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The UK’s FTTH deployment continues to gather pace, with analysts speculating that penetration levels could hit 10 per cent by the end of the year
The UK has sharpened its focus on deploying fibre to the home fixed line broadband services, with 2.5 million homes and businesses now passed, according to the latest figures from Ofcom.
The latest update issued to Ofcom’s Connected Nations report shows that 8 per cent of UK homes and businesses can now receive FTTH services, up from 7 per cent in May 2019.
The UK has added around 400,000 premises to its full fibre networks in the past four months.
The UK’s incumbent network provider, Openreach has added 1.5 million homes and businesses through its Fibre First programme, while CityFibre has added 70,000.
”The Full fibre build is the largest upgrade to our digital network in a generation and has the ability to unlock huge social and economic benefits. We are proud to be leading the way having reached over 1.5 homes and businesses already but we want to go further, faster and continue to work with Ofcom and Government to ensure they create the right conditions for a nationwide roll out,” an Openreach spokesman told Total Telecom.
The UK’s Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has pledged to connect every property in the UK to a full fibre network by 2025.
Openreach has committed to provide 4 million connections by 2021 and up to 15 million connections by 2025, providing economic conditions are right.
CityFibre has said that it will provide 1 million FTTH connections as part of the first phase of its nationwide rollout with Vodafone, scalling up to 5 million by the mid 2020s.
Virgin Media, Hyperoptic and Gigaclear are all ramping up their deployment commitments as the UK races to get as much fibre in the ground as it possibly can.
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