | 101 |
UPDATE 3rd May 2022
Take note that, since November 2021 (contract signing date), any new build sites constructed with fibre ducts from GTC (OFNL / BUUK) will also be able to carry Virgin Media’s (VMO2) broadband, TV and phone services via a separate fibre (here). Since most of OFNL’s ducts pre-date this period then it will not, yet, be having a big impact on the aforementioned list. But it does add some useful context.
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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800k homes developed and Virgin only getting fibre to 24k of them is not a good showing. Putting double the amount of HFC in compared to RFoG is puzzling as well considering their 2028 targets.
Where they were small developments surrounded by cable coverage VM weren’t going to build all the infrastructure needed to deliver them FTTP, it wouldn’t be worth it.
It’s an edge case where cabling inside the estate is the easy part and getting the optical signal to the outside of the estate would make the cost prohibitive. They’d need to install new equipment in a VM building and a large, expensive, powered cabinet that can serve over 2,500 premises.
“… it wouldn’t be worth it….”
VM are one of the biggest cry-babies in Broadband rollout.
Seems to be “worth it” for most other providers. Virgin have incompetents working for them. Ones that shrug their shoulders so they go home early, rather than solve complex broadband delivery problems.
Maybe VM should sell the HFC for scrap metal value and move into something they’d know a lot more about than this broadband malarkey thing (which you say costs them too much)
Talk to a VM customer, they all say the same thing, they all get fleeced by the company.
I asked someone who works in the house building industry about this. They told me that apparently a number of house builders refuse to work with Virgin Media due to various issues they’ve had with working with them in the past. They didn’t specifically say what issues they were though.
I do hope you feel better for that rant. I’m not going to demean myself by responding to the whole thing line by line but will point out the original post was asking about why HFC rather than FTTP, not why VM weren’t rolling out at all, and the answer is cost.
They still built, and those customers will get FTTP when their area is upgraded. They’ve also built more FTTP than anyone else besides Openreach, and have been willing to spend more per home passed than Openreach, CityFibre and almost every altnet doing so.
Expertise has never been an issue with their FTTP build, only cost. £660 per home passed is more than most will spend but not enough for everywhere.
id honestly hate being on a new build site with only Alt nets as an option
Yep. Certaiy a step forward and two back in my opinion, I’ve worked on quite a few new build estate sites now that are just OFNL and honestly don’t like the idea of what’s going on.
Blocking out other local network suppliers should be disallowed.
Couldn’t comment on York as my experience is in Birmingham.
KCOM is hull and east Yorkshire and small parts of west yorkshire.
I dont think they are in York never seen any of it and i work in telecoms
The data pretty much shows that BT is the default option for developers, Hyperoptics model is leveraged towards new builds, and every other company will occasionally cover new builds if it’s in their rollout area
There should at least be a guideline for developers to engage a minimum of 3 providers and atleast attempt to install 2 of them, instead of sticking to 1 the entire process because monopolies are just awful
Developers want to complete as quickly as possible and having two or three installing FTTH would be disruptive asnd slow things down. The developer would also probably negoitte a contract at corporate level with one supplier
Exclusivity contracts are illegal as far as I know. Out of all things that can slow down a site I doubt fibre cabling ranks among the top10, especially when these just use risers that are wide and easy to use in new builds
It is not illegal for a developer to place a contract with a single supplier for all it developments in fact it is quite normal practice. Having to del with dozens of companies adds to costs it also causes delay as only one company can install the fibre at any one time
For large developers Openreach is the only provider with nationwide coverage. Openreach is an open network provider as well most al nets are not so if an alt net installs the network to would be stuck with having to use that provider
With Openreach once the development is complete any altnet could provide a service if they want to
The one I am shocked about is Hyperoptic being in second place. As in the North of England all they seem to care about is large tower-blocks of flats and absolutely nothing other than this. And you wouldn’t think that many new large tower blocks being built after the Grenfell tower disaster.
You wouldn’t think Grenfell would have any effect on the number of apartments being built and it hasn’t longer term. Better cladding and fire suppression so a Grenfell can’t happen and all is well.
Asbestos used to be used a ton in construction. We didn’t stop building we just stopped using asbestos. Same with tall buildings and dubious cladding.
You mentioned the North. Pretty sure they’ve been going up pretty quickly in the cities on land that was formerly industrial or used for other purposes.
Many new tower blocks on the works here in Birmingham, as said industries learn from situations such as the one mentioned.
Given a postcode in an email to andrew@thinkbroadband.com can look into it.
SSE/OVO is usually a resell of Openreach network
I’d imagine a lot of the alt nets apart from Hyperoptic are getting into these sites after they are built rather than during the build as they will be using PIA
As the figures include new build since 2018 then alt nets appearing at a later date will also be included.
Nope…. they are in during the build and become the major infrastructure on the build.
For instance, a site in South Birmingham I recently worked on was laid with purple ducting and pavement boxes for OFNL ‘only’ there was ducts run to all houses with fibres fed, and then all houses where equipped with ONT’s and connected to the network which was already live.
No Openreach/Virgin infrastructure was installed as of 1st plots becoming available for occupancy.
Funny thing is even the sales offices in the very 1st plots where connected for OFNL but opted to use Three Mobile Broadband over Mikrotik kit.
I’ve also been and viewed some apartments in the city centre area of Birmingham recently and found many are OFNL only depending on developers, some however also featured a mix of Hyperoptic and Virgin Media and even Openreach FTTP.
We are both saying the same thing but from a different angle.
I was talking about some alt nets appearing a year or two after the first provider on a site e.g. some copper sites have subsequently seen people like zzoomm appear
OFNL is pretty much exclusively in partnership deals to be the soul infrastructure until such time as the roads are adopted by LA, and similar for Fibre Nest
PIA can’t strictly be used in new developments until after the roads are adopted by the local authority – until then they are not public highway and the ducts remain the property of the developer even though OR will have fibres them up and they are ORs PIA infrastructure maps.
OR don’t seem to object but the developers sometimes do.
‘PIA can’t strictly be used in new developments until after the roads are adopted by the local authority – until then they are not public highway and the ducts remain the property of the developer’
Are you sure about this? The ducts are nothing to do with adoption of the road and are adopted by Openreach when their final inspection of the site is done at which point they can be used for PIA.
What can’t be done is excavation if issues are found. Those require permission from the developer but the ducts are definitely nothing to do with the roads being adopted by the local authority, Openreach choose when to accept them.
If there were a dependency there what happens with roads that are never put up for adoption by the local authority but are held privately? Are the premises that share ownership and maintenance of the roads responsible for the telecomms ducts and giving permission for PIA as well? The answer is no, there’s an easement allowing Openreach to maintain their infrastructure. That easement is in place as soon as Openreach adopt the network onsite.
A quick double check as I am doubting myself on this. Openreach definitely retain ownership of the duct, chambers, etc, regardless of who is responsible for maintaining the road or pavement they’re in.
The developer builds, they inform they’re done, the Openreach on-site field guy is okay, the warranty, etc, start and it’s over to Openreach to maintain and altnets to PIA.
OR PIA
You should also be aware that, where our ducts and poles are on private land, then it is important for the CP to obtain their own right, permission or wayleave from the land owner to install and maintain their own network and apparatus.
So on any private development wayleave from the builder is required for any provider to be able to use OR PIA product
Of course they do. That didn’t occur to me that just because they can immediately use the Openreach ducts doesn’t mean the Openreach wayleave transfers over.
Thank you for the correction.
I think SSE only recently started doing FTTP and, as Andrew says, they’re normally Openreach based. I’ve not seen any developments suggesting otherwise.
Govt mandated that OR deploy FTTP to new developments over 10 homes as long ago as 2016/2017 – so no surprise they are top. Until the last 24 months or so many Developers were declining engagement with altnets without significant effort to persuade them otherwise, although the more enlightened were keen to engage.
Government haven’t mandated any such thing. If a development of 10 properties want FTTP they have to pay for it: the threshold for free FTTP from Openreach is 20.
How many ISPs do each of the above support? That’s the selling point for developers.
Most alt nets are closed networks in that you can only use that provider. Most large developers will want use a large provide that covers the UK
Once the development is completed there is nothing to stop alt nets then providing a service
If the current provider on a development though they probably will not be able to use PIA as as far as I know only Openreach allows that so it would mean putting in new ducting
Some alt nets might allow other ISP’s to resell their service
IIRC SSE owns Neos Networks which I believe has always been business orientated.
Maybe they’re leveraging that network to supply to consumers now?
Lit Fibre Sudbury/Great Cornard Rollout Update
Our teams continue to make good progress in Sudbury with even more homes added to our full fibre network in the last month.
In the next few weeks we’re looking to add homes around Gainsborough Street, including Christopher Lane and Cornard Road. We’ll also be making homes live to the East of town along Cat’s Lane, as well as the Kings Hill and Bures Road areas.
‘KCOM is hull and east Yorkshire and small parts of west yorkshire.
I dont think they are in York never seen any of it and i work in telecoms’
Millionaire, leased lines to property, works in telecoms. Seems Legit.