Our Full Fibre Broadband Build Plans

Building Full Fibre broadband throughout the UK

We’re committed to building the best digital future for the UK, so we’ve announced an ambitious plan to deliver Full Fibre broadband to 25 million homes and businesses by 2026 and we’re not stopping there. We intend to keep building after that - to as many as 30 million premises by the end of the decade – assuming the conditions for investment are still supportive.

Our plans support the UK Government’s ambition of making Gigabit capable broadband available to more than 85% of the country and, in doing this, we've committed to being as clear as we can to support the understanding of our progress.

This is a monumental change to the UK’s communication infrastructure and it’s a hugely complex engineering project with lots of moving parts and technical challenges.

You can find out more about Full Fibre broadband and what it can do for you here.

Where are we building Full Fibre broadband?

Our network connects homes and businesses to Full Fibre broadband through exchange buildings located all over the country, each covering a village, small town or part of a larger town or city.

We call these ‘exchange areas’ and we plan our build around them. Exchanges come in different sizes, so each exchange area connects a unique number of premises. You can find out which exchange area your home or business is in by entering your post code into the map below.

Only interested in plans for your own home or business?

The best way to keep up to date with our plans for your own home or business, rather than your exchange area as a whole, is to register for Full Fibre updates through our Fibre Checker.

Enter your Postcode

Interested in our big plans?

Below is a map showing our current or planned Full Fibre coverage, in every exchange area as of today. Further updates will be provided as any additional locations are added in future.

The map shows our build progress at an exchange level and the areas where people can already order Full Fibre broadband from their chosen service provider.

We have different build programmes at Openreach, the largest being our commercial programme. For exchange areas in that programme, we’ve included extra details about when we’ll be building there. The map also shows areas where we’ve already built - or may still be building in - under smaller programmes. For example, we connect new development sites regularly and we often build in partnership with governments or local communities to co-fund build projects (for example through Fibre Community Partnerships), and also do some small scale upgrades.

Wherever you live or work, you can use the map or our fibre checker to find out about your area or property.

We update this information throughout the year, and we always do our best to make sure any dates are accurate. We don’t like changing plans, but from time-to-time we do need to. This is a complex project and we can face unexpected challenges.

We also intend to keep building after we hit 25 million premises – reaching as many as 30 million homes and businesses by the end of the decade assuming the conditions for investment are still supportive – so if your area isn’t covered yet, it may well be in the future.

Choose an exchange in our map below and learn more about our plans for this area

Enter your postcode to check your exchange coverage in our build plan.

If you’d like a list of all the exchanges and locations currently announced as part of our Full Fibre Broadband Build Plan you can download it here.

Frequently asked questions

Will Full Fibre broadband be made available to every home and business in the exchange area?

When an exchange is added to our commercial delivery plan, we aim to build to as much of that exchange area as possible, taking into consideration operational complexities and investment conditions. Some properties are just too difficult or complex to upgrade commercially, but they may be covered by another one of our programmes or through public funding. That said, just because your area isn’t covered by the current published plan, or we’ve finished our build work in your exchange area, that doesn’t mean we won’t come back and build more in the future.
You’ve finished building in my exchange, but my home or business wasn’t connected. Why?

We aim to upgrade as many properties to Full Fibre as we can, but we can’t always get to every single home or business because of the complexity involved. That said, just because your area isn’t covered by our plan or we’ve finished the main part of build work in your exchange area, that doesn’t mean we won’t come back in the future.

We might still build to new homes through a Fibre Community Partnership or through other Government funded programmes, and of course there may be new delivery programmes in the future which will cover your premises.

It’s worth registering for updates via our Fibre Checker, as our plans can change over time.

Register for updates
How do you decide where you’re building?

There are several factors we have to balance. This includes things like operational challenges, how much it costs to build there, and the commercial conditions such as potential demand.

We always try to publish the most up-to-date and accurate information we can but building a new broadband network across the UK is a huge and complex engineering programme, so some changes may occur – particularly where we encounter unforeseen obstacles and have to respond to changing operational and economic conditions.

For example, the start of any building work will be subject to us getting the right level of support from relevant local authorities, and operational factors. This includes having access to multi-dwelling units, like apartment blocks. When it comes to the actual build, we might also discover conditions on the ground which restrict the proportion of an exchange area that we can upgrade.
Why can’t I see the build plan timings for every exchange area?

With Openreach's commercial build programme, we can identify the areas where we intend to build and the high-level timeframes. We publish this to be as transparent as possible. However, with our smaller build programmes, delivery timeframes are less certain, which is why we may not share timescales for every exchange area. We’ll always try to offer clarity when we have more certainty.
What improvements have you made in how you communicate your build plans?

We’ve updated our online map and postcode fibre checker to give a more comprehensive view of our plans and progress.

The map now shows the levels of current and expected Full Fibre coverage as of today, taking data from all of our build programmes to show coverage level and build timeframes where possible, whilst the postcode checker continues to offer the most personalised view of the connectivity available to an individual home or business so that you can see what to expect for your own property.

People visiting our online Full Fibre build map can now see the breadth and depth of our build represented by a simple three colour code:

Green - We’ve built to, or will be building to, the majority of this area

Blue – We’ve built to many parts of this area

Light grey – We’ve built to some parts of this area