Openreach publish October 2026 update on UK full fibre broadband build
Network operator Openreach (BT) has today published the first update to their national roll-out plan for Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP technology since March 2026, which reflects all the recent changes and progress with their existing deployment locations up to October 2026 (i.e. changes in status, removals and any small additions).
The national network access provider 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 includes 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), although they’ve yet to announce their build plan for the 2027 to 2030 period (they still seem to be awaiting some regulatory and Govt policy certainty over taxation, pricing flexibility and MDU access 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 are also busy expanding a trial with speeds of up to 8.5Gbps via their new XGS-PON based full fibre network technology, which by this time next year will be made available to “more than a million premises” (rising to a third of their FTTP network over the next 5 years).
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In terms of their network deployment. Openreach has already announced their commercial roll-out plan up to the December 2026 target – reflecting around 3,525 exchanges (towns, cities, boroughs, villages and hamlets). The latest October 2026 Build Plan (and Interactive Map) thus largely represents a progress update for those locations. But take note that this only covers their commercial build 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).
At the time of writing Openreach hasn’t provided ISPreview with a summary of the changes (we don’t usually get one, unless there’s been some sort of wider adjustment or system change). Despite this, we have attempted to conduct a rough and ready analysis, which may provide some useful context by comparing changes across their March and October 2026 updates.
Overall, we identified that around 650 exchanges had change their status from “Future build” to “Building already“, while a similar number had changed from various different build status (i.e. “Building already” and “Building soon” etc.) to “Main build completed“. Interestingly we also identified six exchanges that appear to have been removed from Openreach’s build plan:
Exchanges no longer listed (removed after March 2026)
– Broxton
– Edale
– Hamstall Ridware
– Hungarton
– Masham
– Weston Zoyland
Just remember that build plans like this are always tentative (subject to change). Some areas may be added, while others may move to later phases or possibly even be removed (e.g. if found to be too expensive due to complications). Such is normal for all network operators. Inclusion should also NOT be considered as equating to 100% coverage of each area.
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Openreach currently has around 15,000 people focused on their UK deployment of full fibre technology and the average per premises build cost is now likely to be just above the £300 mark (roughly £1.2bn per year). The new service, once live, can be ordered via various ISPs, such as BT, Sky Broadband, Vodafone and many more (Openreach FTTP ISP Choices) – it is not currently an automatic upgrade, although some ISPs have started to do free upgrades as older copper-based services and lines are slowly withdrawn.
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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To put that build cost of £300 per premise into context, CityFibre’s debt currently stands at £1250 (and rising) for the 4.8million premises they’ve built to.
Yes it shows why Openreach pricing is regulated. It’s much cheaper to replace existing copper with fibre than it is to build a whole new network.
Netomnia seemed to manage it at costs much closer to Openreach’s than CityFibre. Grain are doing all their own digging and are closer to Openreach cost than CityFibre.
My exchange – for which i’ve seen the build occur to my property, despite the CBT not being marked RFS yet – shows as “most homes and businesses can order Full Fibre and we don’t have confirmed plans to build more”, but build is still continuing to flesh out not-spots within the town. Also seeing some exchanges which have no FTTP enabled anywhere in them at all and where build has only just started showing up under the same status, which obviously can’t be true unless they built it all and simply didn’t activate it in any way. Well, i guess the status will be true at some point in time, but not currently lol.
My address in London just changed from “Planning to build” to “no plans”… ☹️
Mine the same.
Mine too.
I live in Bodmin in Cornwall. Over the last few years we’ve been in and out (of plan) more times than someone doing the Hokey Cokey.
The only saving grace is that I can now get a fairly decent 5G signal from EE (140Mbps down 80Mbps up)
Presumably not in Bodmin proper given that the town has been blanketed with FTTP since the Superfast Cornwall days (including to some rural-ish premises on the periphery).
The PDF is useless for my parents’ place, in an exchange area not too far away from Bodmin. Openreach says it is “building now” with an asterisk to state that it is a change since the March plan, but it said that then too!
Postcode checker says “building in this area now”. No actual sign of such build work however, and as theirs is among the few streets left with FTTC (most of the village got FTTP years ago) they should be doing something.
Ditto.
I received an email from Openreach last weekend stating that they now have no plans to complete the build-out to the premises.
Annoyingly the build plan and website both say they’re building in my area, but upon emailing them OR said they no longer plan to do fibre to my address.
Not sure if it’s cost saving or because NIMBYs protested against them putting telegraph poles up, from what I’ve seen the rest of the immediate area around my estate has been done because they already had poles.
Replying to Ivor.
I am in Bodmin proper. In fact I live approximately 700 metres away from the exchange and can actually see it from my lounge window.
There are large number of properties in Bodmin town that are unlikely to get FTTP. I live in a cul-de-sac of 16 detached properties all with BT cables fed through ducts.
It wouldn’t be so bad if we could be told why the changes in status every six months.
If the nimby menace have organised in your area it will definitely be because of that. Write to your MP.
@Helton – fair enough. Is it a private road or new estate where Openreach is struggling to negotiate access? I can’t think of any other reason why they’d miss off a small culdesac. In the Superfast Cornwall days it felt like they flipped a coin to determine who got what.
In this update our exchange went from “We’re building in this area already” to “We’ve finished the main part of our build in this exchange”.
There have been no signs of any build taking place: on the streets, on bidb.uk, or additional fibre availability shown on the TTB map.
3 poles down the road have it but not i
Openreach – no plans to build because we all know who fault – blame Labour Party!
When Clive Shelley left as Openreach CEO as things has changed now to stop full fibre roll out because of costing saving etc .
No, nothing has changed. 25 million target by end of this year still there, up to 30 million by 2030 still there. People have been given different answers on build since it started. Towns have been moved in and out of build, this isn’t first time they’ve disappeared from list. If cheaper to build somewhere else and all else equal that’s what they’ll do.
Clive Selley himself never promised 30 million only an ambition. https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2025/11/openreach-ceo-threatens-to-scrap-30m-uk-premises-target-for-fttp-broadband.html
No idea what you’re talking about.