Nexfibre passes 1.3 million premises with full fibre broadband

The latest build report from Nexfibre highlights 1,277,800 homes and businesses are now ready for service, with future plans for 2025 and early 2026 also released.

With an additional 291,800 premises added since the last quarter, Nexfibre remains on track to reach their target of 5 million homes and businesses by the end of 2026.

Following areas to benefit from Nexfibre's full fibre rollout include Eastbourne, Weymouth, Nantwich and North Wales.

1.3 million premises passed

Nexfibre have now passed 1,277,800 premises with their wholesale full fibre network, with properties ready for service and able to order Virgin Media broadband - currently the exclusive reseller of the network.

The network's footprint has increased from 986,000 premises in the last quarterly update, and from 505,303 premises at the end of 2023 when they released their last build plan.

That suggests a build rate of approximately 22,446 to 25,749 premises a week, although they'll need to increase that to 47,720 to achieve their target of 5 million premises by the end of 2026.

Key build areas for 2024 include Cheshire, Derbyshire, Durham, Kent, and Lancashire, although Nexfibre also say towns including Eastbourne, Weymouth, Nantwich and North Wales will be next to benefit.

It's interesting to note that towns like Eastbourne are also being targeted by CityFibre, and while they've had installations of full fibre broadband from networks including Openreach and Lightning Fibre, they've previously not had any Virgin Media coverage at all.

It also means that even modest towns like Eastbourne on the South East Coast will soon have four or more full fibre networks to choose from, which while great for consumer choice, will raise questions of long-term affordability of network overbuild.

Virgin Media broadband

While Nexfibre plan to make its network available to other retail providers, at the moment Virgin Media O2 are its anchor wholesale tenant.

That means, all Nexfibre build will enable residents and businesses to sign up to full fibre to the home broadband from Virgin Media, as well as access their streaming TV Max service using the new Virgin Stream box.

Virgin Media have also recently gone live with a 2Gbps broadband plan, Gig2, available only in areas with full fibre broadband coverage, so either Nexfibre areas or where Virgin Media have upgraded their existing coaxial network to FTTP.

Customers in full fibre areas can also now access symmetrical upload and download speeds with Virgin Media by ordering the upload speed boost add-on for an extra £6 per month on any of their broadband plans.

Eventually, Virgin Media O2 and Nexfibre plan to merge their networks together, and offer their nationwide coverage of 23 million premises by 2026 to other retail providers. Aiming to create a second national-scale operator to compete with BT's Openreach, which has recently passed 15 million premises and aims to reach 25 million by 2026.

Rajiv Datta, CEO of nexfibre, said, "It is thanks to the hard work of our team, our partners - including our build partner Virgin Media O2 - and our investors that we have been able to build at this pace and achieve this reach in such a short period of time.

"We have exciting plans for 2025 and into 2026, which is part of our commitment to provide a nationwide alternative network and the competition in the fibre access market that the UK needs and deserves. Our work matters because, at its heart, better broadband improves the lives of people and communities across the country, boosts economic growth and will help the UK lead the digital future."

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