Openreach Name 21 New UK Locations for FTTP Broadband Build Plan
Network operator Openreach (BT) has today published an updated build plan for the ongoing roll-out of their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based gigabit broadband ISP network, which is the first update since December 2024 and adds 21 new locations – covering 80,000 extra UK premises – to their national deployment plan.
Just to recap. The BT Group is currently investing up to £15bn to expand the coverage of their new full fibre network to 25 million premises by December 2026 (here), which will include around 6.2m in rural or semi-rural areas. On top of that, they’ve also expressed an ambition to reach up to 30m by 2030 (there are c. 33m in the UK), which is partly dependent upon a favourable outcome from Ofcom’s next Telecoms Access Review 2026 (TAR).
Openreach has effectively already set their primary roll-out plan to achieve the December 2026 target, which occurred back in May 2024 (here) – this meant that round 3,500 towns, cities, boroughs, villages and hamlets were now included in the build programme (even more if we include their Project Gigabit contracts). Since then, the operator’s build updates have largely focused on reflecting progress and changes that have been made within that existing plan.
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The latest June 2025 Build Plan (and map – not yet updated at time of writing) thus represent somewhat of a process update for the previous update in December 2024, but it also adds another 21 new locations forming part of their plan to reach up to 5 million more homes and businesses during the year to March 2026 (up from 4.3m added in the prior year). Not to mention that this also partly reflects Openreach’s recent move to accelerate its roll-out by 20% (here).
List of the 21 new build exchanges
| Exchange | Exchange Location | County |
| Churchdown | Innsworth | Gloucestershire |
| Silverdale | Silverdale | Lancashire |
| North Benfleet | Basildon | Essex |
| Cheriton Bishop | Cheriton Bishop | Devon |
| St. Michaels | St Michael’s on Wyre | Lancashire |
| Belmont | Belmont | Lancashire |
| Allendale | Allendale Town | Northumberland |
| Great Barton | Bury St Edmunds | Suffolk |
| Potter Heigham | Potter Heigham | Norfolk |
| Woburn Sands | Woburn Sands | Buckinghamshire |
| Bovingdon | Bovingdon | Hertfordshire |
| Brill | Brill | Buckinghamshire |
| Dedham | Dedham | Essex |
| Roydon | Harlow | Essex |
| Stoke Ferry | Stoke Ferry | Norfolk |
| Whitchurch Prees | Prees | Shropshire |
| Carno | Carno | Powys |
| Kempsey | Worcester | Worcestershire |
| Coventry Greyfriars | Coventry | West Midlands |
| Rowstock | Didcot | Oxfordshire |
| Sutton Courtenay | Sutton Courtenay | Oxfordshire |
However, we don’t currently expect Openreach to announce a much bigger list of new UK build locations or coverage expansions, such as for their future plan for going from 25m to 30 million premises by 2030, until after Ofcom have published their final telecoms market review proposals – due later this year (implementation from April 2026). For an operator of Openreach’s size, the addition of 80,000 premises to their existing plan is relatively small.
Clive Selley, CEO of Openreach, said:
“This is a UK infrastructure success story, so it makes sense for us, and the country, to push hard on the accelerator pedal. Our new network is helping to drive economic growth, create jobs, and will be the backbone of a prosperous, globally connected and competitive UK.
Last year was our biggest year of build ever – reaching well over four million homes with this life changing technology. No other builder across Europe has achieved that kind of build rate and this year will be our biggest ever.”
Openreach currently has 15,000 people focused on their UK deployment of full fibre technology and the average per premises build cost continues to hover around the £280 mark (roughly £1.2bn per year). The new service, once live, can be ordered via various ISPs, such as BT, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk, Vodafone and many more (Openreach FTTP ISP Choices) – it is not currently an automatic upgrade, although some providers have started to do free automatic upgrades as older copper-based services and lines are slowly withdrawn.
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Finally, Openreach’s top consumer FTTP home broadband speed is currently 1800Mbps or 1.8Gbps (120Mbps upload), although the operator will shortly begin to trial their new 10Gbps capable XGS-PON network (here) and recently hinted at real-world symmetric speeds of up to 3.3Gbps being possible for their future setup (here).
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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Our estate has been live for nearly 4 years and they’re hitting close to 60% take up despite competition from 2 altnets. I suspect they have deliberately been playing down their expectations to avoid Ofcom’s ire.
Same on my estate, CityFibre and Trooli! But Openreach full fibre takeup is everywhere. Obviously, people stick to infrastructure they can trust.
@Tyler, no they stick to the ISP they have been using for years, most people don’t really care or know how it is delivered. All the know is they can turn on their devices and they can do what they need to do.
That is why I have said Openreach has a big advantage over Alt nets.
Most people don’t have a clue who runs the network, I bet if you asked people the majority would say BT, not Openreach.
I remember when Full fibre was on the cards for here, someone who was using Talk Talk on FTTC, told me that Talk Talk supplied the network, it was Talk Talk network and that they were already on fibre. It took some explaining that they were on Openreach network and that they were using a hybrid fibre system.
I saw them a few weeks ago in a coffee place, they have moved house and gone for Zzoomm. Good for them.
There is no “advantage”. The major ISPs other than BT/EE and Virgin are also customers of altnets. If Openreach are able to retain marketshare against altnets then that’s to their credit – recognition of their quality and dependability – and not because of historic factors.
Unfortunately my parents will soon be on an altnet as they seem to have gobbled up the subsidy in their area, even though it’s on OR’s commercial build plans. As it isn’t CityFibre there is no choice of ISP. Having to downgrade from a flawless BT FTTC connection with excellent routing and no CGNAT is of course highly regrettable. Hopefully Openreach will come to the rescue…
The high uptake is partly down to ISP’s migrating customers to FTTP when their current contract term ends. When I was with Sky on FTTC, they moved me up to FTTP, increased my speed from 70MB to 500MB for no extra cost when I renegotiated my package
When I moved house in January 2024, 3 years later with year left on my second, two year agreement, there was only FTTC here and they moved me back. Then an altnet arrived (Go Fibre) and they bought me out of the rest of the Sky contract, so I am back to 500mb and Openreach have no plans to upgrade the hamlet I live in before the end of the decade. Thank goodness for the altnet
Oh the irony, BT Ivor.
What if your parents love the ALTNET, with its superb XGS-PON or better connection, symmetric speeds, lower pricing, possibly no in contract price increases, and happy with a static IP should they need that over CGNAT?
That will put you in a Tiswas won’t it 😉
Ivor: can’t have it both ways with that people don’t care about GPON, etc, on FTTP networks but do care about the alleged quality of Openreach’s FTTP network. They aren’t buying from Openreach they’re buying from an ISP.
Also can’t claim Openreach market share to their credit then list things like routing and CGNAT as reasons your parents will see a worse service. Those are nothing to do with Openreach at all.
Openreach market share almost entirely down to their coverage and the ISPs. Hardly anyone is demanding their ISP deliver to them over Openreach and most of those that are it’s because they already have Openreach full fibre and don’t want another hole in the wall.
The footprint served by altnets with wholesale agreements with the big players is far smaller than the one served by Openreach. Most of the time the ISPs have no choice which network to provision their customers on.
BT/EE/Plusnet obviously no use of altnet networks. Sky only just started using CityFibre and aren’t connected to all their footprint.
There is no mystical, magical secret sauce with Openreach. It’s almost entirely down to history providing them the resources, relationships and infrastructure to build faster than anyone else alongside the historical relationships with providers allowing them to fill their network more easily than anyone else.
While more articulate this is nearly as bad as Ad for bias.
Fanny – this altnet doesn’t offer symmetric residential service, lol. Though they are XGS so you’ll presumably approve of that. It seems they do support IPv6 which I suppose is something given that some new ISPs struggle with that.
PP: When I said “quality and dependability” I was referring to factors like a lack of street mounted electronics, smaller splits, an actual field workforce. The kind of resiliencies that most altnets consider inefficient (or more realistically can’t afford).
CGNAT – I’m not sure what you think you’re arguing against but it doesn’t seem to match what I actually said.
“Most of the time the ISPs have no choice which network to provision their customers on.” They absolutely do. It might need some work and investment but surely if the altnets are providing a compelling offer at a much lower price, the business case is there right? They should all be rushing to connect to every FEX/aggregation point/insert terminology here. Why stick with the overpriced “dinosaur” (copyright F. Adams) otherwise?
BT Ivor, Yes, I have to agree with you with actual field workforce as ALTNETS need to sort this out as BT clearly does have the upper hand on that.
Regarding IPv6 – Most ALTNETS support IPv6 now, Vermin Media a major ISP has chosen not to.
While most AltNets’ might be able to do IPv6, they don’t make a very good job of it IMHO. I pay GoFibre £5 a month because I actually need a static IP address not to get around CGNAT but the IPv6 address I get is dynamic. I think they didn’t consider that people paying for a static IPv4 address might be doing it for anything other than avoiding CGNAT. Consequently, the IPv6 address I could use is, unfortunately, as useful as a chocolate teapot.
I decided to keep my PlusNet connection as a backup. I have some quarms about the GoFibre physical network. Fibre attached to the poles with plastic cable ties doesn’t cut it in my book and will be a health and safety issue when they inevitably fail. They also won’t have the same man power to deploy in the event of storm damage. Small price to pay for some resilience when working from home.
@BTIvor, Take the blinkers off, you may see better.
it is going to make a hiuge difference if someone is with an ISP, say Sky which is on the Openreach FTTC network, and they want to go to FTTP, then they will the majority of the time be put onto the Openreach network. The majority of people don;lt have access to Altnets and certainly don’t have access to Altnets that have different ISPs.
The problem with you and others on here is that all you think about is Bloated Toad, no idea why you are so much in love with the company, but I am glad that it have some form of competition.
Competition is good, it keeps companies on their toes, not done much with Openreach, their FTTP network is still behind the times.
As I said, take the blinkers off.
I think the latest figures show that the majority of people *do* have access to an altnet.
Nice – hope they’re finishing the ones they’ve already got though. One of these new patches is up the road from us, but our own wait goes on and on, in our notably large fibre desert. There are lots of dots popping up on BIDB / telco roadworks map though, so I’m starting to get hopeful. Perhaps Britain will eventually have fibre coverage as good as Romania!
The map still does not distinguish between completed builds and “planned” builds.
It does: if you want to know about the state of a build in an area they are going to build in, you click on the map in that exchange area. The pop-out box that appears tells you details like “we’re planning to build in this area in the future”, “the build will begin soon”, “we are currently building in this area” and “most homes can order Ultrafast Full Fibre”.
@Some Edinburgh Guy:
No, it does not. If you take a look at the map, virtually every area in London and the South East is labelled “green”. There is no distinction between built areas where there is no build at all. Further, the “planning to build” is a blanket label across all of these areas, yet there has been virtually no progress in London for the last year.
And can you blame them?
A truly failed artifact of a market, not customer service focused but rather constructed companies/ created to grab punters and use them as cash cows / barter fodder to flog the company to multinational media corporates or finance speculators.
How very disappointing and unproductive for tech progress and prosperity of the UK.
Abject regulatory failure to aid society.
Rant over
And BT is there for the good of us, they have fantastic customer service, NOT.
Try getting in touch with Openreach about something, and it is impossible, like swimming in treacle.
Considering how far we were behind, I think we have done well, sure Openreach fibre is a bit out of date, with their asymmetric system, but most Altnets have done good on that.
It was the competition that got BT/Openreach to move faster, I doubt very much we would have Fibre here yet, if Zzoomm was not here.
Openreach would not have bothered
What the future holds, no one knows.
I still don’t understand why people here are so bothered about Altnets, must have shares in Bloated toad.
I am happy that I am off openreach network, my broadband is reliable and is certainly faster than what I require. Customer service by all accounts is getting better, not that I have needed them since August 2023. That is how reliable they have been.
Saying that I had very few problems with the FTTC network, that I was on with Plusnet for 9 years. Just once the whole thing went down, including home phone, and it was a bit of a hassle as openreach did not have a clue what was wrong. But I was able to keep my broadband going by using a Huawei modem, the only thing that would connect, even OR own equipment would not connect.
in the end, we decided the best thing to do was to keep the Huawie modern in place and connect the Plusnet router via Wan instead of direct.
plusnet even sent me a Zyxel router to see if that solved the problem, it did not, so I stuck that on the modem instead.
Not sure when the problem was sorted, I stuck the router directly on a few years later and it worked and then the router went belly up, so I got myself a new one, connected it to the modem.
that is the router i am using now on Zzoomm.
@Ad – because your contract is with an ISP, not Openreach. Simple.
@The Facts, what about if it is a peace of Openreach infrastructure that is the problem? They have a phone number, but you may as well not bother because they don’t seem to do anything.
May as well talk to a brick wall.
Cheriton Bishop exchange already has a lot of FTTP, so why is it in the list?
Because overbuild of FFTP infrastructure is Rife because they can legally do it without planning permission . Openreach will not have access to share infrastructure most probably because of their significant market power , have they current infrastructure in these areas that they are upgrading or will it be new infrastructure? Will it be underground infrastructure or by telegraph poles
@Joyce Whittle, I’m on about OR FTTP not an ALtNet anyway!
Why do Openreach, CityFibre etc. insist on laying down their own fibre in areas already served by another open access network? Why don’t they simply agree to use whichever infrastructure is there first rather than deliberately overbuilding each other?
Yes, indeed.
The shared rural network shows that commercial and technical matters can be resolved with the right regulation.
Overbuild is an offence against coverage and should only be allowed after 98% have FTTP cover.
is Openreach an overbuilder if they already have copper in the area and are the established communications provider? If they decide to deploy, isn’t that just an upgrade of their existing network? Should they be prevented from doing this?
who gets to be the infrastructure owner? Would Openreach agree to use someone else’s fibre, especially when the owner has likely used Openreach PIA in the first place? how do they overcome differences in technology and architecture?
the time has long since past for these sorts of decisions. if there was ever a desire to share all those years ago, it’d probably resemble the copper network and LLU MPF. individual fibres running to a central location and your chosen provider gets it patched into their equipment. ISPreview users would rejoice as they could finally have that 800GbE (symmetric) connection they think they need.
@Ivor. Of course it’s fibre overbuild if there’s an altnet there, BT have copper and then put fibre in. The clue is in the word “fibre”.
I mean, is it overbuild if there’s a good 4G signal? Of course it isn’t, like fibre vs copper – or for that matter fibre vs DOCSIS – they’re entirely different technologies.
Your idea of a PtP fibre infrastructure a la LLU MPF would have been a non-starter for all sorts of reasons. PON is the tech of choice at scale for very good commercial and technical reasons.
Oh yeah, that is what Openreach would want, so they can charge more, and we end up paying more. The reason why Alt nets can charge less is that it is their own network.
What I would have like is a dark fibre around the country, belonging to a non-profit company, but too late for that, so we are stuck with the system we have.
While I was a bit worried about going onto a network of a new company, I am so glad I did. Don’t want to go back onto Openreach unless I really have to, and then I may say stuff it and use a mobile network
The reason that altnets can charge less is that Openreach’s prices are set by the regulator – for good competitive reasons – and the altnets are selling at a loss and not recouping the cost of their builds. Many aren’t even covering the interest costs on the money they borrowed.
Openreach ‘s rollout is highly cost-efficient because of scale and their prices are set to cover cost plus a reasonable return. Anyone less capex efficient and charging less isn’t making money. That’s appropriate in the build phase but can’t last for ever.
I had a two year plan. Leave BT, go with an alternative carrier that has completely swamped the area where I live.
Go back to BT at the end of my contract.
Sadly that plan hasn’t happened as I wished and my area is still not on the Openreach plan.
Looks like I’m going to have to choose another 2 year fix with another inferior Alt net as I can’t see me getting the service I want until at least 2027/8?
I am less than happy with my current full fibre supplier. The only thing I can call it is cheap!
In my street in Edinburgh Openreach have done one end of the street and the other end of the street, however in the middle where the only G.Fast was, full fibre isn’t available. As they don’t sell G.Fast now the top speed from OR is 67mbps.
Are these sort of gaps likely to be filled in or do they look at the fact Virgin and Hyperoptic are here and say we won’t bother?
I’d bet your bit of the street is direct-in-ground. Just like the altnets, BT are swerving those bits of infrastructure as long as they can, going for the ‘quick’n’cheap’ ducted areas first. Where my parents used to live is like that, the build’s clearly not started – in am area of SW London. It’s this that makes the stop sell on G.Fast so crazy.
While the news of Openreach further investment is very welcomed. It hurts when the area I reside in hasn’t been upgraded or considered if a roller from partial fibre to full fibre. Its even more painful knowing that half the street on the eben number sider have already been provisioned with full fibre while the odd number side has no roll out plan. One street with two post codes and no other network provider cover the area.
All very well, I live just over a mile from the centre of a large town in a very built up area and the best I can get is 18Mbps FTTC. Apparently the FTTP is coming next year, but they’ve been saying exactly that for over five years now.
Same for us. Stuck on 28Mb.
We were announced way back in 2020. They did half the town and packed up. Then removed the rest from the rollout.
An altnet is now building however they are doing the area openreach has already done…
At the rate things are going, we are going to end up with the patchwork quilt style rollout of Cable in the 90s. If they miss your street, you’re in for a decade long wait.
Same old, same old.
Zero interest or action on rural Kent despite the high taxes paid (PGB) and many thousands of people impacted..
If you think there is any such thing as “rural” in Kent may I suggest you visit Northumberland the only county in England with no motorway and not even deserving of upgrading the A1 to dual carriageway. You would probably have a heart attack. If you survive that, then head on north into Scotland where your head would probably explode. There is no such thing as “rural” Kent it is a complete oxymoron, it is simply too built over for any of it to qualify as rural.
One of several counties in England without a motorway
https://cityfibre.com/news/project-gigabit-work-begins-in-kent-to-connect-rural-areas-to-full-fibre
Might not have reached you yet and nothing to do with Openreach’s commercial build either way but ongoing. Work started in January.
Should help contribute to the 70 million connections you want to see.
@Jonathan
Rural is defined by OR as the many places that they have no plans to serve not by me. I don’t dispute that there are many more in other places too. Kent is large and varies, so isn’t one thing. OR and PGB indifference however…
@Polish Poler
Thanks for your practical assistance. Sadly CF have no published plans, offering only Registration.
Slava Polski
Many years ago I said that you can only sure that a particular type of internet connection will be available when you can actually order it.
The same applies now.
What’s about the tr14 area of Cornwall its not finished and delay after delay
All of the streets in my town with overhead cables have the option of full fibre for a good 3 years now the rest of the town with underground cabling has just been left in limbo (same exchange).openreach tracker still says no current plans for our postcode . Very frustrating, I guess they can claim the town/exchange is enabled without doing the hard yards !
Which means all the underground stuff is probably direct dig (no ducts). Openreach did all the overhead stuff plus the newer estates with underground that were ducted but left the older estates with direct dig in our town. At the minute the plan is to rip through all the easy stuff then return to the harder stuff later.
Great to hear Openreach’s ever accelerating build entering the final laps. Allison’s promised land gets ever closer.
Also always great to hear about zzoomm when discussing these matters. :s
Lets all go overbuilding!
Finish what you already started,noooooo, stupid idea.
Talking about overbuild, Epworth (North Lincolnshire) has openreach laying despite the town being serves by Kcom and Quickline. 3 Seperate FTTP networks
Where’s the new build plan? The link on their site just goes to December 2024s. Thanks
You’re probably looking at a browser cached version of the page, as it has been updated:
https://www.openreach.com/content/dam/openreach/openreach-dam-files/new-dam-(not-in-use-yet)/documents/where-and-when/FF-Build-Programme-June-2025-online.pdf
That makes sense . . . . in tail-wagging-dog-World . . all the naughty boys at HMP Bovingdon getting it ahead of yours truly
In my exchange area – and many others nearby, the map status has gone from “We’re building here soon…” to “Most homes can now order” even though the works have barely begun or not started yet! See Winchester, Harestock, Portsmouth etc…