Openreach recently reached over two million UK homes and businesses with full fibre connectivity that will support Ultra HD IPTV and online video applications and a quarter of its existing footprint already falls within rural areas. The company is working to a programme designed to bring fibre broadband to areas not included in any existing private or publicly subsidised upgrade schemes and the new announcement will see Openreach widening out its build programme to include 250,000 homes and businesses in more than 200 locations previously considered too complex or expensive to upgrade commercially to full fibre.

The portion of this build plan completed by March 2021 is said to be within Openreach’s previously stated target to reach four million homes and businesses with ‘full fibre’ technology March 2021.

Commenting on the extension of the network, Openreach CEO, Clive Selley, said: “Our full fibre build programme is going great guns - having passed over 2 million premises already on the way to our 4 million target by March 2021. We’re now building at around 26,000 premises a week in over 100 locations – reaching a new home or business every 23 seconds That’s up from 13,000 premises a week this time last year....Our ambition is to reach 15 million premises by mid-2020s if right investment conditions are in place.”

Earlier this month, in another move aiming to see considerably more UK homes get considerably better internet connections, Openreach lowered the threshold for its scheme offering fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) installation free of charge for new housing developments.