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Articles for Category Tag - Openreach

Openreach 2025 Engineers looking at tablet

Openreach Rolls Out New Safety App to Help Protect UK Broadband Engineers

2nd February, 2026 (13 Comments)

Network access provider Openreach (BT) has today announced the launch of a new mobile safety app to help combat a surge in abuse and assaults on its UK telecoms engineers. Since April last year, there’s been around 700 incidents of either physical or verbal assaults and threats, including some cases where people have needed time off work to recover.

The Curious Case of Openreach’s Vanishing UK FTTP Broadband Coverage UPDATE

2nd February, 2026 (25 Comments)

Independent data analysis has recently revealed a curious trend where patches of Openreach’s full fibre (FTTP) broadband network, often within urban areas and usually but not always associated to installs that require a more complex stage 2 process, suddenly vanish (i.e. no longer available to order). The issue is estimated to be impacting 0.3% of UK premises.

London Big Ben Over Thames by MJackson - IMG20250111113401

Concerns Over UK Funding Shortfall for Gigabit Broadband Raised in Parliament

29th January, 2026 (18 Comments)

The Conservative MP for Bridgwater, Sir Ashley Fox, this week informed other Ministers that Openreach (BT) had raised “concerns that there is a shortfall in funding from the last spending review“, which he said meant there is a “risk that the Government do not meet their 99% gigabit-coverage target by 2032“.

Strathaven Openreach Exchange Screenshot by Google Streetview

Openreach Exchange Fire Disrupts Broadband Services in Strathaven

26th January, 2026 (10 Comments)

Broadband internet connectivity, phone and some Ethernet services being delivered by the Strathaven Telephone Exchange in South Lanarkshire (Scotland) have been disrupted after the site was hit by a serious fire. Approximately 1,500 customers on Openreach’s (BT) local network are understood to have been impacted.

Openreach 10Gbps Nokia ONT from SIN Document

Openreach Publish UK Pilot Pricing for FTTP Broadband Speeds to 8500Mbps UPDATE

22nd January, 2026 (82 Comments)

National network operator Openreach (BT) has this afternoon published pricing details for their forthcoming pilot of XGS-PON based Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) home broadband ISP lines, which now includes the 5.5Gbps (550Mbps upload) and 8.5Gbps (850Mbps upload) tiers. The launch date for the pilot has also been put back slightly from 1st to 23rd March 2026.

VIDEO Police Catch Three Openreach Broadband Cable Thieves in the Act

22nd January, 2026 (14 Comments)

Bang to rights! The West Midlands Police have a reason to be cheerful today after they arrested a gang of three people who were in the process of trying to steal Openreach’s (BT) copper broadband and phone cables from an underground site in central Birmingham, which most likely caused some significant and costly connectivity problems for locals.

2,500 Lincolnshire UK Premises Offline After Cable Thieves Strike Openreach

21st January, 2026 (8 Comments)

Some 2,500 properties around the village of Moulton Chapel in Lincolnshire (England) are suffering “significant disruption” to their broadband and phone connectivity, which occurred after criminals cut and then stole an unspecified amount of Openreach’s copper telecoms cable in the area.

Openreach-2025-UK-FTTP-Engineers-in-rural-land

Openreach Expands Scotland’s Project Gigabit Broadband Rollout Contract UPDATE

21st January, 2026 (4 Comments)

The UK Government’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) has issued a contract modification notice for Openreach’s £157m (public subsidy) Project Gigabit broadband roll-out contract in Scotland (Call off 6), which originally aimed to reach 65,070 premises in remote rural areas. But the change means it will now be expanded to tackle 77,639 premises.

Broadband ISP VISPA UK Faces Compulsory Strike-off Action Again

21st January, 2026 (3 Comments)

Broadband provider VISPA has recently become subject to another “First Gazette notice for compulsory strike-off” (petitioner: HMRC) – as shown on the Companies House (CH) website, which follows both a significant delay to the publication of their latest accounts (CH’s website states their next accounts were “due by 31 January 2025“) and adoption of CH’s default address.

openreach_2017_rural_van_on_country_lane

BDUK Updates on Project Gigabit Broadband Contract for Cheshire UK

20th January, 2026 (3 Comments)

The Government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency recently provided a small but useful update on their stalled £43m (public subsidy) Project Gigabit broadband roll-out contract for Cheshire (Lot 17), which was originally held by Freedom Fibre until they “mutually agreed to terminate” it in March 2025 (here). But Openreach (BT) may now be set to take it on.

Openreach exchange engineer testing fibre

Openreach List Next 132 UK Areas for Copper to FTTP Switch – Tranche 23

19th January, 2026 (6 Comments)

Openreach (BT) has just published the next batch (Tranche 23) of 132 exchanges in their “FTTP Priority Exchange” stop sell programme – covering 1.23 million premises. This reflects areas where over 75% of premises are able to get full fibre lines and will thus stop selling copper based legacy phone and broadband products (i.e. FTTP becomes the only product option, where it’s available).

Openreach Pick Garret Kavanagh to Lead UK Complex Engineering Unit

15th January, 2026 (0 Comments)

Network access provider Openreach (BT), which is currently busy investing £15bn to deploy Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband technology to 25 million UK premises by the end of 2026 (currently 21m premises passed), has today announced that they’ve promoted Garret Kavanagh to be their new Managing Director for Complex Engineering, effective April 2026.

Openreach UK Leave Rural Wales Villagers Cut-off from Broadband for 6 Weeks

13th January, 2026 (10 Comments)

A couple of homes in a remote rural area near the village of Llanelidan in Denbighshire (Wales) have been left without access to broadband and internet-connected TV services for nearly six long weeks. The situation began after some nearby overhead lines (poles) were damaged in an unspecified event on 6th December 2025.

Openreach-engineer-working-on-exchange-rack

Openreach See UK Broadband Traffic Grow 4.8 Percent in 2025 and Happy 20th Birthday

11th January, 2026 (15 Comments)

Network access provider Openreach (BT) has today revealed that broadband usage across their UK network increased by 4.8% in 2025 (down from 10.5% in 2024) to total 108,599 PetaBytes (PB) of data (up from 103,590PB), with December once again being the busiest month – 10,317PB of data was gobbled (up from 9,707PB last year).

R100 Gigabit Broadband Rollout Reaches 96,347 Premises in Scotland

10th January, 2026 (0 Comments)

The Scottish Government (SG) has revealed that 96,347 premises have now benefitted from their £697m Reaching 100% (R100) project with Openreach (up from 93,800 in Nov 2025), which is rolling out full fibre (FTTP) broadband to remote rural areas. The next areas set for upgrade include Hoy in Orkney, Kilmartin in Argyll and Bute, and Inchture in Perth and Kinross.

Vodafone-UK-Pro-3-Broadband-WiFi-7-UltraHub

Vodafone UK Sale Offers 12 Months Half Price Business Broadband

9th January, 2026 (0 Comments)

Mobile and internet provider Vodafone Business this week launched their Winter Sale Offers, which means that new small business customers can get 12 months half price on all their Business Broadband Plans. But the offer will only be available to order until Wednesday 4th March 2026.

Toxic Gas Disrupts Openreach’s UK Broadband Network in Aldershot UPDATE

9th January, 2026 (8 Comments)

Network access provider Openreach (BT) appears to have closed access to all underground structures within the Aldershot exchange (ACM) area in Hampshire (England), which occurred yesterday after they identified “suspected toxic gases” within the local underground network.