BT Group Loses 203K UK Broadband Lines and Grows FTTP to 23 Million Premises
The BT Group has published their H2 FY26 biannual results, which saw total half year revenues of £9,840m (up from £9,806m in H1) and another quarterly UK decline in Openreach’s broadband lines of -203k (down from -210k in Q3 FY26) – full year losses totalled 825k. But the network operator still grew their full fibre (FTTP) coverage by 2.608 million premises in H2 (vs 2.23m in H1) to total 23m.
The group’s consumer divisions – including BT, EE and Plusnet – reported being home to a total of 8,224 million broadband connections (up slightly from 8,210m in H1 FY26), which includes 4,168m FTTP customers (up from 3.677m). The business division also reported a total of 566,000 retail broadband lines (down from 576k) and 166,000 of those were FTTP (up from 144k). Finally, BT Wholesale supplied a total of 674,000 broadband lines to other ISPs (down from 688k) and 150,000 of those were FTTP (up from 131k).
In terms of consumer mobile connections, EE reported total mobile customers of 13.967m (up from 13.924m), including 11.529m using 5G (up from 11.199m). BT also reported that their fixed broadband consumers gobbled an average of 499.9GB (GigaBytes) of data per month (up from 444GB), which falls to 18.7GB for EE’s post-paid mobile users (up from 18.2GB).
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Elsewhere, some 54.9% of BT’s fixed consumer base take a “superfast broadband” product (down from 59.1% in H1) and 42% have adopted one of their “ultrafast” products (up from 37.1%), which these days largely reflects FTTP cannibalising customers from slower FTTC and ADSL lines. ISPreview also noted that 26.6% of BT’s customers are now taking both mobile and broadband (converged), which is up from 25.9%.
Finally, BT confirmed that EE’s 5G Standalone (mobile broadband) network had so far been rolled out to cover over 73% of the population (up from 66%). The provider aims to reach 99% by the end of 2030.
Financial Highlights – BT’s Half-Yearly Change
* BT Group revenue = £9,840m (up from £9,806m in H1 FY26)
* BT Group total reported net debt = £19.966m (decreased from £20,853m)
* BT Group profit after tax = £426m (down from £651m)
Openreach’s Network
The table below offers a breakdown of fixed line network coverage and take-up by technology on Openreach’s UK network, which covers the totals for all ISPs that take their products combined (e.g. BT, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk, Zen Internet, Vodafone etc.).
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The rollout of their FTTP lines continues to grow, with 2.608 million premises being added to their network coverage in H2 FY26 and that’s up from 2.3m in the previous half (total of 22.921m lines – inc. 6.3m in rural areas). As for take-up, some 8.773 million FTTP broadband connections have been made on Openreach’s network (up by 1.123m), which equates to a take-up of 38.27% (up from 37.66%) – this is a very healthy figure.
However, rival networks have managed to peel plenty of consumers away from the industry giant’s older network (mostly from the areas where OR has yet to build FTTP), with Openreach reporting that total broadband lines fell from 19.68m to 19.27m in the last half year (down by -414k vs -411k in the previous half). But as above, the latest quarterly fall did slow a bit.
Overall, Openreach saw full year broadband line losses of 825k, which is slightly better than their guidance. The operator currently expects losses of another c. 800k in FY27. Rival networks are continuing to bite.
Allison Kirkby, CEO of BT Group, said:
“FY26 was another year of strong delivery against BT’s strategy. We are building the UK’s digital backbone even faster and further, connecting the country like no one else and accelerating our transformation – and we know there is much more we can do, as we create a better BT for all of us.
Our record-breaking Openreach full fibre build hit its upgraded target and today reaches more than two thirds of UK homes and businesses, keeping us well on track for our 25 million milestone by the end of December. We extended our mobile leadership further, with EE winning best mobile network in three separate awards, bringing 5G+ to 73% of the population.
Customer satisfaction reached a new high, with increased demand for our next-generation products and networks. Openreach achieved record full fibre connections and reduced line losses. And by using all our brands – BT, EE and Plusnet – our Consumer division returned to customer growth across broadband, mobile and TV. Our Business division has secured significant customer wins as its transformation progresses – and we’ve completed five targeted non-core disposals as we reshape BT International.
We have delivered on our financial guidance and we are transforming ahead of plan, offsetting headwinds while successfully competing. Today we’re announcing an increased full year dividend of 8.32 pence per share and an updated dividend policy, and we are reiterating our guidance of sustained growth, including cash flow inflection to c. £2.0bn in FY27 and to c. £3.0bn by the end of the decade.”
At this point it’s important to highlight that Openreach’s rollout of FTTP lines will at some point start to slowly move away from its current peak rate of build and shift into a gradual ramp-down curve over the next few years. As their deployment pace slows, there will also be an inevitable rise in redundancies among engineers. But this is very much an expected phase of such a large build programme – there’s always a ramp up and a ramp down phase.
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Take note that BT now only publishes detailed results biannually for H1 and H2 (financial quarters), thus they release very little data for the other two intervening quarters and that similarly means we will only be able to do two detailed reports – like the one above – twice every year.
Just a quick reminder. BT introduced a new metric in 2023, which predicted that their total labour force would shrink from 130,000 to between 75,000 and 90,000 by 2030 (inc. subcontractors). The operator also predicted that Openreach’s FTTP coverage would grow to between 25-30 million premises and deliver take-up of between 40-55% by that same date.
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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Who do they think they are, the BBC?
We create a better BT for all of us., sounds like when the BBC says the same thing about the BBC.
Not for all of us,.
Not at all like the BBC. If you want to buy their services you do, if you don’t you don’t. BT don’t make you pay them if you’re on another network (unless said network is using Openreach PIA of course).
That is true Big Dave, very true, but BT still seem to think they are for all of us, just like the BBC does. Thankfully a lot of us have a choice of network, just a shame more don’t.
The BBC “For All Of Us” is because its a Public Service Broadcaster and has to do things like cover events that commercial operators do not make money on. If it went purely commercial all of that stuff would have to be dropped. Its about Universal Access to everyone and that will be an issue for government should Freely replace DTT and DSAT. The government decides to fund by license fee, and that fee has been used for other things like digital switch-off, superfast broadband (initially for a short time), PSB funded content for Channel 4 and S4C. It’s a separate subject to this news story, as Big Dave pointed out, you either take a BT service or you don’t.
“Overall, Openreach saw full year broadband line losses of 825k, which is slightly better than their guidance. The operator currently expects losses of another c. 800k in FY27. Rival networks are continuing to bite…………………..through better symmetric services, no annual price hikes from some of the competitors, and cheaper pricing”
We now go over to BT Ivor for a statement……
Really just cheaper pricing, which of course is something OR currently can’t do much about. Some users’ obsession with symmetric speeds still does not reflect reality. The growth in BT’s own brands still proves this.
The tipping point for equality in regulation (be it that Openreach is deregulated, or that CF and VM-Nexfibre is brought up to Openreach’s level) edges ever closer.
Time for an Equinox 3 perhaps.
“Some users’ obsession with symmetric speeds” – that’s an opinion though.
Reality suggests that cheaper operators offer the same upload rate as download rate – I wouldn’t want to pay for asymmetric if symmetric was available, especially if cheaper and no inflation busting price hikes every year. Most people would be the same if this was pointed out.
There is no reason to offer a service that is much more expensive that gives you a much lower ratio on asymmetric, other than deliberate attempts by BT to dictate what people can access or do, and deploying to this day, legacy GPON. ONLY competition has forced them to up their game on the download side by offering faster packages but they are now knee capped by their GPON deployment and the limitations of that.
Now as I said before, you can run, but not hide from the figures. This is yet another story on here of BT losing to competitors, so something is wrong as when the fibre roll out completes, there are no new serviceable properties being added to cover up losses/churn….expect further news items about losses, its inevitable. Had they a strong, leading product, offering at least what the competition does, this wouldn’t be the case as the BT brand is bigger and well known, and backed by a good resource of engineers to fix faults, as BT still have copper circuits for ADSL and FTTC and reduction in staff not done yet.
All of your greatest hits in one comment, lol.
As Mark says, this is more than likely to be due to ADSL and FTTC losses to altnet FTTP than from OR FTTP. Over half of those losses are ADSL alone, which is not surprising given the upheaval being generated through the PSTN closure.
It bears repeating – very very very few people care about differences in technology or whether or not it is symmetric. Personally I would (and I do) have Openreach GPON FTTP with a quality ISP that offers a real IP address, IPv6 and quality routing over an XGS altnet that wants to confine me to CGNAT hell. And of course, not all altnets even do symmetric anyway!
> The tipping point for equality in regulation (be it that Openreach is deregulated, or that CF and VM-Nexfibre is brought up to Openreach’s level) edges ever closer.
With 19.2 million lines they still occupy ~66% of the entire market. It’s good progress towards a competitive market but there’s still a long way to go before OR can be deregulated.
There is absolutely no technical reason for a fibre network to offer asymmetric speeds.
No-one even considered that as desirable until the arse end of dial up modems. We had 33.6Kbps modems using the V.34 modulation scheme. Then peeps got clever with ISDN connections at the ISP end and realised that you could get higher download speeds using that, hence V.90 and V.92 giving 56Kbps download and 33.6Kbps upload – nearly doubling the download speed. This was the first time asymmetric data rates had been introduced, and was solely driven by the restriction of dialup speeds.
If you weren’t on the 2nd line on a DACS’d pair, that is, in which case you were SOL.
With xDSL, you then had the issue of how to apportion the available frequencies, plus the longer the line the higher the attenuation at higher frequencies. So the sensible engineering solution was to allocate a fixed bandwidth at the lower end to upload, and then dynamically allocate from the higher end to achieve the best (reliable) download speed.
Having found that most people were happy with this asymmetry, the early passive network specs perpetuated that, for an arguably small cost saving – unlike dialup and xDSL there was no engineering reason for the asymmetry. Fortunately, though, that only affects the CPE and ISP equipment – XGS-PON runs over the same passive kit, which is where the big upgrade costs would be.
So…
Those criticising the arguably small demand for symmetric speeds don’t have history on their side. Even BT are going XGS-PON on their Framework C contracts – future-proofing, innit.
@FANNY ADAMS, sorry I have to agree with Ivor that very few people care about the technology and I doubt will make much use of a fast upload speed.
I would say 99% of the people I know have no need for symmetric connection, to be honest, I doubt they have any need for anything faster than 100Mbs.
I posted it before and I will post it again, the majority of people don’t need super duper speeds in any direction, some just think they do.
I was happy to stay on 36Mb/s and the majority of people who know was shocked because to them I like tech, with all the stuff I have in the house and I stream almost everything.
It is for a lot of people about price, certainly now with prices increasing for food and fuel, people will find ways of cutting down and getting a cheaper broadband connection will be one of them.
i do agree with you about the amount of people dropping Openreach, but some of those people may be going to Virgin, which is just as bad.
Be pretty strange (and alarming for the altnets) if BT weren’t losing customers. BT losing customers is just a simple function of there being more players in the field. The question is whether the altnets can tempt enough customers away from BT (and VMO2/Nexfibre for that matter) to become viable themselves before they run out of money. In VMO2/Nexfibre’s case they were clearly worried enough to take one of the players off the table.
@Big Dave, we just have to wait and see what happens. Sure some will go under or get combine. Zzoomm combined with Full Fibre.
No one can see what the future is and to be honest it is a good thing. When we choose a company or a service we normally do for us, what we get out of it, if it is better or cheaper. We don’t do it normally for the company, unless we have something to do with that company like owning shares and even then we are still with the company for what we get out of it.
Saying that, I did not choose the energy company I am with, I was with another who decided to pull out of the home market, so handed us to Octopus. But I did decide to stay.
So far Zzoomm have been fine for me, so I will stay, not really got a lot of choice, it is either Zzoomm or end up back on the Openreach network. I prefer to stay off OR if i can
John – the altnets have basically done all the cherry picking they’re ever going to do (often with considerable overlap between themselves). They have had a huge leg up through unsustainably cheap use of Openreach physical assets.
CF has all of Openreach’s largest non-BT customers on the books now. VM is already arguably a dominant provider with or without Nexfibre. I’m not sure why you think we have to wait for takeup to reach 50% before we can think about bringing truly free market competition to the fore.
Mike – network operators can offer any speed they want. I am not aware of Openreach using XGS equipment in subsidised areas. Are you confusing it with the BDUK requirement to offer a gigabit symmetric wholesale service, which they can do over GPON.
@Ivor – I think they would need to be brought down to at most 12 million active lines (i.e. 40% market share) before any kind of serious deregulation can be considered. And below 7.5 million lines (i.e. 25% market share) before they can be completely left to their own devices. Looks like VM only have 5.6 million lines so that explains why they’re not really on Ofcom’s radar… yet.
If they maintain their rate of build to the end of the year then they should be well beyond their 25 million target then. Could be closer to 26m.
Competitors using the same Openreach network offer substantially cheaper rates than BT/EE. The Plusnet brand has been devalued , as often happens when a strong competition is taken bover by a larger parent. And, of course, when altnets offer symmetric speeds at lower prices what hope is there for BT. The recent relaunch of their mobile services shows what a mess they have got into. Very sad to see a once great company decline,
I think it is more to do with the lower price for most people then symmetric connections.
I have noticed what seems to be a few people changing from Overreach to Zzoomm around here, they have two splice boxes on the wall., I thought maybe they changed from Zzoomm to Openreach, because ZZoomm did have a few issues with their routers.
But looking as I walk past it is the newer Zzoomm splice box, like the one my brother has, so must be OR to Zzoomm.
OR FTTP installer here and I swap customers over from Zoomm to the OR network at least once a day. I always ask why they are leaving Zoomm and the common response is customer service and reliability. All there CS has been outsourced and when you are lucky enough to get through, they don’t help resolve any issues and tell customers to buy their own hardware. 99% of the customers I switch back are not aware of/or don’t need mega symmetrical speeds and just want a reliable working service.
>> 99% of the customers I switch back are not aware of/or don’t need mega symmetrical speeds
Of course nobody who cares about symmetric speeds would sign up for an OR line if they had a symmetric alternative.So this observation is to be expected. People wanting fast uploads are a niche, but I don’t believe that niche is as small as some people make out. There’s a lot of use cases for faster uploads especially for people working from home. OR are preparing symmetric products now anyway so I guess the arguments are moot.
Looks like it won’t be long before FTTP connections outnumber VDSL
Add on the 2.5 million or so customers using altnets and FTTP as a whole is already outpacing ADSL/VDSL.
That is because people are being forced,I was forced to go to FTTP, I had no interest in it. Plusnet tried and tried to get me from VDSL to their FTTP service, they lost a customer because of it.
I did change to FTTP, but to something that was cheaper and on a different network and did not increasing in price, every few months.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable for the networks to push customers over to FTTP. They didn’t build the fibre network to have the expense of maintaining 2 networks.
I know for some people EE have been good customer service wise, but I’ve just been through a shambles with them promising discounts for taking out another contract, and then backtracking as you get near the finishing line with a different advisor. They really need to up their game as they were once untouchable!
My final straw was being told for all the backtracking, I would be contacted back with an offer which never came. No one bothered to ring me back or forward the matter any further.
I get a slightly slower speed now with another provider, but I get a decent signal indoors where I work, and a number of other addresses I visit frequently which I didn’t with EE.
Oh and I’m also saving a month as well.
825k in one year is horrific. But you kind of get the sense the altnets need it to be double that. Either way, both sides are suffering now.
It would be if it just goes on year after year, but if the altnets are to be viable they will need to take a chunk off Openreach. As the article says Openreach are aiming for 40-55% take up so if they build to 30 million they are still looking at 15-17 million customers. VMO2/Nexfibre are probably looking at 6-8 million so the altnets could still be looking at 8-11 million. Just a shame there such a lot of overbuild between the altnets.
Looking from the other side, is the whole alt-net build / spend have a viable future through gaining @800k connections in a year. I’m assuming some old BB’s are ceased as bonded may not be needed as FTTP is installed, or businesses cease long forgotten connections as will happen when PSTN is fully withdrawn. In an SME BB base, around 20% of BB’s are unused that I’ve seen in established bases.
At some point, the current raft of mergers of alt-nets will stop being viable as system integration and mis-matched technologies add higher costs or poor customer service. I expect BT, Nexfibre and CityFibre to then swoop in at some point as the supplier of last resort.
Curious as to how the superfast coverage figure is still going up. They’re surely not deploying new VDSL at this point, and I can’t imagine that it’s all down to tiny new build estates that somehow don’t quality for the free Openreach FTTP offer.
Superfast covers everything from FTTC to FTTP, so the rise stems from the fact that they’re reaching into areas that previously didn’t have either.
Misleading headline. Openreach lost lines, albeit slightly less than their previous guidance and these losses are across multiple provider on the network.
BT consumer facing divisions appear to be performing very well. All measures were pretty much as expected by analysts.
If the free cash flow materialises as forecast by the end of the decade, BT Group will be sitting in a very healthy position.
We’ve not deployed GPON for about a year to the comments above. We deploy combi cards that do both GPON and XGSPON. All it takes is a switch of ONT and rarely a SFP switch. Most are already built with XGS optics.
These lost lines were budgeted for and BT isn’t bothered at all. What matters far more is the growth of its full-fibre footprint to 23 million premises and, more importantly, the take-up rate on the new fibre network is sitting at a very healthy 38.27% (8.77 million connections). No need to look after troublesome PSTN lines when you’ve got those nice, clean fibre lines making more money.
Not to mention the take up rate for older cohorts (2 years plus) is over 50%. Once they build slows at the end of the year expect take up to climb rapidly.
If only our Eurovision points were based on the number of responses about BT from one specific repeat commentator on the subject we may have won!
Unfortunately I’m one of the unlucky ones where it looks like they’re cancelling their FTTP rollout to me. I received an email a few weeks ago saying so and now on their status checker it no longer says they’re currently building in the area. I’m not even in a rural area really, there are a lot of houses around here (S35 – Ecclesfield exchange)
Do you know why this is the case?
One of my relatives is in the same situation. FTTP to number 10, after that, not available. In their case I suspect the issue is with the ducts, so will either require groundworks, or a pole. Their phone line I suspect is not in a duct, and appears out of the front concrete doorstep.
Another colleague had to have groundworks and delayed them by about three months. Both cases are rural towns.
Someone needs to be asking Openreach if they’re claiming homes passed from their nearby nads fiasco.
Example- They install an 8 port cbt for 6 houses, a week later that node is now claimed to serve 16 houses as they’ve scraped nearby unserved addresses and added them as FTTP available.
No planning, no actual checking if these properties could ever be served by this new fibre, purely distance based. Could be 2 streets away and impossible to provide, doesn’t matter..