Over homes across the UK can now access faster, full-fibre broadband, Openreach has announced. Of those, houeseholds have decided to switch to a speedier connection — unlocking more bandwidth so that even intensive tasks like streaming boxsets and blockbusters in 4K UHD at peak times take place without any buffering.

Openreach builds and maintains the underground broadband cables to 99% of all UK homes. This infrastructure is used by more than 650 broadband brands, including Sky, BT, Vodafone, TalkTalk, EE, Plusnet, and more. It plans to connect 25 million homes and businesses to its cutting-edge full-fibre internet before the end of next year.

Reaching 19 million milestone is good progress, and most industry analysts now expect the BT-owned brand to reach its deadline between October 2026 and January 2027. As part of this latest tranche, Openreach has confirmed a further 21 locations across the UK are now connected to its full-fibre infrastructure.

In comparison, with under 60% of all premises able to connect to its cables, although every single connection enjoys gigabit download speeds.

Openreach plans to connect up to five million more homes and businesses between now and March 2026. These new locations will cover as many as 80,000 rural and urban premises across the UK, including Belmont in Lancashire, Cheriton Bishop in Devon, Didcot in Oxfordshire, Innsworth in Gloucestershire, and Woburn Sands in Buckinghamshire, to name just a few.

Openreach CEO, Clive Selley said: "This is a UK infrastructure success story, so it makes sense for us, and the country, to push hard on the accelerator pedal. Our new network is helping to drive economic growth, create jobs, and will be the backbone of a prosperous, globally connected and competitive UK.

"Last year was our biggest year of build ever - reaching well over four million homes with this life changing technology. No other builder across Europe has achieved that kind of build rate and this year will be our biggest ever."

The company continues to build its new network and connect customers faster and further than any other provider in the UK — reaching an average of 85,000 new premises every single week — equivalent of a town the size of Weston-super-Mare. We've got the complete list of the new locations below.

Unsure whether your address has been upgraded to the fastest full-fibre connection yet? . If you're connected to its next-generation cables, you'll be able to sign-up for the fastest broadband packages from brands that rely on Openreach infrastructure, like BT, Sky, and TalkTalk.

Once your local area has been upgraded to full-fibre broadband, you'll be able to call your supplier and switch to a new package with faster download speeds for buffer-free streaming

In the last financial year, from April 2024 — April 2025, Openreach extended its network to another 4.3 million premises. That equates to its biggest year of building out broadband ever. It added one home or business every eight seconds.

In total, more than 3,500 UK towns, cities, boroughs, villages, and hamlets have so far been included in Openreach’s build programme, with many more being reached through publicly funded partnerships.

More than seven million homes and businesses have already upgraded to use the new network — 37% of a growing footprint — and Openreach expects to connect even more this year. Ultimately, Openreach expects to make Full Fibre available to as many as 30 million premises in all corners of the UK by 2030, assuming there’s a supportive economic and regulatory environment.

Get the fastest nationwide fibre broadband from EE 

It might not be the most affordable broadband package around ...but more than makes up for that with raw speed. The BT-owned brand offers download speeds of 1.6Gbps, which is speedy enough to download a high-definition (HD) feature-length film in under 40 seconds. To maximise those speeds, with the latest wireless technologies at no extra cost

If you need a little more speed, Plusnet has one of the cheapest prices for Full Fibre 300. At £29.99, this is the same price and charges for its Full Fibre 150 plans... so you'll enjoy   at no extra cost if you switch to Plusnet

Ultrafast Full-Fibre from Openreach offers download speeds of up to 1,800Mbps. For context, Netflix recommends just 15Mbps to stream in its highest quality 4K UHD picture quality.

Even with multiple devices in the same household streaming Netflix shows in this pixel-packed quality, there would still be a ludicrous amount of headroom with the fastest full-fibre broadband speeds.

And it's not just download speeds that enjoy a boost with the switch to a full-fibre connection.

Upload speeds, which determine how quickly you're able to back up photos to the cloud, upload a post to Facebook, or share a live feed from your front-facing camera during a video call, to name just a few. Ultrafast Full-Fibre from Openreach ensures a maximum upload speed of 120Mbps — that's faster than most Britons' download speed.

The fastest full-fibre broadband uses fibre-optic cables in every part of the connection, while older connections still rely on ageing copper cables in part of the link between your Wi-Fi router and the exchange run by BT, TalkTalk, EE, Sky, or whoever handles your internet connection

As soon as your local area has been upgraded to a full-fibre connection, you'll be able to choose between packages with a maximum download speed of 1,800Mbps — that's over 24x faster than the average household connection in the UK. Not every broadband supplier offers those top speeds.

EE was the first broadband firm to offer 1.6Gbps speeds nationwide. It has to take advantage of these speeds with improved wireless performance. Vodafone has since become the second nationwide supplier to .

Of course, telecoms will typically charge more for faster speeds, so you won't benefit from the maxed-out speeds unless you're willing to splurge on your Direct Debit. That said, if you haven't switched to a new broadband deal in a while, it's possible you'll be able to upgrade to faster speeds while spending less money each month.

That's because most broadband suppliers increase the monthly subscription price each year. Last month, for broadband customers.

The latest statistics published by BT-owned Openreach shows that full-fibre broadband is now available in 55% of UK homes and business, with coverage varying significantly across the nations.

In England and Scotland, the coverage stands at 50%, whilst Wales enjoys a higher rate at 67%. Northern Ireland leads with an impressive 90% coverage, where Openreach has historically maintained a strong presence.

Openreach has dramatically expanded its full-fibre broadband over recent years. In July 2021, a meagre 15.35% of properties in the UK could access download speeds of 1,800Mbps via full-fibre broadband from Openreach. That jumped to 20.45% in early 2022, before jumping to 30.30% just one year later.

As it closes in on its December 2026 deadline, Openreach has increasingly focused on bringing full-fibre broadband to more rural and remote areas.

As part of this push, the BT-owned firm is also working with the UK Government's Project Gigabit scheme to connect 220,000 homes and businesses in hard-to-reach rural areas that'd otherwise be left behind.

According to Openreach, 35% of Britons who live in a property with access to the fastest full-fibre broadband speeds opt to switch to these speedier monthly plans

With full-fibre internet more widely available than ever before, Britons are increasingly switching to these faster connections. Across the UK, some 6.5 million households and businesses are now connected to the full fibre service. This represents a take-up rate of 35%, which rises to over 50% in older established areas.

Orders increased by 26% throughout last year, with approximately 68,000 new connections being made every week across more than 300 different internet service providers that rely on Openreach infrastructure.

Research has shown that a speedier internet connection can even boost the value of your home, so it's worth checking whether your home is now eligible for a speed bump.

If you're unsure about the exact broadband speed you need in your home.

We've put together the average download speeds for an hour-long television show episode in Standard Definition (SD), roughly 450MB in size.