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Over 18 million households in the UK can now access the fastest full-fibre broadband, Openreach announced.
Openreach builds and maintains the underground broadband cables to 99% of all UK homes. This infrastructure is used by more than 650 broadband brands, including Sky, BT, Vodafone, TalkTalk, EE, Plusnet, and more. It plans to connect 25 million homes and businesses to its cutting-edge full-fibre internet before the end of next year.
Reaching the 18 million milestone with 594 days left until the deadline is good progress. Industry analysts expect this milestone to be achieved between October 2026 and January 2027.
The company is investing up to £15 billion in this expansion, with an average build cost of £280 per premises — that's an eye-watering £1.2 billion per year. Openreach hopes to reach 30 million premises by the end of 2030.
In comparison, Virgin Media O2 is the second-biggest network with under 60% of all premises able to connect to its cables, although every single connection enjoys gigabit download speeds.
Once your local area has been upgraded to full-fibre broadband, you'll be able to call your supplier and switch to a new package with faster download speeds for buffer-free streaming
GETTY IMAGESOpenreach's Managed Customer Migrations Manager, James Lilley told GB News: "We’re moving to a digital world and Openreach is helping with that transformation by rolling out ultrafast, ultra-reliable, and future-proofed digital Full Fibre across the UK.
"This game-changing technology will become the backbone of our economy for decades to come, supporting every aspect of our public services, businesses, industries, and daily lives.
"Already, our Full Fibre network is available to 18 million homes and businesses, with 6.5 million premises currently taking a service."
Openreach added one million properties to its next-generation cables in the last two months alone.
Get the fastest nationwide fibre broadband from EE
Get the fastest nationwide fibre broadband from EE It might not be the most affordable broadband package around ...but the Busiest Home Bundle from EE more than makes up for that with raw speed. The BT-owned brand offers download speeds of 1.6Gbps, which is speedy enough to download a high-definition (HD) feature-length film in under 40 seconds. To maximise those speeds, EE includes a Wi-Fi 7 router with the latest wireless technologies at no extra cost
Switch to Sky Broadband an enjoy most affordable 150Mbps speeds
For a limited time, Sky Broadband is offering Full Fibre 150 for just £24 a month. That's a saving of £96 over the course of a two-year plan. With a guaranteed minimum speed of 100Mbps, Sky Broadband will ensure you always have enough bandwidth to stream TV shows and films, make video calls, backup files to the cloud, and stream music at peak time without a long wait. For comparison, Vodafone charges £26 and BT charges £29.99 for the exact same full-fibre speeds
Switch to Plusnet and enjoy Full Fibre 300 speeds for under £30
If you need a little more speed, Plusnet has one of the cheapest prices for Full Fibre 300. At £29.99, this is the same price that EE Broadband and BT Broadband charges for its Full Fibre 150 plans... so you'll enjoy 2x the download speed at no extra cost if you switch to Plusnet
Ultrafast Full-Fibre from Openreach offers download speeds of up to 1,800Mbps. For context, Netflix recommends just 15Mbps to stream in its highest quality 4K UHD picture quality.
Even with multiple devices in the same household streaming Netflix shows in this pixel-packed quality, there would still be a ludicrous amount of headroom with the fastest full-fibre broadband speeds.
And it's not just download speeds that enjoy a boost with the switch to a full-fibre connection.
Upload speeds, which determine how quickly you're able to back up photos to the cloud, upload a post to Facebook, or share a live feed from your front-facing camera during a video call, to name just a few. Ultrafast Full-Fibre from Openreach ensures a maximum upload speed of 120Mbps — that's faster than most Britons' download speed.
The fastest full-fibre broadband uses fibre-optic cables in every part of the connection, while older connections still rely on ageing copper cables in part of the link between your Wi-Fi router and the exchange run by BT, TalkTalk, EE, Sky, or whoever handles your internet connection
OPENREACH PRESS OFFICE
As soon as your local area has been upgraded to a full-fibre connection, you'll be able to choose between packages with a maximum download speed of 1,800Mbps — that's over 24x faster than the average household connection in the UK. Not every broadband supplier offers those top speeds.
EE is the only broadband firm that offers 1.6Gbps speeds nationwide. It has launched a Wi-Fi 7 router to take advantage of these speeds with improved wireless performance.
Of course, telecoms will typically charge more for faster speeds, so you won't benefit from the maxed-out speeds unless you're willing to splurge on your Direct Debit. That said, if you haven't switched to a new broadband deal in a while, it's possible you'll be able to upgrade to faster speeds while spending less money each month.
That's because most broadband suppliers increase the monthly subscription price each year. Last month, BT, Sky, EE, Virgin Media and other telecoms introduced new charges for broadband customers.
The latest statistics published by BT-owned Openreach shows that full-fibre broadband is now available in 55% of UK homes and business, with coverage varying significantly across the nations.
In England and Scotland, the coverage stands at 50%, whilst Wales enjoys a higher rate at 67%. Northern Ireland leads with an impressive 90% coverage, where Openreach has historically maintained a strong presence.
Openreach has dramatically expanded its full-fibre broadband over recent years. In July 2021, a meagre 15.35% of properties in the UK could access download speeds of 1,800Mbps via full-fibre broadband from Openreach. That jumped to 20.45% in early 2022, before jumping to 30.30% just one year later.
As it closes in on its December 2026 deadline, Openreach has increasingly focused on bringing full-fibre broadband to more rural and remote areas.
As part of this push, the BT-owned firm is also working with the UK Government's Project Gigabit scheme to connect 220,000 homes and businesses in hard-to-reach rural areas that'd otherwise be left behind.
According to Openreach, 35% of Britons who live in a property with access to the fastest full-fibre broadband speeds opt to switch to these speedier monthly plans
With full-fibre internet more widely available than ever before, Britons are increasingly switching to these faster connections. Across the UK, some 6.5 million households and businesses are now connected to the full fibre service. This represents a take-up rate of 35%, which rises to over 50% in older established areas.
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Orders increased by 26% throughout last year, with approximately 68,000 new connections being made every week across more than 300 different internet service providers that rely on Openreach infrastructure.
Research has shown that a speedier internet connection can even boost the value of your home, so it's worth checking whether your home is now eligible for a speed bump.
If you're unsure about the exact broadband speed you need in your home.
We've put together the average download speeds for an hour-long television show episode in Standard Definition (SD), roughly 450MB in size.
- 69Mbps, the average broadband speed in the UK: 56 seconds
- 150Mbps, the lowest speed available with most full-fibre packages: 24 seconds
- 500Mbps, widely available from all full-fibre providers: 7 seconds
- 1Gbps (or 1,000Mbps) is not available from all broadband companies: 4 seconds
