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 business 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.

What’s in our plan?

Every home and business in the UK is connected to the Openreach network via an exchange and our plan looks to upgrade the majority of lines at every exchange so they can provide Ultrafast speeds. Learn more about exchanges.

There are several programmes within our build plan which will deliver Ultrafast Full Fibre Broadband to different groups of exchanges, as not every exchange is the same. These programmes all have unique technical and operational challenges and include locations in the most rural and difficult to reach parts of the UK (Area 3, as defined by Ofcom). Learn more about our programmes.

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 are delayed due to unforeseen circumstances – especially where build work hasn’t started yet.

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 run a Fibre Check and leave us your details.

Frequently asked questions

Will Ultrafast Full Fibre Broadband be made available to every home and business at an exchange?

We aim to build to the greater majority of an exchange area, upgrading 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 is not 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.
You’ve completed the build at my exchange but my home or business wasn’t done. Why?

We aim to build to the greater majority of an exchange area, upgrading 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 is not 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 Fibre Community Partnership, and of course there may be new programme in the future which will cover your premises.

We will encourage those affected to register for updates via our Fibre Checker as our plan will change over time
How do we decide where we’re building?

There are several considerations we must balance when choosing which exchanges we will include in our Ultrafast Full Fibre Broadband Build Plan. These include how much it costs to build there, how fast we can build there, the areas demand for higher speeds as well as our commitment deliver Ultrafast speeds to the most difficult to reach areas.

The lists of locations and exchanges published on this page are reviewed and agreed in advance of publication by our Fibre First Steering Group, to make sure all the published data is accurate and reflects our build plans at the time of publication.

We don’t intend to change our plans or the list of exchanges, but building a new broadband network across the UK is a huge and complex engineering programme, so some changes may occur 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 capability and efficiency. 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.

We’re improving how we communicate our build plan

Currently we selected and published a list of exchanges progressively over time, showing where we intend to build Ultrafast Full Fibre. We also provided some information about when we expect to build by allocating a date range to each area.

As of October 2022, we’re making communicating our plans simpler, more detailed and less ambiguous.

We intend to publish the full list of all the exchanges in our Ultrafast Full Fibre Broadband Build Plan, and we’re providing more detail about when we intend to start building in each area.

We’ll 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 we 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 5 categories:

· We've started building

· We’ll start building soon – within the next 12 months

· We’ll start building in the future – starting in at least 12 months’ time

· We’ve finished building

· Not currently part of our 25 million build plan

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, you should express your interest in Ultrafast Full Fibre Broadband. Simply run a Fibre Check, leave your details and we’ll keep you updated.

*'Build Programme currently complete' refers to the exchanges where build has been largely completed as part of the FTTP Fibre First Towns, Cities and Boroughs Build Programme or Market town and Villages programme, but does not mean that services will be available from this date, nor that services will be available to every premise. Further deployment may take place in future, and build may also continue as part of our new sites activity and to deliver smaller in-fill programmes.