28 Jan 2020

Openreach to expand its network to 227 market towns & rural areas

Openreach has outlined plans to bring its fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) network to 227 market towns and villages across the UK. New locations will include Aberdare in South Wales and Saxmundham in Suffolk.

The plans follow village trials launched at the end of last year where engineers developed new tools, skills and techniques to help Openreach extend its full fibre network into areas previously considered too complex or expensive to upgrade.

Openreach’s CEO, Clive Selley, commented, “Our full fibre build programme is going great guns – having passed over 2 million premises already on the way to our 4m target by March 2021. We’re now building at around 26,000 premises a week in over 100 locations – reaching a new home or business every 23 seconds. That’s up from 13,000 premises a week this time last year.”

He added, “Our ambition is to reach 15 million premises by mid-2020s if right investment conditions are in place. Currently, the biggest missing piece of this puzzle is getting an exemption from business rates on building fibre cables which is critical for any fibre builder’s long-term investment case.”

Openreach says that rural businesses and homes that have access to its ‘full fibre’ technology can create new market and business opportunities. Callestick Farm, in Cornwall, says fibre broadband helped it establish and grow a new customer base in China.