Telecoms operator Openreach (BT) has revealed the next batch of 11 areas that will benefit from their roll-out of 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband ISP infrastructure in 2019, which should cover 3 million UK homes and businesses by the end of 2020. Plus 3,000 extra engineers will be added.
At present Openreach’s “full fibre” network covers 682,000 premises (here) but last year the operator made a significant “Fibre First” commitment to ramp this up, which is supported by their recent move to hire an additional 3,500 engineers (here). As a result they’re now adding more than 13,000 extra premises to FTTP each week.
Technically speaking Openreach has been rolling out FTTP since 2008/9, although that was only a very limited deployment and had plenty of teething problems. By comparison the more recent Fibre First effort has already announced or started a much more significant roll-out in Coventry, Belfast, Bristol, Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Exeter, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Nottingham, Swansea and The Wirral.
Going forward Openreach has also consistently expressed an aspiration to cover 10 million UK premises by around 2025, albeit at a cost of between £3bn to £6bn (full details). However this desire is still dependent upon Ofcom agreeing to support softer regulation, reduced logistical barriers (improved planning, wayleaves etc.) and the ability to switch-off old copper networks as areas move to FTTP (expensive and complex) etc.
We should add that some of the above requested changes have already filtering down as part of the Government’s Future Telecoms Infrastructure Review (FTIR), although we’re still awaiting the announcement of a solid agreement on the 10 million aspiration.