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The Deputy CEO of national network access provider Openreach (BT), Katie Milligan, has warned that until “the market really stabilises” then they won’t be able to predict when their current broadband line losses to rivals will stop (Openreach lost 707k in 2024 and expects to lose about 900,000 this financial year).
BT Group’s most recent trading update to the end June 2025 (Q1 FY26) revealed that Openreach lost another 169,000 total broadband lines to rival networks over the past quarter, which was mercifully down from 243k in the prior quarter. But the expectation is that the rate of losses for Q2 (H1) FY26 could pick up again, partly due to Sky Broadband’s recent partnership with CityFibre that already appears to be having a big impact (here).
Openreach has previously pointed out that most of these losses tend to come from areas where they’ve yet to deploy their new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network (i.e. those covered by copper-based ADSL/FTTC services), which is one of the key reasons why they’ve adopted such a rapid fibre build. A number of rivals initially did tend to target such areas with their own FTTP networks in order to gain a first-mover advantage.
According to a new article in TheTimes (paywall), Milligan also indicated that line losses had been further fuelled by the cost-of-living crisis and a downturn in house building, which has pushed more households to get online via mobile broadband (e.g. Tethering from their handsets). But this aspect likely only accounts for a smaller portion of the losses.
Katie Milligan said:
“The whole point of people investing in fixed infrastructure was on the premise that the UK market would continue to grow both in terms of the number of customers adopting broadband but also as a result of house building and growth continuing, which hasn’t happened.
Until the market really stabilises and we know what the market growth or contraction is, we’re not going to call it.”
We’d disagree with Milligan’s “whole point” remark above. Once Openreach’s rivals started competitively building FTTP and delivering gigabit broadband at scale, then the incumbent either had to respond to that or risk a slow descent into obscurity by remaining reliant on their ageing copper line infrastructure, which could not keep competitive pace. Consumers also demanded faster and more reliable connectivity than copper lines could offer.
In terms of where Openreach might end up in the future. James Ratzer, an analyst at New Street Research, expects that Openreach may get a lower return on their fibre project than once expected and predicts that customer losses would continue until at least 2030. However, the CEO of BT Group, Allison Kirkby, has already recognised that they’ll end up with a “smaller market share, but it’ll be a more valuable modern-day asset” (here).
As Kirkby said back in May 2025, the group has “got to be competitive, rather than just accept that every line we can lose forever … BT needs to transform. We need to be a more modern day, more nimble company that moves faster … We were about half the productivity of our peers .. that’s what we had to address” (this reflects a lot of their network modernisation, redundancies and copper retirement work etc.).
All of this helps to explain why the BT Group is currently lobbying Ofcom to further soften regulation in competitive areas so they can compete more effectively with often cheaper rivals, which is something the regulator has been examining as part of their 5-yearly Telecoms Market Review (TAR). As Openreach’s Mark Shurmer, MD of Regulatory Affairs, said: “[consumers are being] denied the benefits of competition … Prices are higher than they need be and they’re propping up inefficient entry in the market.”
Openreach’s rivals, many of which are carrying significant financial risks in order to take on the dominant players and are also under pressure from wider market strains (i.e. rising build costs, high interest rates, network competition), naturally disagree with the above viewpoint. Most tend to feel that allowing the incumbent too much freedom too soon could create an anti-competitive environment that chokes off their growth and might ultimately lead to a less competitive market.
As usual, Ofcom has the fun job of trying to find some balance between so many competing interests.