UK’s biggest housebuilder insists on gigabit-capable broadband

The UK’s biggest housebuilder, Barratt Developments, has today announced that from now on all of its newly built properties will have gigabit-capable, fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) broadband available. To achieve this, the development firm has today announced partnerships with Openreach, Virgin Media, and Hyperoptic.

 

Barratt says that it builds roughly 15,000 homes in the UK every year, all of which will now be built with full fibre.

 

The availability of gigabit-capable broadband in the UK is growing steadily, but currently only around 37% of premises currently having access to such infrastructure. Virgin Media is currently the largest provider of such infrastructure in the UK, offering gigabit speeds to around 7 million homes, with goals of upgrading its entire network of 15 million homes by the end of 2021. 

 

That said, when it comes to new home builds, FTTP is already the norm, with the infrastructure being installed in around 90% of new properties. The novelty here, however, is that all three of the operators announced will be able to serve the same premise, giving the owner a far greater choice of ISPs.

 

“Particularly now when everyone relies on fast and reliable broadband this new service will mean customers can enjoy their new home even more,” said Steven Boyes, CEO of Barratt Developments. “A unified service with multiple providers hasn’t been delivered in the housebuilding industry before so it is testament to Openreach for their hard work and vision in helping making this happen. As the country’s leading housebuilder we’re proud to be offering this industry-first to our customers when they need it most.”

 

“Delivering different broadband services on a site by site basis can sometimes cause problems for customers, so by coming together to build a unified system with Barratt it will deliver a much better service, benefiting everyone.”