Openreach has just published an update to its Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband connectivity rollout plan. HEXUS reported on this plan, which covered 551 FTTP rollout locations in the UK, back in June this year. ISP Review noticed that the list of towns and villages has been expanded with 170 new entrants in the latest October 2021 Programme Update (PDF) from Openreach (thus, rollout plans now cover 770+ locations).
The FTTP rollout plan aims to cover 25 million premises with gigabit-capable fibre connectivity by December 2026. Currently, nearly 6 million homes and businesses are covered by this level of service, with 1.9 million added from 2020-21. Openreach's build rate is approx 43,000 premises per week (4 million per year) based on the latest figures.
Service adoption is important to the rollout and the businesses that offer FTTP via Openreach fibre cabling (such as BT, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk, Vodafone, Zen Internet). Pleasingly, orders for the newly enabled FTTP lines are running at an average of around 17,000 per week, which makes the upgrade work all the more worthwhile.
If you are waiting for FTTP via Openreach to branch out to your area, then you can download the linked Openreach October Update PDF (top). If you painfully remember the June update not mentioning your town or village, it might be quicker to skip on over and scour ISP Review's hand pruned list of new locations.
In the Openreach PDF the new additions are reversed out, I highlighted the Wilmslow build delivery phase
I am happy to see Wilmslow is on the updated list. Openreach providers at my home can only offer entry-level 36Mb fibre – I was told the 'Extra' 66Mb option wouldn't provide faster downloads in my case. However, Virgin is an alternative option at the house, as it will be in a number of the new Openreach FTTP locations on this list - useful if your broadband contract period is up, a good offer is live, and/or you desperately need the extra advertised speeds.
