Q1 2022 Progress Update on BT FTTP Broadband Rollout in Wales

The Welsh Government has just shared a Q1 2022 progress update on their £52.5m Phase 2 Superfast Cymru contract with BT (Openreach), which confirms that 29,959 extra premises (up from 25,855 in Q4 2021) have now gained access to their gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network.

The original contract consisted of two stages, the first one was a £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 second stage was a £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 tackle increasingly remote rural areas.

According to the latest update from the WG, Openreach has so far built their full fibre network to a total of 29,959 premises (up from 25,855 in Dec 2021 and 24,515 in Sept 2021) – of these 8,475 are in the Lot 1 area (North West Wales), 9,277 in Lot 2 (East Wales) and 12,207 in Lot 3 (South West Wales). This suggests that BT have a reasonable chance of completing their contracts by the end of June.

Tens of thousands of premises are still expected to remain poorly served at the end of this contract, but this may yet shrink as a result of commercial builds (e.g. Openreach and Ogi are going much deeper). Some others will hopefully be tackled by the gigabit voucher scheme and community fund, while others may have to wait for the £5bn Project Gigabit programme (Welsh Plan) to work its way – at a painfully slow pace – toward rollout.

Completed Premises – Q1 2022 Breakdown by Local Authority