Openreach makes major announcement set to impact one million homes and businesses

Openreach has revealed plans to add 94 new exchange locations across the UK, impacting nearly one million homes and businesses. In these areas, the company will therefore stop selling traditional copper-based phone and broadband services. The move forms part of the company's broader effort to transition customers to faster, more reliable digital services delivered over its full fibre network.

Communication providers such as BT, Sky, TalkTalk, and Vodafone, who operate on Openreach's infrastructure, are being given a 12-month notice period before sales of legacy analogue products cease in these newly announced locations. This notice gives providers time to prepare for the change and support their customers in migrating to fibre.

James Lilley, Openreach's Managed Customer Migrations Director, said: "Taking advantage of the progress of our full fibre build and encouraging people to upgrade where a majority can access our new network is the right thing to do as it makes no sense, both operationally and commercially, to keep the old copper network and our new fibre network running side-by-side.

"As copper's ability to support modern communications declines, the immediate focus is getting people onto newer, future-proofed technologies."

This latest announcement forms part of Openreach's wider strategy to phase out copper infrastructure in favour of ultrafast fibre, as it works toward a fully digital UK network.

Openreach has now extended its full fibre infrastructure to over 18 million homes and businesses across the UK, more than four million of those added in just the past year.

The company is aiming to speed up its rollout even further, targeting a total of 25 million premises by December 2026.

To hit that milestone, it plans to increase its build rate by 20%, aiming to pass up to five million additional properties in the year leading up to March 2026.

In 2024, Openreach connected 1.8 million customers, equivalent to one new connection every 17 seconds.