Openreach Name Next 84 UK Areas for Copper to FTTP Switch – Tranche 16
Network operator Openreach (BT) has published the next batch of 84 exchanges (Tranche 16) in their “FTTP Priority Exchange Stop Sell” programme, which reflects areas where over 75% of premises are able to get full fibre and will thus stop selling copper based analogue phone and broadband products (i.e. FTTP becomes the only available product).
Currently there are two schemes for moving away from old copper lines and services, which can sometimes criss-cross. 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” project involves the ongoing rollout of gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) lines – using light signals via optical fibre instead of electrical signals via slow copper lines. Only after this second project 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 long process because you have to allow time for customer migrations.
Advertisement
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 coverage of full fibre than others). Naturally, premises that can’t yet get FTTP will continue to be served by copper-based broadband products.
84 New Exchange Locations (Tranche 16)
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 84 exchanges announced today – covering 880,000 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 1022. The “stop sell” in the Tranche 16 areas will be introduced from 26th May 2025.
By the summer, these ‘stop sell’ rules will have been activated in a total of more than 700 exchanges – meaning around 6 million UK premises will be under active Stop Sell.
Advertisement
The operator also has a Stop Sells Page to their website, which makes it easy to see all the planned changes. Otherwise, the following list is tentative, so changes and delays will occur (exchanges can and are often shifted around into different tranches).
84 Stop Sell Exchanges in Tranche 16
| Exchange Name | Exchange Location |
| 1. Aberdeen Portlethen (PIP) | Portlethen |
| 2. Aberdeen West | Aberdeen |
| 3. Addingham | Addingham |
| 4. Alderminster | Alderminster |
| 5. Appleton Roebuck | Appleton Roebuck |
| 6. Ashington (AIT) | Ashington (Northumberland) |
| 7. Aspull (ASP) | Greater Manchester – Wigan |
| 8. Atherton (ATH) | Greater Manchester – Wigan |
| 9. Attercliffe (SF/AC) | Sheffield |
| 10. Barking | Greater London – Barking and Dagenham |
| 11. Barnby Dun | Doncaster |
| 12. Bishop Auckland | Bishop Auckland |
| 13. Bridgend | Bridgend |
| 14. Burnham-On-Sea | Burnham-on-Sea |
| 15. Busby (GW/BUS) | Glasgow |
| 16. Buxton | Buxton (High Peak) |
| 17. Carlisle | Carlisle |
| 18. Chatham Dock (CH/DY) | Gillingham (Kent) |
| 19. Chesterfield (CD) | Chesterfield |
| 20. Clynnogfawr | Trefor |
| 21. Coalville (CJY) | Coalville |
| 22. Cowers Lane | Heage |
| 23. Dowsby | Rippingale |
| 24. Dromara | Saintfield |
| 25. Dunchurch (DEY) | Rugby |
| 26. East (MR/EAS) | Greater Manchester – Manchester |
| 27. Evington (LXV) | Leicester |
| 28. Exeter Castle | Exeter |
| 29. Flamborough | Flamborough |
| 30. Foxhall | Ispwich |
| 31. Grimsby | Grimsby |
| 32. Hadleigh Essex (HVL) | Rayleigh |
| 33. Heath Hayes (HYY) | Cannock |
| 34. Houghton Le Spring (HMI) | Houghton-le-Spring |
| 35. Huddersfield (HF) | Huddersfield |
| 36. Ilkeston (II) | Ilkeston |
| 37. Ilkley | Ilkley |
| 38. Kidsgrove | Kidsgrove |
| 39. Kingskerswell | Kingskerswell |
| 40. Knaresborough (KB) | Knaresborough |
| 41. Leagrave (LGV) | Luton |
| 42. Leven | Leven |
| 43. Lindfield (LEL) | Haywards Heath |
| 44. Llanbrynmair | Llanbrynmair |
| 45. Llanrumney | Cardiff |
| 46. Lofthouse Gate (UOG) | Wakefield |
| 47. Mareham Le Fen | Mareham le Fen |
| 48. Medway | Chatham |
| 49. Moore | Moore |
| 50. Mossley (MMF) | Greater Manchester – Tameside |
| 51. Motherwell (MOO) | Motherwell |
| 52. New Cross | Greater London – Southwark |
| 53. New Mills | New Mills |
| 54. North Cave | South Cave |
| 55. North Kelsey | North Kelsey |
| 56. Oldham | Greater Manchester – Oldham |
| 57. Penistone | Penistone |
| 58. Pontardawe | Pontardawe |
| 59. Raunds (RBC) | Raunds |
| 60. Rearsby (RBX) | Rearsby |
| 61. Richill | Craigavon |
| 62. Ross On Wye | Ross-on-Wye |
| 63. Rotherfield | Rotherfield |
| 64. Roxwell | Chelmsford |
| 65. Rugby | Rugby |
| 66. Scotter | Scotter |
| 67. Scunthorpe | Scunthorpe |
| 68. Sherburn Hill | Sherburn (County Durham) |
| 69. Skegness | Skegness |
| 70. Solihull (BM/SOL) | Solihull |
| 71. South Shore | Blackpool |
| 72. Southend (SMU) | Southend-on-Sea |
| 73. Stotfold (XTO) | Stotfold |
| 74. Stratford on Avon | Stratford-upon-Avon |
| 75. Templepatrick | Antrim |
| 76. Thurnby (TBV) | Leicester |
| 77. Torquay | Torquay |
| 78. Tregynon | Tregynon |
| 79. Ulgham | Ellington (Northumberland) |
| 80. Undercliffe (QDQ) | Bradford |
| 81. Upminster (L/UP) | Greater London – Havering |
| 82. Waltham On The Wolds | Waltham on the Wolds |
| 83. Wickersley | Rotherham |
| 84. Withdean | Brighton and Hove |
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.
« Copper Cable Thieves Strike Openreach’s Network in New Forest UPDATE
London ISP Community Fibre Merges Brand with Box Broadband »
This is good news, progress is being made.
Wonder if the Openreach “when and where” page will be updated today too. It’s still showing data from Dec 2023.
I’d probably expect the Where and When stuff to update on Tuesday or Wednesday next week after the bank holiday tbh.
This relates to the copper switch off and is not a list of new FTTP deployment locations. If you’re looking for news of new FTTP locations, then I expect something to follow in a month or so.
So glad I am in tranche 9,999 so none of you have to b.
Hopefully we’re still on track for 2047 then! Still a complete fibre desert here. Half of the city is “done” and some areas double covered by Openreach and CityFibre. The other half entirely abandoned.
FTTP becomes the only available product, (WRONG) I now know of three instances where customers whose Exchange went Stop Sell on the 29/4/2022 and 1/11/2022, and two were given new FTTC contracts by TalkTalk, one being, seventeen Months after Stop Sell, for 24 Month term. and Sky for 18 Months, albeit a shorter time after Stop Sell. In one case the customer just did not want Full Fibre, and the other customers didn’t like the idea of the Fibre cable being buried in their gardens. When these ISP’s where about to lose a customer, they had no problem in breaking the rules. Just to be clear, they all stayed on the same FTTC contracts they had previously. I have seen the Stop Sell rules many times, they are, when you take out a new contract, upgrade or regrade. Looks like rules are made to be broken, by these ISP’s at any rate!
Contract renewals do not fall under the Stop Sell rules, so in the cases you mention no rules were broken.
Hi,
If they stayed with the same ISP on the same speed and technology then stop sell is irrelevant.
Stop sell is about Openreach blocking orders to install or modify copper services, if the service isn’t being installed or modified (i.e. the ISP and connection speed isn’t being changed) then stop sell has no effect.
The outlying cases are easyer to pander to than getting a complaint to ofcom,
Maybe they want the EU so pay for the garden to be up and the EU cant afford it. Openreach can’t just cut them off and the
@Binary, @Dassa. That being the case, it’s going to be sometime before we are all on FTTP! I mean, the idea is that we are changing from copper to Fibre. Surely there must come a time when Openreach make the change Compulsory, when it’s available at an Exchange. This supposed change is turning into a real mishmash. In the year 2525, if men are still alive, MAYBE 🙂
@binary, @Dassa What happens when the FTTC connection changes to SOGEA, and the customer is in a Stop Sell Exchange? will they have to have Full Fibre at that point. In my opinion, if no rules are being broken now, the spirit of them certainly is!
After doing a bit of research no-one is breaking any rules doing this. Openreach won’t take orders for it but there’s nothing stopping a CP from continuing to provide FTTC indefinitely.
@XGS: Just this week i was talking to a friend who is a Openreach Full Fibre fitter, i explained the situation where TalkTalk had given a FTTC contract in our Stop Sell Exchange for 2 years. His reaction was, the customer would need to have their fingers crossed, because if there is a fault develops on the copper line it won’t be fixed because Full Fibre is available at the customers premises. He only works on Fibre himself but knows this is happening from speaking with fellow workmates in the Exchange who are still working on copper line faults.
He’s mistaken. Copper faults still get fixed.
@XGS. For now. The verizon ‘fibre is the only fix’ is not far away. Especially as copper repair is moving across to subbies on very low rates per job.
@XGS: After some Research i have found when the Openreach rules were amended to allow customers on an existing 40/10 FTTC line to take another contract with their present ISP or move to another supplier on 40/10 FTTC, when on a Stop Sell/ Priority Exchange, it was also made possible at the same time to bandwidth modify the FTTC connection. The start date for the Openreach change in policy was 18/9/21. The upcoming change was covered by ISPreview, in an article on the 21/6/21. Somehow this amendment bypassed me! 🙂
giggity giggity goo
my town is on the list.
I’ve got 3 fibre providers that service my property, but none of them can install because the ducts are blocked, so OpenReach is my last hope! Fingers crossed I’m in tranch 17 😀
Serving or can serve? Serving means already there- but if they can serve if they want to use IPA then OR will unblock it as part of the order. I had a collapsed chamber and they spent an hour and 10 mins with a mini digger sorting the problem out.
can be unblocked as part of an order – of course OR will do it but any provider can take your order.
Try again any of them can place an order and OR will have to unblock it
When an order is placed they will unblock it.. Try again.
If serving then already there – if serve then needs the chamber sorted
No, I Love Starlink. The PIA operator’s job to unblock the duct or pay Openreach to do it separately from install.
A collapsed chamber isn’t going to be ‘sorted’ in an hour and a bit, it’ll be demolished and rebuilt.
PIA installs don’t usually involve Openreach in any way: they use their own contractors to rod, rope and pull.
I’m at the end of a 2 mile FTTC connection. My copper connection drops out or drops to <1Mbit/sec when it's very rainy. Given what it would cost to lay that much fibre to achieve FTTP, I'm not sure when if ever I'll ever get anything better than the (literal) wet string I have now – roll on 5G/Starlink mini etc. I wonder how many other people are in the same boat?
Thought I read in an earlier post that Openscreah laid 6.4km to a wildlife sanctuary, your 3.2km is half that; adopt some wild animals!
We all know how necessary FTTP is for the export drive of the fury animal vids on YT . . and other essentials.
But don’t count your chickens, it maybe just Openreach and BT marketing departments waving their semaphore flags in a misleading way.
BT customers in my area were advised courtesy of a PR release that Digital Voice would be introduced shortly. They even referred to pop-up PR events occuring in some well-known local venues designed to explain the way forward. So far NIL . .NADA . . NOTHING has happened.
Gigaclear have just ‘completed’ their install in my village. We are outside the village at the end of an OR Ariel Cable except having surveyed the route Gigaclear have conveniently ‘forgotten’ extend their provision out to the end off the OR cable. Maybe it was because the local BT engineer pointed out that the fibre needed to moleploughed in rather than an Ariel Cable through trees which lasts about 2 or 3 years before needing replacement.
B***** cherry picking companies with subtle pricing policies – what is £17/20/40 now doubles at the end of the initial 18 m9nth contract.
OR have notified me that they will be doing a FTTP provision in the ‘near’ future which looks to be off a different exchange (without number change).
“30. Foxhall Ispwich” Should be Ipswich
There are 23 exchanges which use the Ipswich area code(01473). Foxhall being one of them.
@FibreKev – it was the spelling of Ipswich.
This is interesting as FTTP still isn’t available in Ilkley! I know a couple of properties that have gone down the FTTPoD route but it’s not showing as available on OpenReach website.
I would say Openreach are looking at exchanges that are amongst the most costly to rent once the 30 year Telereal Trillium lease expires on most of the BT estate. There’s only 7 years left until contracts expire, that’s roughly the amount of time a large exchange needs from the initial stop sell intention to deal with migration and ramp up fibre.
My exchange was announced in 2020 and we’re still waiting for FTTP.
My exchange isn’t on the latest stop sell list either. I guess they won’t be build our FTTP until the end of 2025/2026 at this rate then.
As i live on the edge of a village in the country. Walpole st peter Norfolk. We have 35mb fttc. There is no chance of full fibre in our area because bt only invest in towns and citys. We get pushed to one side always.. thats bt the tight gits for ya.
I live in a village at the edge of a national park. Openreach had no issue coming here.
You should contact one of the many other full fibre suppliers.
There are postcodes in Walpole St Peter with Openreach fibre availability.
They’re a business not a charity with no magic stash of money, it all comes from borrowing and shareholders with customers eventually payng else they go bankrupt.
They’ll get to you at some point given they’ve done millions of rural premises already. They’d probably be charging less if they were only building in towns and cities: no need for those folks to sub more expensive ones.
Might want to ask why no-one else has built to you.
really
they covered 66% of the uk under commercial plan spending 2,5bn of there own money without public support
any one else come to walpole st peter then ?
I’ve lived at the same address for 16 years.
NOT 1 upgrade in all that time! ZERO
Fortunately I can get “Superfast” which is better than a lot of people.
However “Superfast” is no longer Superfast & the fact it’s getting close to a fifth of a century with no upgrades is just plain rubbish.
Shame on you BT.
Dartford Exchange. DA1
Openreach roadworks activity in Dartford.
@XGS: Openreach amended their rules on 18/9/21 to allow existing customers on 40/10 FTTC to remain, or change provider with the same speed, on Stop Sell Exchanges. You can read about this change in the rules in an article by ISPreview dated, 21/6/21.
@XGS: Read the extended version @4:37, the post disappeared and returned later, thought i had been moderated! 🙂
Still no Barnsley as usual
Our street lacks FTTP & lacks FTTC. I had hoped this analogue switch off would spur OpenReach to complete their FTTP coverage of the village but so far not a finger has been raised. Coverage remains stuck at less than 25% of the homes.