Half of all UK homes and businesses can now access superfast broadband. BT-owned Openreach, which manages the broadband and telephone infrastructure available in 99% of properties nationwide, today confirmed that its Ultrafast Full-Fibre broadband speeds are now available in 17 million premises.
In comparison, Virgin Media O2 is the second-biggest network with under 60% of all premises able to connect to its cables — although every single connection enjoys gigabit download speeds.
Openreach is expanding its broadband network at a breakneck pace — adding an additional 78,000 premises to its full-fibre broadband cables every single week. That's equivalent to wiring up speedy broadband to a city the size of Peterborough every seven days.
Ultrafast Full-Fibre from Openreach offers download speeds of up to 1,800Mbps. For context, Netflix recommends just 15Mbps to stream in its highest quality 4K UHD picture quality.
Even with multiple devices in the same household streaming Netflix shows in this pixel-packed quality, there would still be a ludicrous amount of headroom with the fastest full-fibre broadband speeds.
And it's not just download speeds that enjoy a boost with the switch to a full-fibre connection. Upload speeds, which determine how quickly you're able to back-up photos to the cloud, upload a post to Facebook, or share a live feed from your front-facing camera during a video call, to name just a few. Ultrafast Full-Fibre from Openreach ensures a maximum upload speed or 120Mbps — that's faster than most Britons' download speed.
Household brands like Sky, BT, EE, TalkTalk, Plusnet, and EE all rely on Openreach infrastructure to connect customers. Upgrades to the nationwide infrastructure will benefit customers signed up with any of these providers — unlocking faster downloads and improved uploads.
As soon as your local area has been upgraded to a full-fibre connection, you'll be able to choose between packages with a maximum download speed of 1,800Mbps — that's over 24x faster than the average household connection in the UK.
Of course, most internet suppliers do charge more for faster speeds, so you won't benefit from the maxed-out speeds unless you're willing to splurge on your Direct Debit. That said, if you haven't switched to a new broadband deal in a while, it's possible you'll be able to upgrade to faster speeds while spending less money each month.
Openreach aims to fit 25 million homes and businesses with full-fibre connections by 2026, rising to 30 million by the end of the decade. Given that BT-owned Openreach was able to connect 4.2 million premises to its Ultrafast Full Fibre network in 2024 — equivalent to a new connection every eight seconds.
Of the total 17 million properties now connected to the fastest full-fibre broadband, Openreach says 4.3 million are in the more remote, rural and hardest -to-reach areas, ensuring improved digital access for communities across the country – from the far north Isle of Unst in Shetland to the Isles of Scilly off southwest Cornwall.
Speaking about the latest milestone, Openreach CEO Clive Selley said: "Fast, reliable connectivity is essential for the UK, and the increased traffic on our broadband network is evidence that customers are increasingly reliant on it in their daily lives.
"We’re building and connecting people faster than ever before and I’m proud of the progress our engineers have made. We’re well on our way to delivering our ambition of reaching 25 million homes and business by the end of 2026, and now our sights are set on reaching 30 million premises by the end of 2030.
"While over a third of properties have already switched, there’s plenty of room for more people to get a better connection right now. So why not check if you could get faster – and potentially cheaper – broadband today."
According to Openreach, uptake of the faster full-fibre speeds has reached 35%. That means a little over one-third of those who live in a property that has been upgraded to these lightning-fast download speeds has decided to switch to a new broadband plan that takes advantage of these improvements.
This hints at a pretty strong customer adoption of the new technology, which makes sense as last year saw a significant increase in network usage, with UK broadband traffic rising by 10.8% throughout the year.
Demand for Openreach's Full Fibre network has seen remarkable growth, with orders increasing by 26% over the past year. The company now processes approximately 68,000 orders weekly through its network of more than 300 service providers, including major brands like BT, Sky, TalkTalk, Vodafone, and Zen.
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Research has shown that a speedier internet connection can even boost the value of your home, so it's worth checking whether your home is now eligible for a speed bump.
If you're unsure about the exact broadband speed you need in your home. We've put together the average download speeds for an hour-long television show episode in Standard Definition (SD), roughly 450MB in size.
- 69Mbps, the average broadband speed in the UK: 56 seconds
- 150Mbps, the lowest speed available with most full-fibre packages: 24 seconds
- 500Mbps, widely available from all full-fibre providers: 7 seconds
- 1Gbps (or 1,000Mbps) is not available from all broadband companies: 4 seconds
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