The slowdown as FTTP networks focus on overbuilding each other has really hit. The jump from 77% to 78% full fibre coverage has taken fifty-four days. To put this into context, at the peak of the FTTP rollouts, we were adding a point of coverage every 20 days or so.
The slowdown is history repeating itself, as the superfast rollouts started slowing down significantly a decade ago.
The superfast rollout was heavily driven by the BDUK/BT contracts this time a decade ago, and the commercial rollouts had almost stopped. We are not quite at that position, as even though a number of commercial rollouts have slowed down or paused to focus on take-up rather than just a premises passed figure, there is still a lot of commercial build. The scale of the DSIT Project Gigabit contracts is smaller than the older superfast contracts, even if the sums of money are not smaller. This is because the commercial rollouts have done the easy to reach FTTP already, and in places like Wales, a good amount of the non-commercial areas where an FTTP build was possible for under £1,700 have been done.
The question now is more about those small islands of urban England, Scotland and Wales, where no one is willing to venture purely commercially. Will vouchers be enough, or are there hurdles that need resolving, such as multiple wayleaves and working at height issues?
The list of shame, which is the ten local authority areas with the least amount of FTTP (to see the full list of councils, head over to our council list), has been updated to:
- Na h-Eileanan an Iar 10.85%, an increase of 3.59 since 27th April 2025
- Harlow District 14.19%, no increase since 24th March 2025
- Shetland Islands 18.95%, an increase of 3.72 since 27th April 2025
- Orkney Islands 24.41%, an increase of 1.57 since 27th April 2025
- Argyll and Bute 25.10%, an increase of 0.66 since 27th April 2025
- Perth and Kinross 30.80%, an increase of 2.55 since 27th April 2025
- Winchester District 34.05%, an increase of 0.29 since 27th April 2025
- West Dunbartonshire 34.51%, an increase of 4.06 since 27th April 2025
- Oxford District 37.6%, an increase of 2.51 since 27th April 2025
- South Tyneside District 39.63%, an increase of 5.19 since 27th April 2025
Harlow stubbornly seems to be being left as an experiment to allow everyone to see what impact the VMO2 Project Mustang rollout will have once it replaces the existing coax in the area with full fibre – if that happened today, Harlow would leap to 93% full fibre coverage.
In the 54 days, the level of coverage for premises with a choice of two or more FTTP networks has gone from 29.5% to 30.7%. The fact that the overlaps have increased by 1.2 points compared to the 1 point for the first full fibre network arrival highlights the ongoing overbuild.
Our projection for the UK reaching 95% full fibre coverage is February 2027, but if the FTTP rollouts continue at the pace of the last two months, this date will slide further into the future.
Test your broadband speed
Follow us on X for the latest broadband news 
Openreach now building in earnest across Winchester – so hopefully we’ll see it moving out of that list in the next 6 months or so!
The Winchester area has unfortunately had a few false starts with fibre with a distinct lack of joined up thinking between departments and compounded with a National Park running through part of it.
– The city area has had VMO2 for a long time and is the dominant provider
– Toob attempted to gain planning permission for their headend but got completely shot down at the planning stage and didn’t bother coming back
– APFN / Giganet have some limited deployments but I believe have given up/run out of money – I’ve not seen any build activity in a while now
– Trooli came and did some installations in the rural areas, I hypothesise they said they were going to cover it all, putting other providers off and then never finished the job. They have just restarted a fill in project over the past week or so but it appears patchy at the momet
– Openreach are going all in at the moment in Winchester City.. lots of build activity…
– …and of course, even though they deny it, we all suspect it’s because Cityfibre have started pulling in the spine cabling for their Winchester area / Lot27 Hampshire BDUK contract
– Cityfibre are also struggling to locate their Winchester City FEX – the first location was abandoned (Kings Worth) and now they are trying for a car park on the south of Winchester but again, the planners are not playing ball
– Cityfibre are covering the south of the Winchester district by pulling the spine up from Havant
.. so it’s all disjointed swings and roundabouts, especially if you happen to be in one of those places that was missed.
It’s definitely been a long road. You’re right about Giganet/APFN – installed chambers and cabinets all through my area (Kings Worthy) – now abandoned. Hoping Openreach get to this area soon. CityFibre maybe, but yes they’ve faced some hurdles and no works happening around Winchester city and surrounds at the moment.
I’d also note that I believe the data being given by some providers to BDUK is incorrect – someone is telling BDUK that fibre is available at certain properties when it’s not when cross referencing against UPRNs, current checkers and previous OMR data.
Hopefully BDUK will pick up on this.. but I suspect they are just taking the submitted data as gospel.
Of course I’m not jaded by this whole process.. no, never 🙂
Alternative data is available (from us)! 🙂
Would be interesting for you to look at the delta between the “Address Level FTTP Map” (green dots) and “Project Gigabit OMR Status Map” grey dots. Appreciate that grey also includes planned works and as such the delta will always be changing
Just checked the BT Availability Checker for [postcodee removed] and it’s now actually showing WBC FTTP 1000 as available. So I’ve placed another order with my ISP and we’ll see if it goes through this time.
It’s a shame that the legend in the graphic obscures the most interesting part, the last few years.