Openreach pushes for near 100% superfast coverage

Openreach says that it now has a "fibre first" mentality to every network decision, but that obtaining near 100% superfast connectivity is still a major priority

In its first ever Annual Reportas a legally separate company, Openreach reiterated its commitment to Britain's full fibre future, but said that ensuring the last 5 per cent of British homes and businesses were able to access superfast broadband remained a key priority for the company.  

"This year we continued to grow our superfast broadband network. Today it delivers speeds of at least 24 Mbps to more than 27.5 million premises. We were proud to do the heavy lifting on the Government’s commitment to make superfast available to 95% of UK homes and businesses by the end of 2017," explained Openreach chairman, Mike McTighe.

"Few countries around the world can point to such a widespread superfast footprint. But everyone in Britain should be able to get decent broadband speeds and we’re still 5% short of good enough.

"We won’t stop until we close the gap. And we fully support the Government’s objective to deliver a Universal Service Obligation," he added.

Over the past decade, Openreach has invested £11 billion in expanding its networks, which are now available to 27.5 million homes and businesses in the UK.

With its recent pledge to provide 3 million fibre to the home (FTTH) connections by 2020, Openreach will have to splash plenty of capex in the years to come. Indeed, Openreach has stated its desire to go further.

"We now have an accelerated plan to make full fibre/FTTP connections available to 3 million homes and businesses by the end of 2020. But we want to go a lot further – to 10 million premises and ultimately most of the UK if the business case is feasible. So, we now have a Fibre First approach to every network expansion decision we make," he added

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*Story acquired from Total Telecom (https://www.totaltele.com/500717/Openreach-pushes-for-near-100-superfast-coverage)

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