Q4 2022 Openreach Progress Update on Wales FTTP Rollout
The Welsh Government (WG) has published a Q4 2022 progress update on their £52.5m Phase 2 Superfast Cymru contract with Openreach (BT), which reveals that a total of 35,770 extra premises (up from 34,122 in Q3) have now gained access to their gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network.
The original plan consisted of two contracts, the first one was a £22.5m agreement (target of 26,000 premises by March 2021 – later reduced due to the rising impact of commercial builds) and the second one was a £30m extension (13,000 premises by June 2022). The extension costs more per premises passed because the cost of build rises disproportionately as you enter remote rural areas.
At this point it’s necessary to remind readers that the WG tweaked their contracted agreement with Openreach last summer (here), which pushed the project’s completion date back to 31st March 2023. The number of premises to be built to under the agreed roll-out is now 37,137, which is slightly lower than the originally anticipated 39,000 total premises.
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However, the aforementioned change reflects the fact that commercial fibre builds are reaching further than expected, and some areas also had to be de-scoped from the contract as they were more expensive to tackle than anticipated. But the WG still expects that the “total number of premises to benefit from the project” may actually end up higher than 39,000 premises when the revised rollout finishes this year.
According to the latest update from the WG, Openreach has so far built their full fibre network to a total of 35,770 premises (up from 34,122 in Q3 and 32,949 in Q2 2022). Some 10,616 of these are in the Lot 1 area (North West Wales), while 11,043 are in Lot 2 (East Wales) and 14,111 in Lot 3 (South West Wales).
Completed Premises – Q4 2022 Breakdown by Local Authority
| LOT/District | Premises |
| 3.1 | 10,616 |
| Ceredigion | 2,498 |
| Conwy | 1,561 |
| Denbighshire | 1,492 |
| Flintshire | 6 |
| Gwynedd | 3,961 |
| Isle of Anglesey | 1,098 |
| 3.2 | 11,043 |
| Bridgend | 8 |
| Cardiff | 850 |
| Denbighshire | 1 |
| Flintshire | 2,055 |
| Monmouthshire | 1,570 |
| Newport | 286 |
| Powys | 2,962 |
| Vale of Glamorgan | 898 |
| Wrexham | 2,413 |
| 3.3 | 14,111 |
| Bridgend | 1,285 |
| Caerphilly | 2,921 |
| Cardiff | 8 |
| Carmarthenshire | 2,890 |
| Ceredigion | 1 |
| Merthyr Tydfil | 468 |
| Monmouthshire | 1 |
| Neath Port Talbot | 688 |
| Pembrokeshire | 3,197 |
| Rhondda Cynon Taf | 1,573 |
| Swansea | 459 |
| Torfaen | 618 |
| Vale of Glamorgan | 2 |
| Total THP | 35,770 |
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, Netomnia and Ogi are going much deeper). Some others will hopefully be tackled by the gigabit voucher scheme and community fund, while the rest might have to wait for the £5bn Project Gigabit programme (Welsh Plan) to work its way toward fruition.
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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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the top half of my street out from the village has fttp but the bottom half ( my half ) has not been started yet openreach website say it will be done by 2026
Same here half the post code is now FTTP, and was stating March 2023 for completion of rest now sometime from now to December 2026.
Am I reading this right that this is covering single figures of THP?
i.e. 3 property in two different counties?
Those will be edge cases, when a property sits right on the boundary of a local authority region and gets counted in the neighbouring county instead, where no work was otherwise part of the specific contract LOT. But you’ll note those authorities may appear in the other LOTs.
Could be a single property in the middle of nowhere that required state aid to build out the fibre and CBT to connect to an existing PON.
And yet there are streets in towns and cities not being served!
State aid rules, since those are often deemed areas that should be viable for the private sector to resolve. Spending public money in such areas can, if not carefully managed, end up being ruled as anticompetitive. Hence, why public money tends to focus on areas of perceived market failure.
Well BT can say good bye to my money come June.
Had an email last year saying fibre was on the way, but still nothing.
Now better served by a nearby three 5g mast with 400 download speed, so it’s an unlimited sim and big savings in a few months time!!
Oh no, don’t say anything negative about BT or Brokenreach. The BT/Brokenreach fans will not like it and will accuse you of trolling. They can’t take it, as they need to book into a therapist, their minds implode unless you wax lyrical and sing the praises of their idol company….
Is that 3’s 5G £20.00 per month plan ? With a router included ?