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National network operator Openreach (BT) has this morning confirmed that their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network, which offers broadband speeds of up to 1,800Mbps to homes via hundreds of UK ISPs, has now covered 20 million premises (up from 18.3m on 1st May 2025) and take-up has risen to around 38%.
The progress, which comes a day after we revealed that the operator will trial download speeds of up to 8.5Gbps during Q1 2026 (here), won’t come as a huge surprise to ISPreview’s readers because we’ve been reporting Openreach as having reached this figure for the past week or two.
Openreach’s project is claimed to be the “largest and fastest broadband infrastructure build in Europe“, with engineers now reaching more than 1 million new homes every three months (quarter). This includes around 33,000 medical facilities and more than 25,000 colleges, schools and universities etc.
Clive Selley, Openreach’s CEO, said:
“In 2025, being online isn’t a luxury – it’s a lifeline. From booking GP appointments to applying for jobs, accessing education and launching businesses, digital connectivity is the gateway to opportunity. Full fibre makes that gateway faster and far more reliable, and it will keep up with the demands of our digital world. But upgrades don’t often happen automatically, so people need to contact their broadband provider to make the switch.
Reaching 20 million premises is a UK infrastructure success story, and it’s a credit to the investment, hard work and ambition of everyone at Openreach. But the job’s not done yet. And the next premises are some of the very hardest to connect.
To finish the job, we need the right support as an industry, including targeted help for some rural areas, faster planning approvals, better access to multi-dwelling buildings, and a regulatory and policy environment that gives investors’ confidence and allows competition to thrive.”
The last part of Clive’s comment effectively touches on a number of different areas, such as the operator potentially securing a favourable outcome from Ofcom’s next Telecoms Access Review 2026 (TAR) and the government pushing forward with plans for easier access to large residential buildings, as well as flexi-permits and other measures. But the reality is that Openreach are facing a lot of competition from rival networks and thus can’t simply stop their deployment if they don’t get everything their own way.
The new service, once live, can be ordered via various ISPs, such as BT, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk, Vodafone and many more (Openreach FTTP ISP Choices) – it is not currently an automatic upgrade, although some ISPs are doing free upgrades as older copper-based services and lines are slowly withdrawn.
Openreach currently has 15,000 people focused on their roll-out and the average per premises build cost continues to hover around the £280 mark (roughly £1.2bn or 4.5 million premises per year), but this will rise as the build becomes increasingly rural-focused.