Openreach announced today that its wholesale fiber network has passed the 25 million premises milestone in the U.K. The news came as independent data reportedly showed that nine out of 10 U.K. premises now have access to superfast broadband and that the average U.K. broadband speed has jumped.
Openreach’s rollout of fiber broadband began in July 2009 when the U.K. average broadband speed was 4.1 Mbps. Since then, more than 70,000 premises have been passed on average every week, according to the company.
Independent EU data shows the U.K. to be ahead of most European countries when it comes to superfast broadband availability. Availability is reportedly roughly double that in France while take-up is 50 percent higher than in Germany, double that in Spain and 12 times that in Italy.
According to data referenced by the company, the average broadband speed in the U.K. has jumped from around 23 Mbps in 2014 to almost 29 Mbps in 2015, an increase of 27 percent. That measure is set to increase as more customers choose to upgrade from copper to fiber broadband.
“The job isn’t finished, however, and we are working hard to get coverage to 95 percent and above. We are also exploring how we can improve speeds for the million or so premises in the final few percent of the country,” Clive Selley, CEO of Openreach, says.
“We want to build upon that by making ultrafast broadband available to most of the U.K. We will do this using a mix of G.fast technology and fiber-to-the-premises, with the latter focused mainly on new developments and small businesses in high streets and business parks.”