Less copper, more full-fibre broadband for UK homes

BT Openreach has cut back plans to upgrade 10 million copper broadband lines using G.fast technology, which delivers speeds up to 330Mbps. Instead, more full-fibre lines will be installed. These can hit speeds of 1Gbps.

Around 5.7m copper lines will now be upgraded to G.fast over the next two years. This decrease will be offset by an extra 3m full-fibre connections, 1m more than initially planned. Currently 1.1m premises have G.fast, while 631,000 receive full-fibre.

The change in strategy has come after the Government abandoned its view that improving speeds in the UK should be achieved by upgrading the existing copper network. In July, it pledged to deliver full-fibre to 15 million premises by 2025, followed by the rest of the country over the next eight years.

BT has come under increased political pressure to speed up the rollout of full fibre. It’s available to only four per cent of properties in the UK, much lower than most other European countries including France (28 per cent) and Spain (71 per cent).

The UK is even further behind China, South Korea and other Asian countries, which are set to provide most of the world’s 500 million full-fibre lines expected to be in operation by next year.

Critics say BT has spent billions winning sports rights for its pay-tv service, leaving the country’s broadband network underinvested.

Openreach said it will continue to upgrade copper because it doesn’t require roads to be dug up, thus minimising local disruption.