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The UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has today published their annual 2025 monitoring report into Openreach’s independence from BT, which found only a “low number of breaches of compliance” and noted that, overall, “compliance appears to be well-established and well-embedded“.
Just to recap. The annual report (PDF) process was established some years ago as part of Ofcom’s effort to monitor Openreach’s progress toward becoming a distinct “legally separate” company away from BT, which in turn stemmed from the original 2016 Strategic Review of Digital Communications (full summary). The report also covers compliance with the regulator’s last fixed telecoms market review for the 2021-26 period (here).
The 2016 review concluded that Openreach previously had an “incentive to make decisions in the interests of BT, rather than BT’s competitors, which can lead to competition problems” and that BT had failed to “sufficiently” consult rival ISPs, such as those that piggyback off their network, on future “investment plans that affect them.” They were also deemed to have under-invested in their network.
In response, BT and Ofcom reached a voluntary agreement in 2017 (here), which sought to boost competition by giving rivals easier access to the operator’s infrastructure and fostering an independent governance structure for Openreach. On top of that there were also tougher minimum service quality standards, separate branding, new consumer protection measures and better information sharing etc.
Since then much has changed and the operator is now rolling out FTTP broadband to an additional 1 million+ premises per quarter (total of c.20 million premises now passed), while enabling rivals to harness their cable ducts and poles with much greater ease.
Fibre build by rival networks has so far led to a significant increase in the number of premises with a choice of network, with 74% of premises now having access to at least two networks (one network from another provider in addition to Openreach), and 27% of premises have access to at least three networks as of January 2025.
Ofcom’s annual monitoring reports on all this have thus been fairly uneventful for the past few years, and 2025 is no exception.
Ofcom Statement
Since our last report, we have observed that the Commitments continue to be working well. We have seen BT and Openreach continue to demonstrate compliance with the Commitments in a proactive and vigilant manner. We have had positive levels of engagement with both organisations and the importance of the OMU’s work is well understood. From our monitoring activities, compliance with the Commitments appears to be well-established and well-embedded across both organisations.
We have also engaged with industry stakeholders throughout the year and welcomed their views on whether BT and Openreach are complying with the Commitments and the WFTMR. Although stakeholders did not raise specific concerns about the overall effectiveness of the Commitments, some expressed concerns that certain Openreach operational processes and decisions have the potential to raise issues in relation to its Commitments obligations. Examples include the exchange exit programme and the Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) rollout. We will continue to monitor these issues closely and welcome continued insights from stakeholders as these programmes progress.
Over the last year, BT and Openreach’s respective Commitments monitoring offices each reported a low number of internal breaches of compliance with the Commitments by BT and Openreach employees. We considered these breaches both individually and taken together. We concluded that their low-risk nature and overall level do not call into question whether the Commitments overall are working as intended.
Each of the breaches was promptly detected and corrected. We have observed that when a breach has occurred, regardless of the risk level or nature of the breach, both Openreach and BT have adopted a thorough approach to investigating what happened and considered taking remedial steps to address or remedy the breach. This is consistent with the approach we have seen them take in previous years and we expect this to continue in the event of any future breaches.
Although we have not opened any new formal investigations following the reporting of breaches to us by BT and Openreach over the last year, we have continued to carefully scrutinise matters reported to us to ensure there is no complacency, and we remain ready to hold BT and Openreach to account when necessary.
One crucial thing to point out is that Ofcom are currently in the process of conducting a new Telecoms Access Review 2026 (TAR), which will set out revised rules and regulations for the fixed broadband and telecoms market – particularly Openreach – to cover the next 5-year period from 2026 to 2031. The outcome of this is due soon and so the regulator’s next annual monitoring report in 2026 is likely to be of greater interest.