Openreach makes major announcement set to impact one million homes and businesses | UK | News
Openreach has announced plans to add 94 new interchange points across the UK, which will impact nearly a million homes and businesses. Therefore, the company will stop selling traditional copper-based telephone and broadband services in these areas. The move forms part of the company’s broader effort to transition customers to faster, more reliable digital services delivered over its full fiber network.
Communications providers such as BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Vodafone, which operate on Openreach’s infrastructure, are being given a 12-month notice period before they stop selling older analogue products in these newly announced locations. This notification gives providers time to prepare for the change and support their customers in switching to fibre.
Openreach Director of Managed Customer Transitions James Lilley said: “Taking advantage of the progression of our full fiber build and encouraging people to upgrade where the majority can access our new network is the right thing to do because it makes no sense, both operationally and commercially, to run our old copper network and new fiber network side by side.
“As copper’s ability to support modern communications declines, the immediate focus is to move people towards newer, future-proof technologies.”
This latest announcement forms part of Openreach’s wider strategy to phase out copper infrastructure in favor of ultrafast fibre, as it works towards a fully digital UK network.
Openreach has now expanded its full fiber infrastructure to more than 18 million homes and businesses across the UK; More than four million of these were added last year.
The company aims to further accelerate its rollout, targeting a total of 25 million properties by December 2026.
The company plans to increase its construction rate by 20% to reach this milestone and aims to deliver up to five million additional properties per year by March 2026.
Openreach connected 1.8 million customers in 2024; This is equivalent to one new connection every 17 seconds.
