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Network access provider Openreach (BT) has announced that their new 1.8Gbps speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network has passed an important milestone by covering 1 million premises across Wales (up from 816,000 in January 2024 and 700,000 in July 2023).
Treorchy’s award-winning Lion Hotel can apparently lay claim to being the 1 millionth Full Fibre enabled property on Openreach’s network in Wales. But it won’t be the last, as they’re continuing to deploy the new network – both commercially and via public investment.
NOTE: Openreach’s full fibre network currently covers over 16 million UK premises, and they’re investing up to £15bn to hit 25m by December 2026 (here), before reaching up to 30 million by 2030 (assuming Ofcom’s future market review gives a favourable outcome). The operator’s average FTTP build rate is currently 81,000 UK premises per week (c. 1 million per quarter).
Most of the build in Wales reflects Openreach’s commercial deployment, but that has been complemented by a £52.5m state-aid supported Superfast Cymru contract with the Welsh Government (c.44,000 premises). The operator is also in the process of finalising several Type C contracts for Wales under the UK government’s £5bn Project Gigabit programme (here), which will further extend FTTP into some of the remotest areas.
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Suzanne Rutherford, Complex Engineering Wales at Openreach, said:
“Openreach is already leading the way in transforming digital connectivity across Wales and the rest of the UK.
With Full Fibre now available to 1million Welsh homes and businesses, we’re excited about the projected impact this work and our future build will have on local communities, as highlighted in the new report.
By equipping residents and businesses with fast, reliable broadband, we’re not just upgrading internet speeds—we’re laying the groundwork for economic growth, job creation, and increased opportunities for remote work, digital learning, and innovative healthcare access.”
Openreach highlights how a recent report from Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) and Stantec predicted that their ongoing upgrades to Full Fibre broadband across Wales could deliver a £1 billion boost to the Welsh economy by 2029. But we’ve previously explained why such figures should always be taken with a pinch of salt (here), although it’s definitely a welcome and much needed improvement for many areas.
Speaking of investment, Openreach revealed in January 2024 that their roll-out in Wales had cost them £240m+ to deliver (816,000 premises) and delivered take-up of c.34%, which equates to about £294 per premises passed. If we assume this to still be reasonably accurate, then they should have now invested about £294m to reach 1 million premises.
Openreach’s service, once live, can be ordered via various ISPs, such as BT, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk, Vodafone and many more (Openreach FTTP ISP Choices) – it is not currently an automatic upgrade, although some ISPs are doing free automatic upgrades as older copper-based services and lines slowly get withdrawn.