Openreach Publish October 2025 Update on UK FTTP Broadband Rollout
National network operator Openreach (BT) has published the latest quarterly update on their roll-out of Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based gigabit broadband ISP technology. The update reflects all the recent changes and progress with their existing locations and doesn’t appear to add any new areas beyond those confirmed in July 2025 (here).
Just to recap. The operator 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 often said to be partly dependent upon a favourable outcome from Ofcom’s next Telecoms Access Review 2026 (TAR) and government policy (planning and taxation etc.).
The new network is currently capable of delivering download speeds of up to 1.8Gbps (uploads of 1Gbps are also possible in some Project Gigabit build areas) via older GPON technology. But Openreach recently revealed to ISPreview that they would trial real speeds of up to 8.5Gbps via their new XGS-PON based full fibre network with 40,000 premises in Guildford during early 2026 (here).
Advertisement
In terms of their network deployment. Openreach has already announced their commercial roll-out plan up to the December 2026 target – reflecting c.3,500 towns, cities, boroughs, villages and hamlets. The latest October 2025 Build Plan (and Interactive Map) thus largely represents a progress update for those locations. But take note that this only covers their commercial deployments and there are some big exclusions (i.e. new sites/retro new-sites and other smaller scale programmes or infill and publicly subsidised builds under the government’s BDUK linked contracts are sadly all excluded).
Unfortunately, the format adopted by the operator makes it very difficult to identify any key changes to this list, or even removals. Build lists like this are always tentative, which means that some locations may be removed (e.g. if found to be too expensive due to complications) or delayed and others added in their place. Inclusion should also NOT be considered as equating to 100% coverage of each area.
At present it seems unlikely that Openreach will announce a big list of new FTTP build locations / coverage expansions, such as for their future plan for going from 25m to 30 million premises by 2030, until after or around when Ofcom is due to publish their final telecoms market review proposals (final statement is due around March 2026). Even then they’ll probably announce it gradually, rather than all at once.
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 ISPs have started to do free automatic upgrades as older copper-based services and lines are slowly withdrawn.
Advertisement
Credits to forum member ‘Some Edinburgh Guy’ for spotting the latest update.
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.
« Major Amazon Web Services Outage Disrupting Global Internet Services UPDATE5
Advertisement
Leave a Reply
Privacy Notice: Please note that news comments are anonymous, which means that we do NOT require you to enter any real personal details to post a message and display names can be almost anything you like (provided they do not contain offensive language or impersonate a real persons legal name). By clicking to submit a post you agree to storing your entries for comment content, display name, IP and email in our database, for as long as the post remains live.
Only the submitted name and comment will be displayed in public, while the rest will be kept private (we will never share this outside of ISPreview, regardless of whether the data is real or fake). This comment system uses submitted IP, email and website address data to spot abuse and spammers. All data is transferred via an encrypted (https secure) session.
Great to see some movement in my rural area.
Unfortunately the map (Now showing they’ve built to most local homes) doesn’t line up to the build plan (Build starting in the next 12 months) which has changed since last publication.
They’ve certainly not done any work in the area yet. Very strange. Is this common?
It appears to be a bug where exchange areas previously saying “some buildings may be able to order full fibre” or “we’re planning to build here in the future” wrongly updates to “most homes and businesses can order full fibre” on the exchange map. When they actually start building, it will then update to “we’re now building in this area”. If the pdf says “we’re building here within the next 12 months”, thats the correct status and you can ignore the map “status”.
Early last year I enquired as to when open reach would be installing FTTP on our estate I was told it would be installed later that year and no later than 2025. Our properties are served by openreach via under ground ducting there’s no sign off it being installed yet. We have been on fibre to the cabinet for about 3.5 years now. There’s loads of other broadband companies using cables via poles but not on our part of the estate due to building regulations all cables go underground.our broadband speed is at a maximum of 35mbps and that’s only because we no longer have a landline telephone, yet we pay the same price for the broadband as people are paying for 145Mbps in our area. S35 4EY.
Looks like ZZoomm is available for you.
I always found the list/map not granular enough, they ask for your postcode but don’t give specific details presume its exchange detail not local area.
Ours says ‘building in your area’, I havent seen any activity anywhere and how do they define ‘my area’
Same in EH37
I’ve been trying to get upgraded to a gold address from silver for weeks. BT keep telling me they sent an ORDI request to openreach, but nothing seems to get processed.
It might be quicker/easier to just order whatever you can (even if it’s ADSL), and then upgrade once active. ORDIs can take forever with no guarantee of success, but this way not only gets you something, it also automatically upgrades an address from silver to gold.
Have you filled out the Openreach enquiry form?
https://www.openreach.com/forms/fibre-broadband-availability—customer-form
I was under the impression from articles I read before I left the company that they are scaling back fibre build. They are cutting costs due to the NI contributions (not to come out of profit of course) and because some new MA has done a course and thinks that using contractors will work out cheaper. Sadly the contractors are desperately advertising in many areas for people to work for them because like the MA they are of the illusion that all areas are the same and being paid by the job will work.. it won’t!
Openreach stepped up fibre installations this last year. The tail-off will come in after they reach the initial 25m target in 2027.
Some of us dont want this so called improved technology as our alarm systems won’t work over it.
So I am going to have to pay more for a worse service.
Sounds like you’ve got one which is PSTN-dependant and will need upgrading in the next few months no matter what happens. Have you considered switching alarm suppliers to one which hasn’t buried its head in the sand?
That is a problem with your alarm system, not with full-fibre technology.
Why *won’t* it work? BT and Openreach have both run test labs that alarm companies and other suppliers can use to validate their equipment.
Why not ask your alarm supplier to do their job and either fix the problems that cause the existing alarm from working, or upgrading you to a system that will work? They have had years of warning (and taking your money).
Whether it’s “worse” is a matter of opinion. Most people would agree that fibre is a huge upgrade. You seem to be confusing it with the shutdown of BT’s old landline phone network which has nothing much to do with this fibre rollout.
A mate has the same problem, I said to him, you are paying for that alarm every month, so I should think it is up to the company that supplies the alarm to sort it out. He said it don’t work that way.
Strange.
Not sure why he has one anyway, I know he lives in the sticks, but there are close neighbours. Stick a few cameras up like I have and if you must, stick a false alarm box up.
This day and age, you can make your own alarm and monitor it yourself, my other half did it, if she can do it.
The interactive maps are of no value as far as I am concerned.
I find taking an occasional look at the streetworks maps far more informative. The presence of the Openzone vans parked-up in various locations around town is also indicative of work in hand.
True indeed – the maps on BIDB were very useful in giving us a clue that ‘stuff was happening’ locally, when Openreach themselves kept changing the message. In our case, around 2 months after we spotted a Complete Telecom van working in the street chambers, we were suddenly deemed ready to order – while the Openreach checker the week before still said “within 12 months”. I placed our order the same day, and the external works (fibre to the porch!) were completed within 48hrs – by Openreach themselves. Two weeks later, M J Quinn were dispatched to finish the installation and send us live.
That BIDB site was one of the street work sites I had in mind while posting the above comment.
On my area it says “yes*” under building within 12 months. But I see no reference to the asterisk anywhere on the document?
The asterisk means its a change from the previous publication [it should be at the bottom of one of the pages] – eg an exchange going from “we’re building here in the next 12 months” to “we’re now building in this area” is a change that warrants the asterisk.
In the exchange list documents, an asterisk usually means that the status has changed since the last update.
In my area it says “yes*” under building within 12 months. But I see no reference to the asterisk anywhere on the document? Anyone know why some have an asterisk and some dont?
* = change since last publication (it’s at the top of each page)
Asterisk means that the state of that exchange has changed since the last publication.
So the June 2025 says Boars Hill will go live in the next 12 months, the October 2025 says we’ll be building in the future, which is step back.
But, the interactive map says most homes now live and some random postcodes in the village of Kennington says it’s live, which corroborates the map.
We’ve had Internet issues for years. Openreach would visit and admitted they just swapped the cables around for the 9 houses in the street – living rural Aberdeenshire, it was accepted. I constantly emailed the Openreach CEO until eventually the reply that cake changed. It told me they would no longer send an engineer to visit and our 9 houses and half the village, totalling 40 houses would be put on FTTP. They have stuck to their promises and as I’m the complainant, on saturday they linked the network to the wall of my house as I have to be the first one connected at switch on
Finally, my exchange is now showing “building within the next 12 months” on that list.
Can’t wait to get FTTP
Dear Openreach
Mine says ‘We’re building in this area already’ from Openreach October 2025 Build Plan but the Openreach Fibre checker says ‘We’ll be building in this area in the next year’.
Its rather confused and mess up from Openreach database. Which one are correct?
I’ve had the 900 download package with bt for nearly two years. It’s not much of an upgrade over fttc imo. Twitch and YouTube constantly lag on multiple devices connected with an Ethernet cable.
When you consider it’s 2.5gigs of bandwidth divided between 32 different connections your real speed isn’t going to be e much more than 75 down. Selling 1.8 gb download is a joke as they can’t provide anywhere near that.
“Over two years”, so either you’re out of contract or you’ve already renewed. If it’s as bad as you say, why haven’t you switched?
And you do know there’s a minimum guaranteed speed on your package, yes? If you’re not getting that, why haven’t you taken it up with the provider? If you can’t be bothered to report a fault then that’s on you not anyone else.
Nothing to do with the article of course.
You have a huge misunderstanding of how these shared networks work, how people actually use them, and how that drives the way they are built. The number of Openreach customers who cannot routinely achieve the advertised speed due to congestion is going to be incredibly small.
Openreach’s network is more conservative than many of their competitors in that they still stick to the 32 ONT limit instead of going to a larger split, though given the poor takeup rates of most altnets it’s not likely to be an issue for them either.
I have access to both BT FTTC and FTTP (including an EE 1.6G) and have never had any real issues with streaming video performance. I don’t have the attention span to watch someone playing games so I don’t use Twitch much, but I make full use of YouTube. No “lag” (do you mean “buffering”?)
In any case, Openreach intend to launch XGSPON at some point and they’ll be able to roll that out very quickly with no further street works required.
Did you really just go onto a networking site and show the world that you don’t understand how networks work?