Research Round-up February 2025
- Veronica Speiser
- Mar 10
- 7 min read
Key publication of the month:
Summary and key points
At the end of 2024, the FTTP coverage was 72.9% of the UK total premises, compared to 60.9% at the end of 2023. The number of FTTP premises was up 23.2% y-o-y.
Nearly 9.1m premises had access to 2 or more FTTP networks, up from 5.7m at end-2023. 1.3m premises were covered by 3+ fibre networks, with this number more than doubling in 12 months.
In Q4 2024, 45 local authorities (LAs) saw 10% or higher quarterly growth in the number of their premises passed with FTTP, compared to 122 LAs a year ago.
Nationwide 1.9m premises could choose between two or more fibre Altnets, compared to 1.1m at end-2023.
At the end of 2024, only 15% of premises did not have access to gigabit-capable broadband, thus marking the achievement of the 85% gigabit coverage goal at the UK level.
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Key February telecoms sector news
BT Group News
3 February – Openreach announced that the first premises on the Hebridean islands of Tiree and Iona are now live as part of the Scottish Government’s Reaching 100% (R100) programme.
5 February – BT enters agreement with Speed Fibre Group for the sale of its wholesale and enterprise business unit in Ireland.
5 February – Scottish Government contracts have delivered faster internet access to around 70k rural and island households and businesses across the country, according to latest figures released today.
Around 200 locations saw deployment of full fibre broadband in the last six months, as Openreach engineers continued work on the Reaching 100% (R100) contracts.
The £600m broadband rollout extended from Yell and Unst in Shetland to west coast islands like Mull and Luing, the Trossachs in Stirling and the small villages of Eskdalemuir and Waterbeck in Dumfries and Galloway.
5 February – Openreach and Nokia have successfully tested the UK’s first live 50 Gigabits per second (Gbps) broadband connection. This revolutionary technology promises to deliver speeds twenty times faster than the fastest broadband services available today in UK.
During a field test conducted from a residential property in Ipswich, the new Nokia '50G PON' technology achieved astonishing download speeds of 41.9Gbps and upload speeds of 20.6Gbps. The test was run over a section of Openreach's existing Full Fibre network, which is already available to more than 17 million premises across the UK, demonstrating that the current fibre network is future proof.
7 February – BT Group to recruit more than 600 apprentices and graduates.
20 February – BT and Equinix today announced an expansion of their partnership to help multinational organisations transform interconnectivity across their digital value chain. The move will help customers boost innovation and accelerate business outcomes.
BT’s AI-ready, Global Fabric network-as-a-service (NaaS) platform is now deployed in over 30 Equinix data-centres, growing to over 40 in the next year. This will span the world’s top 30 business locations covering 95 per cent of the world’s cloud interconnection traffic.
25 February – BT announced that customer traffic is now live on Global Fabric, BT’s brand-new network-as-a-service (NaaS) platform for multinational customers.
The announcement marks the debut of Global Fabric Internet, the first service offered from the platform, which delivers a step change in flexibility, visibility and performance of connectivity.
27 February – Openreach published GEN020/25 briefing is to inform CPs that Openreach will be implementing Exchange Exit Stop Sell, on 1 April 2025, across the published 105 exiting exchanges.
27 February – Openreach announced NGA2003/25 launch of GEA FTTP 1Gbps symmetric speed tier for BDUK Type C.
Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) News
6 February – Virgin Media gigabit broadband now available to 12k more homes in Exmouth for first time.
13 February – Virgin Media O2 has today switched on its next-generation 5G Standalone network for large enterprise, public sector, and SME customers on eligible tariffs in the UK, launching at no extra cost.
18 February – Full-fibre broadband with top speeds of 2 Gbps now available to more than 14k additional homes in Filey and Pickering in North Yorkshire.
27 February – Full-fibre broadband with top speeds of 2Gbps now available to more than 6k additional homes in Falconwood (London Borough of Bexley).
27 February – Virgin Media O2 Business and River Severn Partnership Advanced Wireless Innovation Region (RSPAWIR) announced a new collaboration to trial cutting edge 5G connectivity at Overbury Farms on the border between Worcestershire and Gloucestershire.
By installing a portable 5G Private Network on the farm, this trial will showcase innovative use cases, laying the groundwork for the connected farms of the future and demonstrating the transformative power of technology in crop protection and environmental preservation.
CityFibre (CF) News
4 February – CityFibre completed the primary-build of its full fibre network in Bracknell. The new network is now 'ready for service’ to over 30,000 homes, around 83% of Bracknell homes and most businesses.
11 February – CityFibre, published its financial and operational update for the year ended 31 December 2024.
Record revenues and first year of profitability:
Delivered record 34% increase in revenue to £134m
Consumer revenues increased by 73%
Adjusted EBITDA of £5m, in first full year of profitability since starting our scale rollout
Customer take-up continues to grow:
Added over 181,000 net new customers, reaching 518,000 total live customers
Take-up of over 40% in mature cohorts
Penetration of cohorts in their first 12 months has nearly doubled since 2021
Strategic partnership with Sky doubles addressable market:
Secured long-term strategic agreement with Sky and on track to launch consumer services over our nationwide network in 2025
Agreement nearly doubles CityFibre’s addressable market with Consumer Internet Service Providers (ISPs) on the platform now accounting for 49% of UK broadband market share
Over halfway to rollout milestone of 8m premises:
Network passed over 4.3m premises
Added over 900,000 Ready for Service (RFS) premises in 2024, totalling more than 4.1m premises RFS nationwide
Maintained stable nominal cost per premises passed over the past four years
Secured five new Project Gigabit wins. CityFibre now has nine BDUK lots and subsidies totalling over £865m
20 February – CityFibre completed the primary-build of its full fibre network in Aberdeen. The new network is now 'ready for service’ to over 105,000 homes, around 97% of the city’s homes and most businesses.
Independent Operators (Altnets) News
5 February – Freedom Fibre has connected its first customers in North Shropshire made possible by £24 million of UK government funding as part of Project Gigabit.
11 February – Netomnia has passed and made ready for service over 110k premises in Liverpool.
Netomnia began building its network in the Sefton Park area of Liverpool in 2022 and has since expanded its network to cover even more premises in Stoneycroft and Aintree.
8 February – Zen Internet announced the launch of its 2.3 Gbps full fibre service via CityFibre’s national network, with the package coming in at £55 per month.
12 February – YouFibre preps first own brand router for 7 Gbps UK broadband plan.
13 February – Community Fibre launched its low-cost 100 Mbps full fibre broadband package for £19/month (24-month contract).
17 February – Grain Connect announced they are expanding their full fibre network into Bradford (West Yorkshire) and Bury (Greater Manchester).
17 February – brsk, who is currently integrating its full fibre network into Netomnia’s confirmed that it will be covering an additional 50k premises in Barnsley (Yorkshire).
18 February – Gigaclear start new Oxfordshire UK Project Gigabit Broadband rollout.
18 February – WightFibre extend FTTP broadband coverage to 88% of Isle of Wight.
27 February – Alternative Cornwall ISP Wildanet to cut jobs and has revealed that “external forces” have pushed them into a period of restructuring that is expected to result in a loss of up to 35 jobs (roughly 18% of the workforce).
Other News
10 February – TalkTalk announced partnership with Kraken to revolutionise customer experience for millions of UK broadband customers. This will be Kraken’s first major expansion outside of energy and water utilities to a large-scale broadband provider, with both companies keen to leverage Kraken’s existing system as well as develop new capabilities for the telecoms industry.
Kraken’s end-to-end operating system is already contracted to run over 60 million customer accounts on behalf of many of the UK’s top utilities, including Octopus Energy, EDF Energy, Severn Trent and E.ON Next, as well as other major utilities around the world.
11 & 24 February – BDUK re-opens Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme for parts of Devon and removed Newcastle and North Tyneside from the scheme table.
12 February – Vodafone and Three UK confirm new leadership team for merger.
13 February – Ofcom has today published proposals for upper 6 GHz spectrum to be made available and shared between mobile and Wi-Fi services. The UK is spearheading efforts to explore the sharing of upper 6 GHz by these two different technologies, which should bring benefits to the economy, and has also been promoting this approach internationally.
13 February – Ofcom published its Q3 2024 complaints about broadband, landline, mobile and pay-TV services report, with TalkTalk being the most complained about broadband provider during the quarter.
20 February – UK Government kickstarts work with Scottish Government to boost broadband in rural Scotland, powering Prime Minister’s Plan for Change.
24 February – TOTSCo clarified status of change freeze in UK ISP switching process.
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