New research from network access provider Openreach (BT), which was pieced together by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) and Stantec, has claimed that the operator’s ongoing roll-out of a Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband ISP network could contribute up to £66bn (GVA – Gross Value Added) to the UK economy in 2029.
Openreach are currently investing up to £15bn to expand the coverage of this new full fibre network to reach 25 million UK premises by December 2026 (here), which includes around 6.2 million premises in rural or semi-rural areas. On top of that, they’ve also expressed an ambition to reach up to 30 million by 2030, although this will partly depend upon the outcome of Ofcom’s next Telecoms Access Review 2026 (TAR).
The new research claims that this roll-out is expected to drive productivity gains and improvements to public services, including supporting more than 620,000 people back into the workforce. It will also enable more than 1 million people to work from home, allegedly contributing an additional £19bn annually.
Taken together, the productivity and workforce improvements highlighted in this report should, it claims, boost the GVA impact to total £66bn per year by 2029 and £73bn per year by 2034.
Key findings include:
➤ Job Creation: Flexible work options could help 620,000 individuals, including parents and older workers, return to work.
➤ NHS Support: An estimated five million online appointments by 2029 to help meet rising healthcare demands, doubling the current number.
➤ Educational Benefits: A boost to pass rates for 21,700 students in key subjects. This equates to over 13,000 pupils (1% of the total number of Key Stage 2 students) achieving pass rates that are higher at Key Stage 2 Maths, Reading and Writing as a result of the increase in Full Fibre connectivity between 2023 and 2029. Additionally, more than 8,700 more pupils (1% of the total number of Key Stage 4 students) could achieve pass rates that are higher over the same period.
➤ Increases to Property Values: Homes with Full Fibre see an average increase of £1,900.
➤ Environmental Gains: By 2029, 1.4 million more home workers will mean fewer car journeys and lower carbon emissions.
Just to be clear, this research is entirely focused upon the impact of Openreach’s own FTTP network and is not considering any of the rival operators and networks that exist.
Clive Selley, CEO of Openreach, said:
“Our new Full Fibre network is a growth and prosperity engine. This report highlights how it will create jobs, enhance connectivity, and drive economic improvements across each nation of the UK, but continued investment depends on a stable policy and regulatory environment.”
Not to sound too much like a broken record, but we always recommend taking such future forecasts with a pinch of salt. This is because trying to accurately gauge the economic impact of deploying faster broadband is notoriously difficult, not least since most premises won’t be starting from a point of zero connectivity (e.g. over 98% of the UK have access to speeds of 30Mbps+ and over 85% can access 1000Mbps+ via various networks).
Likewise, we’re all very different in our consumption requirements, and not all homes and businesses get the same benefit from having access to significantly faster broadband speeds than are currently available. For example, the difference between 10Mbps and 1000Mbps is largely irrelevant when talking about basic tasks, like online shopping, email, messaging and banking etc.
On top of that we have to consider the impact of other things too, such as take-up (i.e. it can take years for this to grow once a new service becomes available and not everybody will opt for the fastest packages), as well as issues like slow WiFi (i.e. having 1Gbps+ isn’t much help in those rooms that struggle to get more than a few tens of Mbps via wireless) and the fact that there are many other FTTP network operators in the market.
One particular example of the difficulties of such forecasts can be seen in the above report’s suggestion that homes with access to Full Fibre see an average increase of £1,900. Now this is all very well and good, albeit often stemming from more anecdotal sources. But it only really makes a big difference when there’s a clear dividing line between the haves and have-nots. The advantage gets eroded as FTTP coverage matures toward near universal reach (i.e. once something becomes normal, it ceases to be a differentiator when moving home).
None of this is to say that FTTP won’t produce big economic benefits, indeed we’re confident that it will, particularly in poorly served rural areas where the differences are often much more apparent. But figuring out precisely how much is subject to many caveats (i.e. reports like this are typically over optimistic), as well as the unquantifiable aspects of how the internet may evolve.
Equally, simply having a broadband connection that is more reliable and delivers lower latency, is something that can be hard to put a price tag on. Speed is not the only factor. In short, few could disagree that there does tend to be a strong positive relationship between broadband investment and growth, even if there is an issue of diminishing returns with respect to the speed and technology choices of those connections.
Speaking of which, Openreach’s service, once live, can be ordered via various ISPs, such as BT, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk, Vodafone and many more (Openreach FTTP ISP Choices) – it is not currently an automatic upgrade, although some ISPs (e.g. TalkTalk) have started to do free automatic upgrades as older copper-based services and lines are slowly withdrawn.
