Openreach Full-Fibre Passes 3.5 Million Premises

Openreach is continuing to connect homes and businesses to its FTTP network at a furious pace despite the pandemic, crossing 3.5 million premises during the second quarter of the financial year.

The landmark was noted in parent BT Group’s most recent results, published last week. The results revealed that Openreach’s full-fibre broaband build rate has reached 40,000 connections a week, up from 34,000 during the first quarter of the financial year. That meant Openreach added nearly half a million connections between July and September.

Openreach has targeted 4.5 million FTTP (fibre-to-the-premises) connections by March 2021, with the eventual aim of covering 20 million locations by the “mid to late 2020s.” The BT Group is investing £12 billion to become the country’s largest full-fibre provider and will contribute significantly to the prime minister’s (likely doomed) goal of universal gigabit internet by 2025.

All four major ISPs on Openreach’s network—BT, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk and Vodafone—are now selling packages on the FTTP network, with sales booming. Orders were up 100% from the second quarter of 2019. 

Lockdown has also increased appetites for the lightning-fast speeds of full-fibre: weekly orders of full-fibre products grew from around 7,000 pre-lockdown to 13,000 in September.

Take-up of full-fibre among connected homes is now 18.71%, up from 18.6% the previous quarter.

Overall, the BT Group’s revenue in the second quarter was down 7% to £5.4 billion. The group attributed the losses to lower revenue from BT Sport, with many sporting events still cancelled, and decreased activities among business customers, many of which are still reeling from the coronavirus crisis and forced closures.

BT Group also hailed the extension of subsidiary EE’s 5G mobile network to 112 locations. The group has seen "very, very strong" sales of the new 5G-enabled iPhone 12, launched last month.

Chief executive Philip Jansen said: “BT delivered financial results in-line with expectations for the first half of the year, thanks to strong operational performance during exceptional circumstances.

“Customer demand during the pandemic has shown how critical our networks have become, and our significant network investments have helped us double the number of Openreach’s FTTP orders compared to this time last year and have seen our leading 5G network expand to 112 towns and cities across the UK.”

After a bruising spring, when BT suspended its annual dividend for the first time in 36 years, the telecoms giant appears on the road to recovery—or was, on the cusp of a second national lockdown.