UK network operator on course to reach 14 million premises

Leading UK telecoms company Openreach recently announced that its 1.8 gigabytes per second capable full fibre network has now covered close to 14 million premises across the country.

The confirmation follows its major rollout plans to deploy to at least million businesses and homes every quarter.

The BT owned operator also further established its goal to provide 30 million properties with fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) broadband by the year 2030.

At an event called Connected North in Manchester, the Director of Fibre Build at Openreach, Georgia Grimes, commented:

“We’ve built full fibre broadband to almost 14 million premises, and are now building at a rate of 1m a quarter and will go on to reach 30m by 2030. We’re building on time, in budget, safely and sustainably.”

Also present, was Justine Neale, Business Development Manager for the London headquartered telecoms company. Neale stated that Openreach’s FTTP take-up is set to increase to 50 per cent from where it stands presently at 34 per cent (over 4.5 million customers). However, she did add that further government support was needed to achieve its aims for multi-dwelling unit (MDU) builds.

Currently, Openreach anticipates it will add around 3.5 million more premises to its UK full fibre coverage throughout the 2024 fiscal year, which has been forecast to increase to 4 million premises in 2025.

While build costs should stay with Openreach’s model of £250 to £350 for the duration, the network provider is on course to meet its one million premises a quarter target for the next two years.