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Articles for Category Tag - Openreach

Rural North Wales Village of Penmachno - Google Streetview Screenshot

Remote Rural Wales Village Cut-Off from Landlines by Overheated Exchange

25th June, 2025 (14 Comments)

Residents in the remote rural village of Penmachno, which sits in the isolated upland Machno valley area of North Wales (Conwy), have complained – via the local community council – that Openreach and BT recently left them unable to make or receive calls for several days due to a heat related fault that started on 19th June 2025.

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Openreach Start Enhanced Migration Pilot for Legacy UK Phone Switch-Off

23rd June, 2025 (9 Comments)

Network operator Openreach (BT) has kicked off their first UK pilot to test the effectiveness of a targeted approach for safeguarding vulnerable customers during the mass migrations away from the old Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), which is due to be switched-off, in favour of a temporary alternative service.

Openreach Updates on Petrol Leak in Bramley as Altnets Allowed to Build

20th June, 2025 (0 Comments)

Network operator Openreach has issued a progress update on its efforts to help tackle a long-running underground petrol leak in the Surrey (England) village of Bramley. This has revealed, among other things, a new proposal that would allow alternative broadband networks to start building fibre (FTTP) in the area again.

INCA Calls on Ofcom’s Review to Protect UK Broadband Altnets from Openreach

18th June, 2025 (9 Comments)

The Independent Networks Co-operative Association (INCA), which represents many of the United Kingdom’s alternative network operators, has today set out its formal response to Ofcom’s current Telecoms Access Review 2026 (TAR) and warned that the proposals risk harming altnets in the business market, while also handing Openreach too much power.

Scotland May Reissue Gigabit Broadband Tender for Fife, Perth and Kinross

17th June, 2025 (0 Comments)

The Scottish Government (SG) looks as if they could be preparing to “relaunch” their proposed gigabit broadband roll-out procurement for Fife, Perth and Kinross during September 2025. This might take a second stab at trying to find a supplier that can help upgrade the remaining set of hardest-to-reach premises.

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BT CEO May Consider Spinning Off Openreach After UK Full Fibre Build

16th June, 2025 (30 Comments)

The CEO of BT Group, Allison Kirkby, has hinted at the possibility that network access provider Openreach could be spun off into a completely separate company in the future. But this would only be considered once their roll-out of a national gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network completes (i.e. after 2030).

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Openreach Maps UK Cities by Internet Activity to Celebrate 25 Years of Broadband

16th June, 2025 (10 Comments)

Openreach (BT) has marked “25 years of home broadband” by combining its own data with consumer research to map the UK cities by their online activity. The results found that the busiest hour of the day for internet usage in the UK is between 8-9pm, followed by 9-10pm and 7-8pm. And the highest peak of the year so far was on 14th January 2025 at 9pm.

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ISP Vodafone UK Officially Launch Pro 3 Broadband Plans and WiFi 7 Kit

12th June, 2025 (13 Comments)

A month has passed since Vodafone first quietly introduced their new range of “Pro 3 Broadband” packages for homes (as spotted by ISPreview), which features their new WiFi 7 capable routers and wireless extenders. The good news today is that the provider has finally issued an official announcement, but it doesn’t add anything new vs our original report.

Openreach Tells UK Businesses to “act faster” on Legacy Phone Switch-Off

12th June, 2025 (16 Comments)

Network access provider Openreach (BT) has today warned businesses across the UK that they must “act now” in order to be ready for the old Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) to be switched-off in favour of IP-based digital phone (VoIP etc.) services. But many are leaving it until the last minute, “risking network outages and malfunctioning systems“.

Mobile giant Vodafone UK and Sky (Comcast) have reportedly two among several "groups" that have approached budget conscious fixed broadband ISP TalkTalk about a potential deal (most likely an acquisition), which in theory could create a much larger provider with more influence over the industry. Just to recap. In 2020 TalkTalk became the subject of a £1.1bn takeover by Toscafund - controlled by hedge fund tycoon Martin Hughes (here), which including debt valued the broadband provider at around £1.8bn. The deal took the ISP private and gave them more financial flexibility for their future plans. Since then, they've backed Freedom Fibre (here) and this week made the notable acquisition of Ethernet provider Virtual1 (here). According to the FT (paywall) and Sky News, TalkTalk is now said to have asked investment bank Lazard to review its options after allegedly being approach by several groups, including Vodafone and Sky (Sky Broadband). Lazard is a logical choice as they recently acted as Financial Advisor to TalkTalk on the Virtual1 transaction. Some industry analysts have reportedly suggested that TalkTalk itself could now be worth "at least" £3bn. But this seems rather optimistic for an ISP that doesn't have any significant fixed line broadband infrastructure to call its own (excluding their old unbundled LLU network) and largely just piggybacks off Openreach (BT), CityFibre and Freedom Fibre. But TalkTalk do have a strong business and wholesale side. Funnily enough, Sky Broadband are in a similar position with their own fixed line base, while Vodafone also likes to piggyback off Openreach and CityFibre. At present, Vodafone has a fixed broadband base of 991,000 customers, while Sky Broadband is estimated to be home to around 6.7 million and TalkTalk has approximately 4.2 million. Suffice to say, anybody gobbling up TalkTalk would instantly become a much larger provider, giving them a greater say in how the UK broadband market develops and more opportunities for convergence (Vodafone with mobile, and Sky with mobile and TV). Crucially, TalkTalk's consumer base is mostly made up of those on older copper and hybrid fibre lines (i.e. ADSL and FTTC / VDSL2), which are ripe for a future migration to FTTP. At the time of writing, all of the aforementioned operators have decline to comment on the reports, and TalkTalk has yet to receive any serious formal offers. In other words, we strongly suspect that this is largely just an exercise in spin to help TalkTalk drum up some more productive interest in the idea. But at the same time, it's not unreasonable to suspect that they might succeed, as the interest seems genuine. On the other hand, we see reports like this every year or so and only a very few ever convert into a serious offer. Time will tell. Much may depend upon whether or not TalkTalk’s new owners are more flexible and pragmatic about doing a deal than the previous lot. Arguably, TalkTalk might have gone much further by now had they taken some different decisions a few years ago (e.g. co-investing in FTTP instead of Pay TV).

BT Allegedly Explores Acquisition of Struggling UK Broadband ISP TalkTalk

10th June, 2025 (37 Comments)

A newspaper has claimed that telecoms giant BT (EE, Plusnet etc.) is allegedly in the “early stages of exploring a takeover” of debt-laden broadband ISP TalkTalk. The news follows only days after Openreach reportedly threatened to block the troubled internet provider from adding new customers (here) due to concerns over delayed payments.

Hyperoptic to Extend UK FTTP Broadband Coverage via Openreach

9th June, 2025 (28 Comments)

In a significant strategic development. City-focused UK ISP Hyperoptic, which has spent the past few years deploying their own alternative full fibre (FTTP/B) gigabit broadband network to cover 1.9 million premises (up from 1.73m in July 2024), has confirmed to ISPreview that they plan to extend this to “at least” another 1 million premises – albeit using Openreach’s FTTP products.

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Openreach Finally Kicks Off Larger FTTP Broadband Build in Oxford

9th June, 2025 (15 Comments)

Network operator Openreach (BT) has finally started to deploy their new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based gigabit broadband ISP network across the Cathedral City of Oxford (Oxfordshire) in England, which mostly reflects the central area covered by their main exchange.

Openreach Allegedly Threatens to Block New TalkTalk Broadband Customers

8th June, 2025 (39 Comments)

Network access provider Openreach (BT) has reportedly warned the heavily indebted UK broadband ISP TalkTalk that they could block them from putting new customers on to their network. The threat allegedly arose after the ISP missed several monthly payment deadlines to the network operator, its biggest supplier, due to cash flow issues.

Scotland Stops £43m Gigabit Broadband Tender for Fife, Perth and Kinross

7th June, 2025 (5 Comments)

ISPreview has uncovered that the Scottish Government (SG) have stopped their tender for a supplier to deliver on the proposed £43m (state aid) Project Gigabit broadband roll-out scheme in Fife, Perth and Kinross (Lot 4 – Scotland). This had been expected to help expand full fibre (FTTP) connectivity to an estimated 28,441 premises in hard-to-reach rural areas.

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Openreach Default to More Expensive Biz FTTP and SOGEA Broadband Installs UPDATE

2nd June, 2025 (16 Comments)

Network access provider Openreach (BT) caught our eye this week, which came after several of ISPreview’s industry sources notified us that the operator had “implemented a nationwide change” on 1st June 2025 that affected how SOGEA (FTTC etc.) and FTTP broadband services are provisioned for UK business premises.

Government Hails Start of National Campaign for UK Digital Phone Switch

2nd June, 2025 (24 Comments)

The UK government has today hailed the start of a new national campaign, funded by broadband giants BT and Virgin Media, which aims to help support and encourage vulnerable people in their efforts to switch from legacy phone lines to new digital (IP / VoIP based) networks before the deadline.

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ISP Sky Broadband UK Add Free Device Priority for WiFi Max Customers

29th May, 2025 (7 Comments)

Customers of UK ISP Sky Broadband, specifically those who have added the Wi-Fi Max service to their package (i.e. this includes their fastest WiFi Guarantee, advanced internet security, mobile data boost, requestable engineer visits and more), can now add a new “Device Priority” feature to this “at no extra cost” to help them take control of their WiFi experience.