Openreach Near-net FTTP Trial to Reach UK Businesses Outside Build Plan UPDATE

Network access provider Openreach has announced the launch of an interesting new “Near-net” trial, which sounds like a different approach to their old FTTP on Demand (FTTPoD / FoD) broadband product. The trial aims to confirm the feasibility of building full fibre broadband to business footprint which is currently outside of build plans on a reactive basis.

The 12-month trial, which will start on 1st June 2026 and run until 31st May 2027 (inclusive), will be available to a pre-selected list of business and public sector premises of over 200,000 UPRNs (Unique Property Reference Number). The initial list will focus on regular properties – Single Dwelling Units (SDUs), with the intention of expanding after a few months to include Multiple Occupancy Units (MOUs).

At this point our regular readers might recall the divisive FTTPoD product, which allowed premises outside of Openreach’s native FTTP build plan to order a similar service. This was also aimed more at premium business users and the catch was that it often ended up costing many thousands of pounds to install (civil engineering isn’t cheap) – the desktop quotes given for this were also notoriously unreliable. The costs, delays and complexities of this product meant that only a very few ISPs ever ended up offering it and the service has now largely been sidelined.

However, the fundamental ideal of FTTPoD was still an attractive one and the new Near-net trial almost seems like an attempt to come up with a better solution, although we’re not yet certain of all the details. But the new trial will apply a one-off FTTP Build Charge of £2,200 +vat (payment at build completion) for a 1Gbps (115Mbps upload) product or faster, although we don’t yet know how this pricing might change with distance.

Openreach Briefing Statement

For this Trial, CPs [Communication Providers] will be limited to an industry cap of 400 premises orders in total, on a first come first served basis. CPs will be individually capped to a maximum of 100 premises orders, and within this individual cap, CPs will be subject to a mixture cap of 80 SDU premises orders or 80 MOU premises orders, to ensure Openreach receive a mix of premises types for the trial. Requests for quotations will be treated as an order for the purposes of the CP and industry caps, and will be valid for three months from the date of issue.

Acceptance of orders will be dependent on a desk survey that confirms that the order for network build qualifies for the Near-net fixed price treatment. The Near-net list will be sent to CPs that sign the Trial contract, and the list will be updated periodically. CPs can submit requests to check premises on the Near-net list via the existing FFIB process.

Upon completion of the Near-net network build, CPs will then be able to order a GEA-FTTP service of 1000/115 Mbits/s or higher bandwidth variant in connection with the newly built line.

Unfortunately this has been unveiled just before the bank holiday weekend, so we’re probably not going to get much clarity on the details until next week.

UPDATE 6th May 2026 @ 7:27am

Openreach has said the trial will be used to set the details for a final product, assuming they decide to proceed with one. As such there’s not a lot more to add in terms of costs and distances as they’ve yet to decide on the final course for those elements. The trial will however still make use of desktop surveys and standard planning activity to deliver, but its purpose is to assess for near-net locations and drive a simpler process with greater price certainty upfront.