Openreach Build FTTP Broadband to 20 Million UK Homes as Uptake Hits 38 Percent
National network operator Openreach (BT) has this morning confirmed that their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network, which offers broadband speeds of up to 1,800Mbps to homes via hundreds of UK ISPs, has now covered 20 million premises (up from 18.3m on 1st May 2025) and take-up has risen to around 38%.
The progress, which comes a day after we revealed that the operator will trial download speeds of up to 8.5Gbps during Q1 2026 (here), won’t come as a huge surprise to ISPreview’s readers because we’ve been reporting Openreach as having reached this figure for the past week or two.
Openreach’s project is claimed to be the “largest and fastest broadband infrastructure build in Europe“, with engineers now reaching more than 1 million new homes every three months (quarter). This includes around 33,000 medical facilities and more than 25,000 colleges, schools and universities etc.
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Clive Selley, Openreach’s CEO, said:
“In 2025, being online isn’t a luxury – it’s a lifeline. From booking GP appointments to applying for jobs, accessing education and launching businesses, digital connectivity is the gateway to opportunity. Full fibre makes that gateway faster and far more reliable, and it will keep up with the demands of our digital world. But upgrades don’t often happen automatically, so people need to contact their broadband provider to make the switch.
Reaching 20 million premises is a UK infrastructure success story, and it’s a credit to the investment, hard work and ambition of everyone at Openreach. But the job’s not done yet. And the next premises are some of the very hardest to connect.
To finish the job, we need the right support as an industry, including targeted help for some rural areas, faster planning approvals, better access to multi-dwelling buildings, and a regulatory and policy environment that gives investors’ confidence and allows competition to thrive.”
The last part of Clive’s comment effectively touches on a number of different areas, such as the operator potentially securing a favourable outcome from Ofcom’s next Telecoms Access Review 2026 (TAR) and the government pushing forward with plans for easier access to large residential buildings, as well as flexi-permits and other measures. But the reality is that Openreach are facing a lot of competition from rival networks and thus can’t simply stop their deployment if they don’t get everything their own way.
The new service, once live, can be ordered via various ISPs, such as BT, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk, Vodafone and many more (Openreach FTTP ISP Choices) – it is not currently an automatic upgrade, although some ISPs are doing free upgrades as older copper-based services and lines are slowly withdrawn.
Openreach currently has 15,000 people focused on their roll-out and the average per premises build cost continues to hover around the £280 mark (roughly £1.2bn or 4.5 million premises per year), but this will rise as the build becomes increasingly rural-focused.
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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I expecting my area to go live FTTP end of December 2026 but I won’t getting any hope up too high as I fearing my area will not go ahead!
I contacted them as they had told me November 2025 was the build date (I even had confirmation from the CEOs complaints teams). Just this month they’ve stated that it won’t be built until June 2026 at the earliest.
However an alt net has offered fttp in my area so might have to go through them (symmetrical upload and download speeds at a fraction of the cost to any of the big ISPs on an equivalent plan if openreach fttp was available to me). I would suggest contacting openreach via their website there is a form there you can use. They will tell you if you’re still in the build plan for December or not. You can also email Clive Selly (his team picks it up) but you might only want to use that if they tell you the build has been delayed
Openreach as over reached it cannot fulfill its obligations to install fibre to a domestic property.
Clearly the 38% is an average but it must be putting the squeeze on the alt nets in many areas
Lets say total maximum take up in is 90% and you have three companies in an area with one being Open Reach that leaves the other yeo fighting over 52% so id an equal share just 26% which mans hey are unlikely to ever get financially viable some areas even have four companies
It looks to be as though an area can only in the long term support two companies at most possibly in a few area three if there is a lot of business users
Take up on older cohorts (2 years +) is typically more than 50%, where I live its probably more than 60% although F&W do seem to have started eating into that a bit. Add in the fact there are still about 5 million Virgin Media customers and yes the altnets have their work cut.
Six months ago my street was 90% Virgin and about 10% Openreach ADSL. It’s now a 50/50 split, so it’s not just the Altnets feeling the pinch.
I have sympathy for the Altnets. Only with Openreach showing a relatively recent interest in FTTP and they have used their market share/cap to finance a (mostly) fast roll out. Not sure the Altnets can raise the money needed to keep up.
Virgin though, they *should* know that either they raise the money to do fast roll out of XGS-PON or they will rapidly loose market share. That should be a relatively easy conversation with their shareholders.
Great to be live on it at last, as of this month. When you think that we spent £450bn on COVID, then £15bn to build a nationwide FTTP network is a relative bargain that will bring huge benefits relative to its cost. Of course, the overall picture is a little crazier, with the overbuild free-for-all, and a more coordinated national programme would have been more resource efficient overall, most probably. Never mind, Britain is finally catching up with places that got here years ago.
By my calculation they should have spent about £5.6bn so far of the £15bn budget. Clearly it makes sense to pluck the low hanging fruit first and get it generating income before moving on to the harder stuff.
Was about to comment this. “the last 10% takes 90% of the time”
They’ll be connecting towns/cities first and then working their way out to smaller villages and remote locations which will probably take the 4+ yrs to complete.
Our area has just gone “live” in the last couple of weeks (PE34, West Norfolk). We’re currently with Lightspeed but were with Vodafone where we were in Northampton. Have to weigh up the cost comparisons and let the dust settle a bit!
How did you get on with Vodafone? Just about to change my broadband & have heard varying reports.
Ordering FTTP went live 3 weeks ago for our village. Soon as it became live I ordered it, getting installed tomorrow (Thurs 25th Sept)
My postcode is listed on OpenReach website as building in this area now, however when I emailed them I was advised there were no plans to upgrade my property to FTTP and I should consider a community build scheme… Go figure! I’d love to think I could have it by end of next year, but not holding out any hope.