Openreach says that Ultrafast Full Fibre now available to 17 million UK premises

Half of all UK homes and business now have access to faster and more reliable broadband thanks to Openreach’s investment in Full Fibre. The milestone comes as broadband usage across the UK is expected to reach record levels in 2024, reflecting the nation’s increasing reliance on high-speed connectivity.

Openreach continues to lead the way, building its Full Fibre network faster and further than any other UK provider reaching 78k new premises every week – or the equivalent of a city the size of Peterborough, in Cambridgeshire.

In 2024 alone, the company extended coverage to an additional 4.2 million premises – another home or business every eight seconds – bringing the total to 17 million premises now with access to this game-changing technology.

And of these, 4.3 million are in the more remote, rural and hardest -to-reach areas, ensuring improved digital access for communities across the country – from the far north Isle of Unst in Shetland to the Isles of Scilly off southwest Cornwall.

Demand for Openreach’s Full Fibre network is surging, with orders increasing by 26 per cent in the last year – around 68k orders every week, through more than  300 service providers selling fibre – including BT, Sky, TalkTalk, Vodafone, and Zen – all using Openreach’s infrastructure.

Full Fibre allows households to use multiple devices at once without any buffering or drops in performance – check here to see if you can already get Full Fibre  

Clive Selley, CEO, Openreach, said: “Fast, reliable connectivity is essential for the UK, and the increased traffic on our broadband network is evidence that customers are increasingly reliant on it in their daily lives.

“We’re building and connecting people faster than ever before and I’m proud of the progress our engineers have made. We’re well on our way to delivering our ambition of reaching 25 million homes and business by the end of 2026, and now our sights are set on reaching 30 million premises by the end of 2030,

“While over a third of properties have already switched, there’s plenty of room for more people to get a better connection right now. So why not check if you could get faster – and potentially cheaper – broadband today.”·