FTTH Council – Full Fibre Broadband to Cover 29.6 Million UK Homes by 2029

The FTTH Council Europe has today published their 2024 ranking of 39 European countries (EU39) with the strongest take-up and growth of gigabit-capable “full fibre” (FTTP/B) broadband ISP networks, which sees the UK rise several places in the ranking and a prediction that we’ll hit 29.6 million homes passed by 2029 (up from 17.1m today).

Firstly, it’s vital to highlight that, compared with most of the other countries in this annual market panorama, the UK is still playing a long game of catch up (others started deploying full fibre at scale many years earlier). The UK only began to appear (right at the bottom) of the council’s ranking five years ago, but we’ve been making rapid progress since then (Summary of Full Fibre Builds) and are currently one of the fastest builders.

In terms of the annual change. Back in 2021 the council reported that the UK had an FTTP growth rate (homes passed) of 1.7 million premises per year, which increased to 3.4m in 2022, then 4.2m in 2023 and this year we hit 4.7m (+38%). This means the UK is currently the fastest growing country (by volume / homes) in the council’s latest EU39 ranking table, and the second fastest by %.

Most of the UK’s full fibre coverage achieved so far stems from commercial builds in urban areas and this is expected to help push us up to around 80% by the end of 2025 (e.g. Openreach’s build alone should hit 25 million premises by December 2026, and they’re just one of many players). Meanwhile, the Government’s state aid funded £5bn Project Gigabit aims to help tackle the final 20% of hardest to reach (e.g. rural) premises by 2030.

The latest data also shows that the UK now has a market penetration rate of 17.1% (up from 11.1% last year), a coverage figure of 57% or 17.1 million homes passed (up from 42% and 12.4m) and a take-up rate of 29.9% (up from 27% last year). By comparison, the EU39 countries have an average market penetration rate of 34.7%, with coverage of an impressive 69.9% and a take-up rate of 49.6%.

On the subject of take-up – markets where FTTP/B is already at a mature level of deployment will naturally have significantly higher take-up, while those where the technology is still in the early process of rapid deployment (like the UK) often appear further behind (i.e. the pace of build is so fast that it suppresses the take-up figure, when expressed as a percentage).

Overall, the total number of homes passed with FTTP/B broadband networks in the 39 European countries surveyed reached 244 million (up from 219m last year). The top of the annual growth rates in terms of homes passed is headed by the United Kingdom (+4.7m), Germany (4.4.), and France (+2.5). The top 5 of the annual % growth rates in terms of homes passed are headed by Belgium (+43%), the United Kingdom (+38%), Germany (+37%), Serbia (+30%), and Croatia (+28%).

The 5 fastest growing markets in terms of new subscribers were France (+3.4m), the United Kingdom (+1.8m), Turkey (+1m), Spain (+985K), and Italy (+919K). The overall FTTH/B coverage rate in the EU39 is now 69.9%, which is up by 6.5 percentage points vs 2022. But we should add that Russia and Belarus were, once again, excluded from this year’s study.

Future Predictions

In terms of future progress, the council’s report notes that the UK, Germany and Italy still have a long way to go in terms of build, but the UK is forecast to reach 20.4 million homes passed by the end of 2024 (up 19% in the year) and then 29.6 million by the end of 2029 (up by 45% between 2024 and 2029).

However, country-to-county comparisons never tell the whole story. For example, some countries have funded the deployment of fibre almost entirely from public money, while offering very little in the way of competition (e.g. weak consumer choice). Meanwhile, other countries have a significantly higher proportion of people living in large blocks of flats (e.g. Spain, Portugal), which are much cheaper to serve those with a greater proportion of individual housing (e.g. UK).

Finally, it’s worth noting that a fair number of alternative networks in the UK – under pressure from rising build costs, competition and high interest rates – were forced to slow their build progress and cut some jobs during the latter half of 2023, which won’t yet be having much of an impact on this year’s tables. But we wouldn’t be surprised next year’s study showed a slowing or stagnation of coverage growth.