Openreach invests £336m in ultrafast Full Fibre broadband in London
53 further Greater London locations to get futureproof Full Fibre
Around 840,000 more homes and businesses in London are set to benefit from a broadband boost in the region of £336m[1] thanks to Openreach – the UK’s largest broadband network provider.
People living and working across the Greater London area are set to benefit from the company’s national upgrade plan, with the majority of premises in each area gaining access to the latest Ultrafast, ultra-reliable Full Fibre broadband.
Work will take place between now and 2026, and more details of the full list of locations and timescales are published on Openreach’s website *Full list of the locations, exchanges and investment per county below*
The news comes hot on the heels of a similar announcement last month, when the company announced it would build to a further 3m premises in mainly rural and harder to serve areas across the UK.
Both announcements build on Openreach’s existing work in the region, where around 470,000 homes and businesses can already order ultrafast, ultra-reliable Full Fibre broadband.
Following a competitive tender process, a number of partners including Instalcom, Telent and KN Circet were chosen by Openreach to support the upgrades and will play a crucial role in building the new network to thousands of premises in these locations
Kieran Wines, Openreach’s Regional Director for London and the South East, said: “Nobody in the UK is building Full Fibre faster, further or at a higher quality than Openreach. We’re reaching more communities than ever and our team of highly skilled engineers, alongside our build partners, are working hard to deliver some of the fastest and most reliable broadband available anywhere in the world.
“Just last month we announced 3m rural and hard to reach locations across the UK were to benefit from our investment, so it’s great that we’re able to reveal a further significant investment for the capital with these additional 53 locations. “The latest details and timescales are available on our website as the build planning progresses.”
Ric Welsby, Managing Director of Telent Infrastructure Services, said, “We are very pleased to be supporting Openreach in the build of this ultrafast and ultra-reliable full fibre broadband network. The long-term contracts we have been awarded allow us to recruit the people we need to provide an excellent service to Openreach. We have many exciting roles to fill, I would encourage anyone who is interested in working on this important national infrastructure project to visit https://telent.com/work-with-us/infrastructure-services.”
Vince Bowler, Managing Director, Instalcom Ltd said, “Instalcom and the wider O’Connor Group are again delighted to be supporting Openreach in their continued accelerated programme of Full Fibre network construction works, which are dramatically enhancing the UK’s Digital Infrastructure. This growth and development opportunity continues to provide the optimum platform for our next generation of engineers, apprentices, and build teams to engage in their chosen career paths in delivering one of the most significant and ambitious programmes of works in the UK. We look forward to playing our role in supporting the safe and successful delivery of this exciting programme of works providing the maximum benefit with minimal disruption to the communities who we engage with on the journey.
Stephen Martin, UK CEO, KN Circet said; “We are delighted to be working in partnership with Openreach to boost full Fibre Broadband rollout in the UK. As demand for full fibre increases dramatically it is great to see KN Circet continuing to safely provide a high-quality product in support of Openreach’s delivery ambitions. I would like to thank Openreach for choosing KN Circet as a build partner. We look forward to further strengthening our partnership to deliver Ultrafast Full Fibre to London.’’
The company’s updated build plan will be fundamental to the UK Government achieving its target of delivering ‘gigabit capable’ broadband to 85 per cent of UK by 2025 and it follows an extended investment commitment by its parent, BT Group – which means Openreach will now build Full Fibre technology to a total of 25 million premises, including more than six million in the hardest-to-serve parts of the country, by the end of 2026.
Openreach is already building Full Fibre faster, at lower cost and higher quality than anyone else in the UK, having made the technology available to more than 5 million homes and business so far.
Openreach plays an important role across Greater London. More than 4,700 of our people live and work here. Recent research by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) highlighted the clear economic benefits of connecting everyone in London to Full Fibre. It estimated this would create a £13.8 billion boost to the local economy.
This short video explains what Full Fibre technology is, and you can find out more about our Fibre First programme, latest availability and local plans here.
Notes to Editors
- 53 new exchanges
- 840,000 new premises
- Total investment: £336 million
List of new exchange locations in London:
- Bishopsgate
- Bloomsbury
- Bowes Park
- Brixton
- Canonbury
- Chessington
- Chingford
- Clapton
- Downland
- Dulwich
- Edmonton
- Forest Hill
- Gipsy Hill
- Hackney
- Harefield
- Hayes Common
- Highams Park
- Kidbrooke
- Kingsland Green
- Kingston
- Lea Valley
- Lords
- Maida Vale
- Marylebone
- Mayfair
- Mitcham
- New Malden
- North Cheam
- Northolt
- Northwood
- Paddington
- Paddington North
- Pinner
- Primrose Hill
- Purley
- Ruislip
- Rushey Green
- Shoreditch
- Southbank
- Stamford Hill
- Surbiton
- Sutton Cheam
- Tottenham
- Tulse Hill
- Vauxhall
- Wallington
- Walworth
- Wapping
- West Drayton
- Wimbledon
- Woodford
- Woolwich
- Worcester Park
Fibre Facts:
- £15bn – total investment in Openreach’s Full Fibre build programme
- 25m – premises Openreach expects to build to by December 2026, of which:
- 4m – premises Openreach will build to each year at its peak
- 2m – premises Openreach built to during FY 20/21 (up from 1m in 19/20).
- 1m – customer connections live already
- Up to 7,000 new trainee engineering jobs to be created within Openreach and partners in the supply chain because of increasing build from 20 to 25m by December 2026
- 9,000 apprenticeship roles created and filled by Openreach since 2017/18
- With download speeds of 1 Gbps, it’s up to 10 times faster than the average home broadband connection. That means faster game downloads, better quality video calls and higher resolution movie streaming.
- You can also use multiple devices at once without experiencing slowdown – so more people in your household can get online at once. Even if the rest of your family are making video calls, streaming box sets or gaming online, all at the same time – you won’t experience stuttering, buffering or dropouts.
- Full fibre is also less affected by peak time congestion – so you can enjoy your Saturday night blockbuster in 4K without the dreaded buffering screen.
- Surf, shop, game, play, click, teach, talk, work, create, learn, buy, sell, watch and do business without skipping a beat or slowing down.
[1] Investment figure based on an average build cost of £400 per premises
