Openreach Name 163 More UK Areas for Copper to FTTP Switch – Tranche 20 UPDATE
Openreach (BT) has released the next May 2025 batch of exchanges (Tranche 20) in their “FTTP Priority Exchange Stop Sell” programme, which reflects areas where over 75% of premises are able to get full fibre lines and will thus stop selling copper based legacy phone and broadband products (i.e. FTTP becomes the only product option).
Currently, there are two schemes for moving away from old copper lines and services, which can sometimes cross over. The first starts with the gradual migration of traditional legacy voice (PSTN / WLR) services to digital all-IP technologies (e.g. SOGEA), which is due to complete by 31st January 2027 and is occurring on both copper and full fibre products (i.e. ISPs are introducing digital voice / VoIP services). The national “stop sell” on legacy phone services began on 5th September 2023 (here).
The second “FTTP Priority Exchange” programme 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 programme has largely completed (75%+ FTTP coverage) in an exchange area can you really start to completely switch-off copper-based products, which will come later as you have to allow time for natural customer migrations.
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Between the scrapping of legacy phone services, the full fibre rollout and the gradual switch away from copper lines themselves, 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.
163 New Exchange Locations (Tranche 20)
In this programme, the migration process away from legacy services starts with a “no move back” policy (i.e. no going back to copper) for premises connected with FTTP, 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, although edge-case conflicts may still occur due to rare quirks of network availability.
The 163 exchanges announced today 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 1,516. The “stop sell” in the Tranche 20 areas will be introduced from 5th June 2026.
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The operator also has a Stop Sells Page on 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).
UPDATE 7th May 2025 @ 12:14pm: Openreach informs that this batch of exchanges covers a record number of 1.6 million premises across the UK and, by the start of June, more than 8 million premises will be under an active Stop Sell or around 44% of their FTTP footprint.
163 Stop Sell Exchanges in Tranche 20
| Exchange Name | Exchange Location | Exchange Code |
| Chapel End | Nuneaton | CMCHAP |
| East | Birmingham | CMEAS |
| Fallings Park | Wolverhampton | CMFAL |
| Furnace End | Shustoke | CMFUR |
| Haseley Knob | Fen End | CMHASN |
| Lichfield | Lichfield | CMLIC |
| Toll Bar | Coventry | CMTOL |
| Clacton | Clacton-on-Sea | EACLN |
| Canvey Island | Canvey Island | EACVI |
| Dane End | Ware | EADNE |
| Hertford Town | Hertford | EAHTF |
| Highwoods | Colchester | EAHWD |
| Lakenheath | Lakenheath | EALAK |
| Norwich North | Norwich | EANCN |
| Ormesby | Hemsby | EAORM |
| Whitton | Ipswich | EAWHI |
| Basford | Nottingham | EMBASFO |
| Birstall | Birstall | EMBIRSS |
| Broughton | Broughton (Kettering) | EMBROUG |
| Northampton | Northampton (Northamptonshire) | EMNORTH |
| Parwich | Parwich | EMPARWI |
| Peterborough | Peterborough | EMPETER |
| Shirebrook | Shirebrook | EMSHIRE |
| Surfleet | Surfleet Seas End | EMSRFLT |
| Tamworth | Tamworth | EMTMWOR |
| Whittlesey | Whittlesey | EMWHITT |
| Wymondham | Wymondham (Melton) | EMWMNDH |
| Wisbech | Wisbech | EMWSBCH |
| Armadale | Armadale | ESARM |
| Abbey St Bathans | Abbey St Bathans | ESASB |
| Avonbridge | Avonbridge | ESAVO |
| Dundee Baxter | Dundee | ESBAX |
| Dundee Claverhouse | Dundee | ESCLA |
| Forfar | Forfar | ESFFR |
| Inverkeithing | Rosyth | ESIKG |
| Ashton In Makerfield | Greater Manchester – Wigan | LCAIM |
| Churchtown | Southport | LCCHU |
| Cleveleys | Thornton (Wyre) | LCCLV |
| Orrell | Greater Manchester – Wigan | LCORR |
| Preston | Preston (Lancashire) | LCPRE |
| Rochdale | Greater Manchester – Rochdale | LCROC |
| Standish | Greater Manchester – Wigan | LCSTD |
| Ulverston | Ulverston | LCULV |
| Goodmayes | Greater London – Redbridge | LNGDM |
| South Ockendon | South Ockendon | LNSOK |
| St Albans | St Albans | LNSTB |
| Byfleet | Woking | LSBYF |
| Greenhithe | Swanscombe | LSGRNH |
| Mitcham | Greater London – Merton | LSMIT |
| Redhill | Redhill (Surrey) | LSRED |
| Woolwich | Greater London – Greenwich | LSWOO |
| Padgate | Warrington | LVPAD |
| Stanley | Liverpool | LVSTA |
| Edgware | Greater London – Harrow | LWEDG |
| Harrow | Greater London – Harrow | LWHARR |
| Mill Hill | Greater London – Barnet | LWMIL |
| Ashton | Greater Manchester – Tameside | MRASH |
| Moss Side | Greater Manchester – Manchester | MRMOS |
| Cullingworth | Wilsden | MYCUL |
| Hemingbrough | Hemingbrough | MYHMB |
| Howden | Howden | MYHOW |
| Sowerby Bridge | Halifax | MYSOW |
| Newington | Newington | NDNEW |
| Snodland | Snodland | NDSNO |
| Westgate | Margate | NDWES |
| West Malling | Ditton | NDWMA |
| Coxhoe | Bowburn | NECOX |
| Durham | Durham | NEDU |
| East Layton | Melsonby | NEELA |
| Saltburn | Saltburn-by-the-Sea | NESLB |
| Sunderland North | Sunderland | NESUN |
| Whitburn | Whitburn | NEWN |
| Glenanne | Unmapped | NIGN |
| Loughgall | Unmapped | NILL |
| Newtownhamilton | Unmapped | NINH |
| Banff | Banff | NSBNF |
| Baltasound | Baltasound | NSBTS |
| Carrbridge | Carrbridge | NSCRB |
| Eday | Dishes | NSEDY |
| Forres | Forres | NSFRS |
| Peterhead | Peterhead | NSPET |
| Uyeasound | Clivocast | NSUYE |
| Gosport | Gosport | SDGSPRT |
| Peacehaven | Peacehaven | SDPCHVN |
| Polegate | Polegate | SDPLGT |
| Seaford | Seaford | SDSFRD |
| Beauchief | Sheffield | SLBC |
| Bentley | Bentley (Doncaster) | SLBEN |
| Kiveton | Kiveton Park | SLKIV |
| Louth | Louth | SLLH |
| Lincoln Subs | Lincoln | SLLI |
| Roxton | Keelby | SLRXN |
| Spalford | North Scarle | SLSPD |
| Dunstable | Dunstable | SMDB |
| Long Compton | Long Compton | SMLC |
| Broad Hinton | Broad Hinton | SSBHN |
| Calne | Calne | SSCAL |
| Fishponds | Bristol | SSFIS |
| Lacock | Lacock | SSLAC |
| Pill | Pill | SSPIL |
| Yatton | Yatton | SSYAT |
| Amesbury | Amesbury | STAMSBY |
| Ludgershall | Ludgershall (Wiltshire) | STLGSHL |
| Tidworth | Tidworth | STTDWTH |
| Weymouth | Weymouth | STWEYMH |
| Ammanford | Ammanford | SWADW |
| Dale | St Ishmael’s | SWDAQ |
| Haverfordwest | Haverfordwest | SWHV |
| Crucorney | Llanthony | SWLCY |
| Llanishen | Cardiff | SWLNI |
| Porthcawl | Porthcawl | SWPEU |
| Pontypool | Newport (Newport) | SWPP |
| Bargoed | Newport (Newport) | SWQJA |
| Tonypandy | Tonypandy | SWTDU |
| Treorchy | Treorchy | SWTFA |
| Tredunnock | Llangybi | SWTUC |
| Reading South | Reading | THS |
| Badsey | Badsey | WMBAD |
| Ipstones | Ipstones | WMIPN |
| Longton | Stoke-on-Trent | WMLON |
| Studley | Redditch | WMSTD |
| Aberystwyth | Aberystwyth | WNAE |
| Bodorgan | Malltraeth | WNBDO |
| Bow Street | Aberystwyth | WNBS |
| Caerwys | Caerwys | WNCAW |
| Castle Caereinion | Castle Caereinion | WNCCA |
| Christleton | Waverton | WNCHR |
| Chester North | Chester | WNCSN |
| Ellesmere | Ellesmere | WNELL |
| Ffestiniog | Llan Ffestiniog | WNFF |
| Glyn Ceiriog | Trevor | WNGLC |
| Harlech | Harlech | WNHAR |
| Llandrillo | Llandrillo | WNLDO |
| Llanwrtyd Wells | Llanwrtyd Wells | WNLWW |
| Maentwrog | Gellilydan | WNMAN |
| Northop | Northop | WNNTP |
| Oswestry | Croesowallt | WNOSW |
| Valley | Valley | WNVAL |
| Telford | Telford | WNWEL |
| Wormelow | King’s Thorn | WNWOR |
| Ardwell | Port Logan | WSARL |
| Ballantrae | Ballantrae | WSBAE |
| Bankshill | Lockerbie | WSBAN |
| Blantyre | Blantyre | WSBLA |
| Cambusnethan | Wishaw | WSCAB |
| Chapelknowe | Chapelknowe | WSCHA |
| Crossford | Crossford | WSCRS |
| Greengairs | Greengairs | WSGRS |
| Johnstone Bridge | Johnstonebridge | WSJOB |
| Kilwinning | Kilwinning | WSKIW |
| Sanquhar | Sanquhar | WSSAQ |
| Turnberry | Maidens | WSTUR |
| Tweedsmuir | Biggar | WSTWE |
| Bridestowe | Bridestowe | WWBSTW |
| Chard | Chard | WWCHRD |
| Churston | Paignton | WWCHRS |
| Crediton | Crediton | WWCRED |
| Langtree | Langtree | WWLTRE |
| Nanpean | St Stephen | WWNANP |
| Par | St Blazey | WWPAR |
| Silverton | Silverton | WWSILV |
| South Petherton | South Petherton | WWSPET |
| Yeovil | Yeovil | WWYEOV |
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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Worth noting some of these exchanges are extremely rural ones which have probably been covered by government projects. Example: Abbey St Bathans in Scotland, which is a tiny town and would probably have FTTP through R100.
And as a note to others, exchange codes starting with ES, NS or WS are primarily exchanges in Scotland [representing East, North and West Scotland respectively — there is no code for South Scotland], so a fair amount of these are rural exchanges, with a scattering of urban exchanges.
The exchange in my area went Stop Selll on the 29/4/2022. I know of customers with TalkTalk and Sky who have been given new 80Mbps FTTC contracts because they did not want Full Fibre installed, some didn’t want the disruption, others who where happy with the service they had. Seems the ISP’s just don’t want to lose customers regardless of the Openreach rules.
These didn’t involve Openreach in any way. Nothing at all happens as far as they’re concerned the contract between ISP and customer on FTTC is nothing to do with them so no sale to be stopped.
Those weren’t new FTTC connections were they? No-one ordered a new service from Openreach.
You misunderstand the meaning of stop/sell.
@125us & Polish Poler, If the ISP’s keep giving their customers FTTC contracts one after another, it will be a long time before everybody is on FTTP. Surely there will have to be compulsion by ISP’s in Full Fibre areas at some stage. l know of many people who have been talked into accepting Full Fibre when they didn’t really want it, because they were unaware they could remain on a 40Mbps FTTC contract with their present provider, regrade from 80Mbps with their present provider or move to another provider supplying the same services.
I was surprised to see Eday on the list, and even more surprised now to see that my old house in Sanday (Orkney) can now get an FTTP connection. To be fair they’ve spent most of the past 20 years with a 1Mbps ADSL connection. Still waiting for FTTP here in our ~7500 population town in Aberdeenshire, but supposedly work will take place in the next 12 months.
Apart from Kirkwall and possibly Stromness, all the exchanges getting FTTP in Orkney will be via R100 [there are some road works entries on the Road Works Commissioner website that you can check], and I recall there being an Openreach news piece about them starting to build out the network in those areas through 2024 and also 2025 [since a good number of engineers were already in the vicinity, thanks to the Fair Isle deployment].
So will FTTC still exist once the exchange has been switched off?
Yes
FTTC doesn’t come from these exchanges, they are connected to the same headend exchanges used for the FTTP rollout: consequently, SOGEA (FTTC without Analogue Voice) will still be around for a while.
The news article is about the FTTP Priority Exchange program, which stipulates that if a customer can get access to Openreach FTTP, the customer will be moved to it at the first opportunity they can be (usually when the customer recontracts with their ISP or changes to another ISP on the network). Naturally once a cabinet that contains copper connections used for SOGEA (FTTC without analogue voice) has no active customers on it, it will be decommissioned (both the cab and the connected DSLAM), which is the eventual goal when everyone in the country has access to Openreach FTTP.
Yes.
Relentless disinterest in rural locations despite project Gigafail. Yawn.
5G rollout will continue to make fibre an irrelevance.
It isn’t and it won’t.
Don’t you mean fibre will make 5G irrelevant? I mean I know you’re trolling but even so, that’s a pretty bizarre take on how consumers regard these things.
Learn the difference between disinterested and uninterested.
I’ve found the congestion on 5g to be painful.
It’s not a solution if it’s unusable.
I have 5g internet. £20 per month and getting 500 Mbps. Loving 5g. Copper to the house was 19 Mbps from sky, the minimum they said was 29 Mbps lmao
@Blue Shirt Guy
“Don’t you mean fibre will make 5G irrelevant?”
Not at all since the customer experience is easier to buy the service online and get the equipment next day, which works immediately with no installation visit required. 4G available now, 5G soon if not now, and more capacity in the network at no (re)work for the customer. Easy 4G > 5G upgrade when available.
The window of opportunity for fibre as the national communication utility is closing fast, and mobile broadband is already a better customer experience. The demand volume of mobile networks as the baseload for mobile broadband demand gives volume discount advantage to mobile compared to fibre. As that unit cost falls the competitive advantage increases despite the £5Bn public investment in fibre (underperformed).
Obviously there is increasing competition from Satellite networks which is moving from a specific maritime use case (Inmarsat) alone to general use (Stalink, Eutelsat,etc) so mobile broadband will need to continue investment (5G, 6G) and putting the customer first, despite consolidation to three networks (UK). The potential global coverage of Satellite LEO may persuade enough people to use that, and rural coverage is already persuasive in fibre or mobile not spots.
Fibre? We already don’t care.
@Lonpfrb People who think it can all be done using wireless are, frankly, ignorant of physics. If everyone moved to 5G and satellite, we would all be confined to ADSL speeds at best because they are shared mediums. Both only work when relatively small numbers of people use them. Meanwhile, with fibre, we can keep changing the optics at either end for faster and faster speeds for relatively little cost. Even a 50 G-PON ONT is cheaper than a Starlink terminal, and based on Openreach’s maximum splits, it is a guaranteed 1.6 Gbps symmetric in the distribution layer, way better than Starlink will ever offer. Single-mode fibre is as good as it will *EVER* get as you can’t change the laws of physics. Building out a full fibre network is a one off cost. Even if they can commercialise hollow core fibre (which is doubtful) it is pointless in the distribution network, as you will only shave a handful of nanoseconds of the latency of a connection with no increase in speed.
What a surprise my area of rural Devon misses out again. We are not even on the 2 year list. We even have a fibre wire on the posts outside our house so why no connection. Stop bragging about what you are doing and do something for us on the Bishops Nympton exchange.
This news article is about the FTTP Priority Exchange programme, which is only relevant to areas that actually “have” widespread access to Openreach FTTP (75% or more), where it becomes prudent for Openreach to withdraw copper lines entirely (whether fully copper in the form of ADSL, or SOGEA/FTTC part-fibre connections).
If you don’t have access to Openreach FTTP in any way at all at the moment, then the Stop Sell announcement described by the news article is completely irrelevant to you in every possible way (at least until you get access to Openreach FTTP), so I’ve no idea why you’re trying to create faux outrage in the comments section.
Why oh why does Openreach not care about [MY AREA], everywhere else seems to matter but my exchange [EXCHANGE NAME] seems forgotten – it looks like Openreach has a vendetta against us Somewhereshire folk…
I dont think this is a FTTP announcement list, this is for ending sales of copper services in areas that already have FTTP.
Why would you be on the stop sell list announcement for exchanges with >75% FTTP coverage?
Meanwhile my central Scotland, centre of one of the New Towns has been quoted 2028-2029 for FTTP. Would be nice if they pushed the rollout harder rather than looking at stop sell in rural exchanges.
A million premises a quarter, fastest build in Europe, is never enough when it doesn’t involve the person posting’s property quickly enough.
Polish Poler – people should be happy and content because /other people/ have the latest tech (sometimes with a choice of FOUR separate providers) while they are stuck in the past at least till the end of the decade?
Of course people are going to be upset when they miss out. Of course people have the right to be angry at the bizarre and illogical way the installs are being carried out (choice for some prioritised over coverage for all). Of course people are going to be annoyed with the way 5 bn of public funds are being spent by Project Gigabit with seemingly zero transparency. Why wouldn’t they be?
People have every right to comment as long as legal, etc. I have every right to comment on their comment.
On the wider rollout private money, private decisions. If you’re where I think you are based on old forum posts it likely cost less for 3 FTTP networks here combined to reach me than it would one to reach you if poles aren’t an option.
Believe you’re direct in ground with congested pavement so potentially nowhere to put poles and would have to at best close lanes and dig road with laterals from carriageway to curtilage/property boundary if not close road entirely.
Openreach were both paid and had ducts built for them here. Costs pretty low. Nexfibre and Netomnia passed over 80 premises in 2-3 days with another day for splicing. Only dig was Nexfibre, a 10m narrow trench to interconnect Openreach and Virgin Media ducts.
No traffic management costs, one permit for the Nexfibre work. £250-ish per premises passed I’ve been told, that includes share of the OLT port, etc, costs.
You’ll need lane closure, probably a chamber in the carriageway, on Openreach ECC prices that are supposed to be basically cost £3,504 + VAT, carriageway duct at £176.83 + VAT a metre, swept T with carriageway and footway duct, which is £94.37 + VAT a metre. CBT, splicing, etc.
Only other time I’ve known a business build like that costs were a fair bit into four figures per premises passed. They’ll be borrowing that at, say, 8% interest.
Maybe £250 overbuilding isn’t so bizarre and illogical.
Speaking about Openreach, has anyone seen their Symmetrical advertised anywhere?
they announced the prices but no ISP is advertising anything.
They don’t have a symmetrical fttp service, it would get congested as they use legacy GPON not XGS-PON like everyone else.
They have some trials on the 1gbps tier starting this month in new areas, but the pricing was horrendous.
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2025/02/openreach-reveal-uk-price-for-1gbps-symmetric-fttp-broadband.html
My altnet uses GPON for symmetric service. Upload does not get congested at all. It’s actually download that shows signs of congestion during major midweek or Sunday afternoon football matches, but that’s due to them skimping on transit capacity and nothing to do with congestion on the local GPON.
Openreach has taken a commercial decision not to offer symmetric services yet, except in their project gigabit subsidised areas where the contracts apparently require them to make faster upload speeds available. Even in those areas they’ve priced it as a business grade service.
@anonymous because 99% of the cost of rolling out a full FTTP network is installing the fibre, and the vast majority of customers are happy with the GPON network’s speeds. Remember also that Openreach network planning was done ~15 years ago now long before XS-GPON was a thing and long before most of the altnets even existed.
The most important thing is to get the fibre installed. What hangs off either end is entirely secondary and at this stage not that important. To be honest, if I were Openreach, I would have skipped XS-GPON entirely and gone straight to 25G-PON in 18-24 months from now.
After Stop Sell, would BT force FTTC to switch to fibre? Or does it allow FTTC to remain out of contract for a while?
Much, much later. Stop Sell means no *new* copper connections. The article talks about this.
It’s an Openreach decision for an exchange area, not BT’s.
This type of stop sell only applies at premises where FTTP is available and means:
– No new copper connections.
– *No change of ISP on copper connections.
– *No change of bandwidth on copper connections.
*Note that there are exceptions for 40/10 FTTC – it is possible to regrade to this and change ISP whilst remaining on 40/10, but not regrade away from it (I’m guessing for social tariff reasons).
Note that these are Openreach’s rules, it is quite possible that an ISP might make the decision to migrate its customers to FTTP on its own initiative (e.g. if it is cheaper to provide via FTTP).
It is annoying that when an exchange is changed to a FTTP, Open Reach do not connect all to it. We have been waiting 3 years for the final fiber to be fitted to connect our more rural homes even though a full survey was done at the time.
Still no news when the final connection will be made.
We bet they have included all addresses in there completion statistics though!!
Certainly in my area (Leicestershire) there seems to be very much a case of chasing after CityFibre. If CF haven’t done an area OR are ignoring it. Could just be my imagination, of course.
Whats in a UPRN code and 2.5 miles . . . LWHARR gets fibre, LWSHAR doesn’t.
Meanwhile, Virgin were busily doing something in the pavement next to one of the BT Cabinets, at one end of my road, that houses the fibre link that supports FTTC.
I assume they will be replacing their 1990 co-ax installation with fibre.