We are today publishing our 2024 summary of the top full fibre (FTTP) broadband ISP network operators with the greatest share of the UK new build homes market, which is naturally a table that ends up being topped by the market’s largest network access provider – Openreach (BT). But they’re not the only player.
At present over 98% of new build homes are already being constructed with support for Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) infrastructure (here), which hasn’t changed much in the past couple of years but does compare well with the figure of over 60% in 2017 (here). Just for comparison, more than 60% of all UK premises (new builds and existing properties) can access an FTTP network (Jan 2024 data) and that rises to 80% for gigabit-capable broadband (FTTP and Hybrid Fibre Coax combined).
Suffice to say that a lot of progress has been made over the past few years and England now mandates gigabit-capable broadband for almost all new build homes (here), albeit with a few exceptions. Both Wales (here) and Scotland (here) are also following by this same example.
However, we also find it informative to do an annual check to see which full fibre operators are having the most impact on new build homes, which involves an analysis of information extracted from Thinkbroadband‘s excellent database of coverage.
As usual, we’ve split this into two tables below, one of which looks at developments over the past year (Nov 2022 to Oct 2023), while a second table summarises the total delivery since January 2018 (i.e. reflecting the period when full fibre started to become the primary roll-out focus for UK operators).
In addition, we’ve included an entry for Virgin Media’s gigabit-capable Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) network for context. Readers may note that Virgin still delivered a few HFC connections to new build sites in 2023, which is largely reflective of legacy contracts that have existed with property developers since before they switched to focus on FTTP (including via nexfibre).
Top UK Full Fibre Operators for New Build Homes in 2024
As before, there are some caveats with this data. For example, some very recent builds may be too new to have been spotted. This is because it takes a lot of time and effort to identify everything, thus the latest data may sometimes lag a few months behind the reality.
In addition, some tiny or individual developments may also be missed (e.g. personal projects or property conversions) and the availability of new postcode data can cause a further lag. On top of that, Thinkbroadband will only identify live / RFS services (i.e. completed builds where the service is available from an ISP). But otherwise the table below should, broadly, provide a reasonable reflection of the current new build homes market.
Should any operators want to ensure that all of their new build home sites are being included in this data, then please contact Andrew at Thinkbroadband to help fill in any blanks
Top 13 Full Fibre Operators for New Build Homes (2024)
Network Operator
New Build Premises (Nov 2022 to Oct 2023)
Openreach (BT)
126,439
Hyperoptic
28,028
OFNL
7,483
FibreNest (Persimmon Homes)
2,163
Virgin Media Cable (HFC)
2,026
Virgin Media FTTP (RFoG)
603
Grain Connect
454
CommunityFibre
391
4th Utility
286
Glide
238
CityFibre
224
Brsk
157
YouFibre (Netomnia)
132
Openreach is naturally top of the table as the UK’s largest network operator, followed by Hyperoptic, with other players in the market – even major networks like Virgin Media – all sitting some way behind. The historic totals below tell a similar story, although we note that Virgin’s influence was much more significant in the past.
We should also add that Virgin Media holds an expanded network partnership with Open Fibre Networks Limited (here), which isn’t reflected in this data. But this does mean that consumers can often take Virgin Media’s broadband services on many, but not all, of OFNLs sites.
The data also reveals that a shade over 28% of the new builds added last year were being covered by alternative network providers, even if that is dominated by Hyperoptic and, to a lesser extent, OFNL.
Finally, for a bit of extra context, we’ll summarise how the table splits down when we look over a much wider range of data – gathered for new builds between 2018 to October 2023.
Top 20 Full Fibre Operators for New Build Homes (Since 2018)
Network Operator
New Build Premises (2018 to Oct 2023)
Openreach (BT)
956,999
Hyperoptic
179,778
Virgin Media (HFC)
105,859
OFNL
89,931
Virgin Media FTTP (RFoG)
50,166
FibreNest (Persimmon Homes)
36,774
YouFibre (Netomnia)
22,778
Nexfibre – Virgin Media (FTTP XGS-PON) *
11,781
CityFibre
6,700
Zzoomm
6,613
FullFibre Limited
6,371
Trooli
5,888
CommunityFibre
5,583
KCOM
5,521
4th Utility
5,241
Grain Connect
4,782
Swish Fibre
3,714
Fibrus
3,206
Gigaclear
2,765
The observant among you might notice the oddity of including nexfibre in the table directly above, but not in the top table for the past year, particularly given that nexfibre’s network only went live in 2023. Part of this is down to the fact that they were building out for a while before the network went live, as well as some quirks of the postcode data and the age of the new build homes sites.
Otherwise, it’s no huge surprise to find that builds linked to Openreach, Hyperoptic, Virgin Media and OFNL remain some of the most dominant when it comes to provision for new build homes. All four of those players have always had a strong focus on such developments. FibreNest has also grown into this quite a bit in recent years.