BT full fibre broadband passes over 16 million premises

BT Group's Openreach has now passed over 16 million premises according to their results for the half year to 30th September 2024 published today.

The network reports strong expansion, with full fibre take-up increasing to 35%, while increasing the year's build target to 4.2 million premises with no additional spend.

However, BT Group also reported revenue declined 3% due to 'challenging conditions' and continued competitive markets in consumer broadband.

Full fibre rollout

BT Group have reported their full fibre footprint has now passed 16 million premises, around 50% of the UK, with 2.1 million premises connected so far this year.

The wholesale network also aims to connect a further 4.2 million premises by the end of 2025, which they say they can achieve without any additional spending, thanks to improving the efficiencies of their build costs.

BT Group also remain on track to reach a full fibre coverage figure of 25 million by the December 2026, ensuring they remain the largest full fibre network in the UK.

We can see their current coverage for full fibre broadband in the below map:

Openreach full fibre coverage across the UK, November 2024. Source: Thinkbroadband

Openreach is also moving into many rural and harder to reach areas through Project Gigabit funding, having secured £800 million of Government funding to reach 312,000 premises in remote towns and villages of England, Scotland and Wales.

Some of these areas include the South Wales Valleys, Exmoor National Park and the Forest of Bowland.

Full fibre broadband take-up

As well as reporting strong network expansion and full fibre rollout, BT Group also said they've continued to increase their full fibre take-up rate to 35%, up from 29% in early 2023.

While Openreach is competing with large full fibre networks including Virgin Media/Nexfibre which now have a combined full fibre footprint of 5.3 million, and CityFibre who've now passed 3.9 million premises, they remain in a strong position.

CityFibre reported a take-up rate of around 11% in May 2024, while Virgin Media have an overall fixed-line broadband take-up rate of 32% as of Q3 2024.

It's said that to remain competitive full fibre networks need to achieve a take-up rate of around 40%, and BT Group have targets of 40 - 55% take-up, or 6.5 to 8.5 million full fibre customers.

Despite this however, BT Group revenue declined overall by 3% due to 'challenging conditions', although this was mainly driven by non-UK trading in Global and Portfolio channels, while loses from reductions in inflation and competition in consumer broadband markets were offset by growth in Openreach.

Allison Kirkby, Chief Executive, commenting on the results, said, "We have accelerated the modernisation of BT Group in the first half of the year. We've ramped up our full fibre build and connections, seen further improvements in customer satisfaction, and our cost transformation contributed to growth in EBITDA and normalised free cash flow despite revenue declines driven by our non-UK operations and a competitive retail environment.

"Our nationwide full fibre rollout has set new records, now reaching more than 16 million premises, and we have further extended our industry-leading take-up rate to 35%. Our cost to build continues to reduce, enabling us to increase this year's build target to 4.2 million with no additional capex spend. We also expanded our 5G network to cover 80% of the UK population, more than any other operator. These investments in the UK's next generation networks are enabling much better experiences, reflected in our improved net promoter scores."

It's also been reported that BT Group are set to face additional costs of around £100 million due to the minimum wage increase and changes to employer's national insurance in last week's Budget announcement.

Unfortunately for customers, Kirkby has also now said BT Group will need to, "look at our prices relative to input inflation", in other words, consider raising prices, as well as increasing their use of AI to improve productivity.