Our Ultrafast Full Fibre Broadband Build Plans

Building Ultrafast Full Fibre Broadband to 25 million homes & businesses

We’re committed to building the best digital future for the UK, so we’ve announced an ambitious plan to deliver Ultrafast full Fibre Broadband to 25 million homes and businesses by December 2026, if the right investment conditions are in place.

Our plans support the Government’s ambition of making Gigabit capable broadband available to more than 85% of the country and, in doing this, we’re determined to be as open and transparent about our build programme as we can be.

This is a monumental change to the UK’s communication infrastructure and it’s a hugely complex engineering project with lots of moving parts and technical challenges to overcome.

What’s in our plan?

Openreach’s infrastructure connects homes and businesses across the UK. To run our network we split the UK up into around 5,600 areas, with each one usually covering a village, small town or part of a larger town or city. We call these areas ‘exchanges’, and most of our full fibre build plan is organised around them. The map below shows our plan for major full fibre build in these exchanges. As we announce more places that contribute to our 25m plan then we’ll add them to the map.

Some of our fibre build is not organised into these exchange areas, and so even if we don’t have major plans for an area, we may still be building fibre for some customers. For example we connect new housing developments to fibre all the time and right across the UK. And when we work with governments or local communities to co-fund roll-out of ultrafast full fibre networks this is often at a smaller scale than a full exchange area. We don’t publish details of these smaller build programmes on the map but you may see our teams working in the area. Learn more about our programmes.

Use our fibre checker to find out services your home and business can access.

Openreach will update the build information at least every three months – including whether build timelines for areas have moved back or been brought forward due to unforeseen operational reasons. We’ll also notify if a new location gets added to our plans.

Is my exchange in your build plan?

Enter your postcode to see if your exchange has been announced as part of our build plan

We’ve done everything we can to make sure that this map accurately reflects our plans at the time of publication. We’ll regularly update this map with any interim changes to the published plans for example, if plans evolve or get delayed due to unforeseen circumstances.

If you’d like a list of all the exchanges and locations currently announced as part of our Ultrafast Full Fibre Broadband Build Plan you can download it here.

We can keep you updated

The best way to keep up to date with our plans for your own home or business, and not just your exchange, is to register for Ultrafast Full Fibre updates through our Fibre Checker

Enter your Postcode

Frequently asked questions

Will Ultrafast Full Fibre Broadband be made available to every home and business connected to the exchange?

When an exchange has been added to the delivery plan, we aim to build to as much of that exchange area that we can given operational complexity and investment conditions, upgrading as many properties as we can. Unfortunately, some properties are simply too complex for any company to upgrade commercially. That said, just because your area isn’t covered by the current published plan or we’ve finished our build work in your exchange area, that doesn’t mean we won’t build to those properties in the future.
You’ve completed the build at my exchange, but my home or business wasn’t done. Why?

We aim to upgrade as many properties as we can under our own steam, but some properties are simply too complex for any company to upgrade commercially. That said, just because your area isn’t covered by our plan or we’ve finished our build work in your exchange area, that doesn’t mean we won’t build to those properties in the future.

We might still build to new homes or a Fibre Community Partnership, and of course there may be new programmes in the future which will cover your premises.

You can also register for updates via our Fibre Checker as our plan can change over time

Register for updates
How do you decide where you’re building?

There are several factors we have to balance when choosing which exchanges to include in our Ultrafast Full Fibre Broadband Build Plan. These include things like how much it costs to build there, operational conditions, and the customer demand for higher speeds.

We always endeavour to publish the most up to date and accurate information we can. The locations and exchanges found on this page are reviewed and agreed in advance of publication, and we always aim to stick to these plans once published. But, building a new broadband network across the UK is a huge and complex engineering programme, so some changes may occur – particularly where we encounter unforeseen obstacles.

For example, the start of any building work will be subject to us getting the right level of support from relevant local authorities, and our own operational readiness. This includes having access to multi-dwelling units, like apartment blocks. When it comes to the actual build, we might discover conditions on the ground which restrict the proportion of an exchange area that we can upgrade.
What improvements have you made in how you communicate your build plans?
As of December 2022, we’ve introduced some improvements to make our plans simpler and easier to understand.

Our experience on the ground has given us greater confidence in the ability, level and accuracy of our plans, so from December 2022, we intend simplify our Ultrafast Full Fibre Broadband Build Plan and provide more detail about when we intend to start building in each area.

We’ll continue to publish quarterly updates which explain the progress we’re making and any changes to our plans that might happen because of the realities we face as we build throughout the country.

Anyone will be able to visit openreach.com/full-fibre-plan to see when the build will start at their exchange, and this will fall into one of five categories:

This exchange isn’t in our major build programme yet.

We’ll be building in this exchange in the future.

We’re building in this exchange right now.

We’ll be building here soon, with services available in the next 12 months.

We’ve finished the main part of our build in this exchange.

As always, if you want to be kept updated with the progress of our build as it relates to your own home or business, and not just your exchange area, you should express your interest in Ultrafast Full Fibre Broadband. Simply run a Fibre Check, leave your details and we’ll keep you updated.

Check for Ultrafast Full Fibre

Our Ultrafast Full Fibre Broadband Build Plans

Building Ultrafast Full Fibre Broadband to 25 million homes & businesses

What’s in our plan?

Is my exchange in your build plan?

Frequently asked questions

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