Govt boosts Openreach’s UK Project Gigabit broadband framework to £2.346bn
The UK Government are proposing to significantly increase the value of the Single Supplier Framework agreement that they awarded to Openreach (BT) in 2024 under their £5bn Project Gigabit broadband roll-out scheme. The deal was originally valued at “up to” £800m, before later rising to £1.2bn and it may now jump by “up to £1.146bn” to total £2.346bn.
Just to recap. The framework, which has so far helped to award 8 Call-Off Contracts to Openreach, is focused on Cross-Regional (Type C) procurements (no other suppliers tackle Type C). Type C typically reflects remote rural areas where no or no appropriate market interest has previously been expressed before to the Government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) team, or areas that have been de-scoped or terminated from a prior procurement (examples here, here, here and here).
Openreach have, over the past year or so, already absorbed several previously failed Project Gigabit contracts with different suppliers, and we’re expecting this to grow in the near future as a number of other contracts with different suppliers have since hit troubled times (e.g. several of the contracts previously held by CityFibre have been reduced and one was abandoned – here and here).
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The above may help to explain why the Government (DCMS) have just published a voluntary ex ante transparency notice on the aforementioned Single Supplier Framework agreement for Type C areas, which is designed to inform the market that they intend to exercise the right indicated in the contract notice to significantly increase the Framework value (i.e. giving it room to be expanded to help reach more premises).
The overall nature of the Framework remains unchanged.
Extract from the government’s notice
The contracting authority proposes to increase the estimated value of the Type C Framework by up to £1.146bn to allow the Framework to continue to deliver in line with criteria (1) – (4). This will lead to an updated Framework value of up to £2.346bn, taking into account an earlier modification to the Framework value.
Before proceeding with the Framework value increase, the contracting authority said they’ll be holding a 10 calendar day standstill period as per normal. The standstill period commences on the day following the publication of this notice. The contracting authority will not proceed with the value increase until this standstill period has expired, with the government adding that this notice “does not place any obligation on the contracting authority to proceed with the proposed value increase“.
You can view the latest September 2026 progress report on the currently awarded call-off contracts under this Framework below, which show how many premises Openreach has already reached with their full fibre (FTTP) network and how many are left to go. The build phases for each contract typically last around 4-years, but that doesn’t include any extensions that might be introduced to each one at a later date.
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Project Gigabit – Contracted and Built Premises by Contract (September 2026)
| Contract | Supplier | Contracted Premises | Built Contracted Premises (Sep 2026) | Monthly Change | % Complete |
| Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and Milton Keynes | CityFibre | 5,890 | 4,820 | 0 | 82% |
| Bucks, Herts and East of Berks | CityFibre | 6,090 | 4,100 | 50 | 67% |
| CO1 Lancashire, West Berkshire, Staffordshire, Surrey, Hertfordshire, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire | Openreach | 60,180 | 15,410 | 2,460 | 26% |
| CO2 Devon, Mid Wales and South East Wales | Openreach | 41,140 | 13,060 | 3,620 | 32% |
| CO3 North Herefordshire, North Wales, Shropshire and South West Wales | Openreach | 65,120 | 4,480 | 1,910 | 7% |
| CO4 South Devon, Mid Devon and North Somerset | Openreach | 37,110 | 7,110 | 1,730 | 19% |
| CO5 Essex and North East England | Openreach | 35,300 | 4,860 | 1,120 | 14% |
| CO6 Rest of Scotland | Openreach | 77,640 | 7,030 | 530 | 9% |
| CO7 Worcestershire | Openreach | 22,980 | 1,810 | 810 | 8% |
| CO8 Cheshire | Openreach | 18,460 | 990 | 990 | 5% |
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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Where is that funding coming from? Cut elsewhere in the departmental spend, or from new revenues?
Hopefully the majority will be coming from money that is not going to AltNets after they broke their agreements with the government.
It’s just redistribution from the current pot. Since payment is only made upon work completion it’s money that hasn’t been spent from the Project Gigabit’s original £5bn pot.
It’s the ‘this notice “does not place any obligation on the contracting authority to proceed with the proposed value increase“.’ part that caught my attention. I hope it’s not, but it sounds to me like OR, like the Altnets before them, can decline to spend the money/not do the work, whether that’s on existing CO projects or likely future ones.
@ HR2Res:
There is no current ‘pot’ because the funding was cut and the scope of the funding was increased. This is a commitment to spend, so it has to be allocated within the departmental accounting, whether or not it is distributed in settlement of services provided. The point is that there has been no explanation as to how the funding will be sourced.
You almost certainly knew what I meant @Far2329Light. So, please, stop playing semantics/being obtuse. It’s tiresome. Yes it’s money that has to be found by the Treasury every year. And so, as has already been done by Rachel Reeves, it is an easy target that the new chancellor may well seek to hijack to fund something else over the next 3-5 years rather than to spend on fttp provision, with the result that Project Gigabit’s end date would require a further extension beyond Reeves’ current two-year extension of 2032.
But this framework value increase awarded to OR under Project Gigabit is not new money but a reallocation of (possible) funds within this government’s (renewed) commitment to Project Gigabit’s overall £5 billion. It’s essentially a bookkeeping exercise.
@ HR2Res:
I’m not playing words, and I’m not being obtuse. This is new funding that is beyond anything that the previous Chancellor made provision for. It is also a promise-formulated, year-long funding. However, there is as of yet no explanation of where the funds will be allocated from and that is the crux of the matter.
So BT might pick up the Airband lots in devon & S?
Basically are doing already and overbuilding Airband.