Openreach says it has passed 4.5 million premises with FTTP
Openreach is by far the largest full fibre operator in the United Kingdom and its latest figure of 4.5 million premises passed is around 4.5 times the next nearest operator.
The end of March 2021 was a critical goal for Openreach to meet as they had promised 4.5 million premises would be able to order FTTP by that date and on the evening of 24th March the email went out saying they had hit the target.
Despite the huge upheaval caused by the pandemic, our key worker engineers have been working safely throughout the country to keep people connected and to continue extending the network, meaning we’ve hit this interim target just ahead of our original schedule. We’re continuing to accelerate the programme – having built Full Fibre to more than 1.9 million premises so far this year. We’re on track to get to 20 million premises by the mid to late 2020s – at which point nearly two thirds of the UK will be able to order Full Fibre services over our network. So far, we’ve included more than 170 city locations in our multi-billion-pound build, including the UK’s biggest cities (Birmingham, Belfast, London and Manchester). We’re also building in more than 550 market towns and villages, and we’re partnering with local and national government on a range of subsidised projects.
Openreach statement on reaching 4.5 million FTTP premises
Our tracking of their footprint had reached 3,918,882 premises as of last night and we are expecting/hoping to reach 4 million premises on 12th April 2021. Obviously 3.9 million is a lot less than 4.5 million but our verification of the footprint has always been 6 to 10 weeks behind the Openreach figures released, some of this is things like new build properties which are built but the postcodes are not in our database yet (updated quarterly via ONS sets). In the past when Openreach has reported a rise in their build rate we have always seen this happen after a few weeks so we are confident they have built the 4.5 million they claim.
Comments
@thinkbroadband They really need to step up their game there!
- @ChrisJWay
- 18 days ago
Nope not even 4.5 round here.
Perhaps if openreach spent less time sending out this self congratulatory rubbish they would have more time to spend on the task at hand.
@phead, yes of course, lets send the media and PR team out to run some cables and do some splicing shall we? Or do you think the engineers are putting this content together?
@thinkbroadband @zeninternet Yes, I imagine passing a whole 4.5 premises is about right. What they won't tell you… https://t.co/fzXY97hmBM
- @VModifiedMind
- 17 days ago
@thinkbroadband @zeninternet It’ll be double digits by 2025 at this rate!
- @wrboyce
- 17 days ago
@thinkbroadband @zeninternet Only another 27 million to go then.
- @Bowmore_SOU
- 17 days ago
@thinkbroadband @zeninternet I’m plugged into the same exchange as my sister that lives 100 yard from me. She get 3… https://t.co/wu13MMkiDy
- @Paz1o
- 17 days ago
I’m surprised at all the negative comments.
With the recent OFCOM news on how FTTP will be regulated and the first part of the government funding I think the speed of FTTP will increase considerably in the next few years. I just hope it comes to me!
"Homes Passed" is just a pointless metric.
How many homes are able to get a connection today?
doowles - 4.5m
@unknown101 I can see the point @doowles is making. My home is passed but it's going to have taken 3 months to get connected by the time the connection is live; and clearly the system would implode if everyone tried to sign up - whereas FTTC availability generally means everything is in place except a few moments work in the cabinet.
"Connections available today" would only include those that have got as far as having an ONT on the wall, as that is the equivalent of the master socket for demarcation purposes.
So Connections Available today is the number of properties who have ordered and had ONT installed and that figure is in the quarterly financial results as premises connected. (There is a slight caveat to this since some new build properties will have the ONT present and may just need the serial number linking to an account, some might still need fibre work).
- andrew
- 12 days ago
I've been passed by CityFibre for 5 years, tried to order the connection and they simply said it wasn't available. They explained very clearly that just because a cable passes my house does not mean I can order a service.
Dowlas
FTTP is to the premises so it will show on the BT checker when you can place a service - if will depend how your premise is served - so if you had 100 metres of no duct on your drive for example you would have a CBT but would not be able to order without resolving the no duct issue on your property (of you live on farm or rurally that distance might be substantially more)
dowlas this is about openreach - now idea what cityfibre are doing
The CityFibre thing is from where they advertised 'addressable' premises.
At no point did they call all the premises their metro networks run by 'passed'.
@thinkbroadband A whole four and a half? Amazing work