Openreach Name 28 New UK Areas for Copper to FTTP Switch – Tranche 14
Openreach (BT) has released the next batch of 28 UK exchanges under Tranche 14 of their “FTTP Priority Exchange Stop Sell” project, which reflects locations where over 75% of premises are able to get full fibre broadband and can thus stop selling copper based phone and broadband products (i.e. FTTP becomes the only product available).
At present, there are two programmes for moving away from old copper lines and services, which can sometimes criss-cross each other. The first starts with the gradual migration of traditional analogue voice (PSTN) services to digital all-IP technologies (e.g. SOGEA), which is due to complete by December 2025 and is occurring on both copper and full fibre products (i.e. ISPs are introducing digital voice / VoIP services). The national “stop sell” on analogue phone services began on 5th September 2023 (here).
The second “FTTP Priority Exchange” programme, which is the one we’re talking about today, involves the ongoing rollout of gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) infrastructure – using light signals via optical fibre instead of electrical signals via slow copper lines. Only after this second stage has largely completed (75%+ FTTP coverage) in an exchange area can you really start to completely switch-off copper-based products, but that’s a much longer process as you have to allow a few years for customer migrations.
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Between the scrapping of analogue phone services, the full fibre rollout and the gradual switch away from copper lines, this process will take several years in each area to complete, and the pace will vary (i.e. some areas have better FTTP coverage than others). Naturally, premises that can’t yet get FTTP will continue to be served by copper-based broadband and digital (IP based) phone products via those same lines.
28 New Exchange Locations (Tranche 14)
The migration process away from the legacy services starts with a “no move back” policy (i.e. no going back to copper) for premises connected with fibre, which is followed by a “stop-sell” of copper services to new customers (12-months of notice is given before this starts and that is what today’s list represents). This stage is then followed by a final “withdrawal” phase, but that comes later. The stop sell is applied at premises level, so it shouldn’t impact you if you don’t yet have access to FTTP (edge-case conflicts may still occur due to rare quirks of network availability).
The 28 exchanges announced today – covering 184,000 additional premises – takes the total number of exchange upgrades that have already been notified as part of the aforementioned process (including trial exchanges), or which are actively under “stop sell“, to 874 – covering a total of around 8.2 million premises. The “stop sell” in the Tranche 14 areas will be introduced from 8th November 2024.
The operator also has a Stop Sells Page to their website, which makes it easy to see all the changes. Remember, the following list is tentative, so changes and delays will occur (exchanges can are often shifted around into different tranches).
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List of 28 Stop Sell Exchanges (Tranche 14)
| Exchange Name | Exchange Location |
| Four Oaks | Sutton Coldfield |
| Dysart | Kirkcaldy |
| Newcastle West | Newcastle upon Tyne |
| Biggleswade | Biggleswade |
| Caldy | West Kirby |
| Allerton | Liverpool |
| Eltham | Greater London – Greenwich |
| West Drayton | Greater London – Hillingdon |
| Sutton | Sutton (East Cambridgeshire) |
| Prestonpans – Port Seton | Prestonpans |
| Upper Largo | Upper Largo |
| Berwick | Berwick-upon-Tweed |
| Knutsford | Knutsford |
| Malton | Norton-on-Derwent |
| Stamford | Stamford |
| Cleish Hills | Cleish |
| Drumclog | Strathaven |
| Landrake | Landrake |
| Bickleigh | Bickleigh |
| Bolney | Bolney |
| Crosswell | Crymych |
| Abbotts Ann | Abbotts Ann |
| Stichill | Kelso |
| Burravoe | Burravoe |
| Tonbridge | Tonbridge |
| Tenterden | Tenterden |
| Dartmouth | Dartmouth |
| Staines | Staines |
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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Can anybody tell me please when this part of Cambridge, supposedly the technology hotbed of Europe by the way, is going to get BT Fibre? CB5 8RN by the way.
It has full fibre available from CityFibre and partial fibre from Virgin Media with Openreach full fibre planned.
Sorry, forgot to mention: Virgin Media are overbuilding their partial fibre network in Cambridge with full fibre right now also.
Try Trooli
https://bidb.uk/#/3/CB58RN
You have cityfibre which imo is a better option than OR anyway. You have Vermin HFC, and OR FTTP planned.
In before the Openreach doesn’t care about me crowd of people
Whats slower than openreach provided broadband? Their rollout…..
10million since 2018 is about 2 million a year or 5.5K a day or 38K a week overall average.
This article https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2023/03/openreach-bring-fttp-broadband-to-10-million-uk-premises.html says they are currently working at 62K a week.
What build rate would you class as reasonable or a network provider?
BTW. Have no affinity to BT/OR just a business logistics question.
Openreach are slow at rolling out their FTTP broadband. I’m from Burnley and Openreach still haven’t completed my area yet, it’s been saying Build Planned since 2021. BRSK took no time at all and I and alot of my neighbours have taken advantage of their cheap service and symmetrical speeds.
They have the fastest rollout in Europe
one day, people will stop measuring the success of a broadband or mobile network rollout based on whether it is personally available to them at their address.
As has already been stated, Openreach’s network dwarfs everyone else’s, combined, many times over. It may not be available to you yet, but it’s available to many more people than anyone else
CityFibre microtrenched and fibred down the road leading to our development, about 5 or 6 months ago, and I’ve heard nothing from them since. I noticed Openreach added Astley Bridge to their FTTP build in September, and Lightsource have just run Fibre down the road and throughout our development, without any disruption and barely noticeable, to be honest if they hadn’t have needed to access a manhole in my front garden I might have missed them completely. CityFibre spent days microtrenching the main roads and side roads, and were extremely noticeable.
I spoke to the Lightsource works supervisor and he told me Astley Bridge is already kitted out and FTTP service should be available before the end of the year.
CityFibre did our whole area and did 1 single trench down the middle of 3 streets about 2 months ago and we are number 3 of those streets. It’s now ready for service.
Seems to be no Rhyme or Reason why it takes them longer in some areas than others.
Sill a fair bit here not covered by Openreach FTTP, including a fair bit of one of the large estates here, I think it will be a while before we get the 75% of premises here, and then they have to give 12 months notice.
They give the notice first, then build – not the other way round. Least that’s the experience in my area.
@Cognizant, once they get to 75% coverage in an exchange area, they give 12 months notice that it will not be possible to order FTTC.
It isn’t automatic, exchanges above 75% coverage aren’t on the list and they only need to get to 75% before the restriction kicks in, not to announce.
See https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/9726-28-more-openreach-exchanges-added-to-fttp-priority-programme for this group. One of the exchanges is currently on zero FTTP coverage.
The pace they’re building at I imagine a fair few in the cities and large towns in West Yorkshire appearing in the next tranche or two.
Fair bit more of Leeds is good to go now, some of the 5 towns are about there, Wakefield city will be soon.
Don’t fastest speed I can get in my area is up2 300meg virgin is available as well with gb broadband but I’m about 2 leave them u fiber are in my area and boy is it fast 8gb download speed with 8gb upload speed I’m going on 2gb with them with a Guaranteed 1.8gb download and a 1.8gb upload speed I would go o 8gb but I’m not going 2 pay £100 a month
Cool story bro
Wonder when Dobwalls will get fttp.
It’s shocking 22mb is max we can get on our line . Yet, the houses 50 meteres away can get 100mb+
Dobwalls – https://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/index.php?tab=2&election=1#15/50.4532/-4.5117/allfttp/
Presumably the switchover to digital is underway in some regions. It will be interesting to see if it drives up FTTP take up
What option are they going to offer people that just want a phone and not Broadband ?
A phone only service running over a very low speed data connection. You only need 100kbps for high quality voice, or 0.1Mbps.
Can I ask when Crownhill exchange will fully roll out fttp?