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The latest analyst note from Swiss Bank UBS has maintained their long-running “sell” rating on the BT Group and predicted that Openreach could lose 800,000 broadband lines to rival networks in 2025 (up from 707k in 2024). The analyst warned that the operator needed to “deploy fibre faster” to stem the bleed and “accelerate [its] cost-cutting“, otherwise they claim it may face a downside risk to free cash flow in FY26.
“We reiterate our view that BT is seeing rising broadband infrastructure competition that is putting pressure on both Openreach and Consumer revenues and we think Openreach needs to deploy fibre faster,” said UBS. The bank continues to hold BT Group under a “sell” rating and points to a 12-month price target of 120p. The current market price is typically hovering around 165-166p (up from a low of c.105p at this time last year).
The BT Group is currently investing up to £15bn on their deployment of multi-gigabit capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband technology, which already covers c. 18 million UK premises and is building at a rate of around 1 million premises per quarter. Openreach aims to reach 25 million premises by December 2026 and then holds an ambition to cover “up to” 30 million premises by 2030.
In terms of the positives. Openreach has been delivering good take-up of their FTTP network (c.35% – a figure that tends to be suppressed during rapid network builds) and Ofcom’s new Telecoms Access Market Review 2026 (TAR) didn’t propose any radical or hugely negative changes. Rival alternative networks are also under significant financial pressures, and many have had to slow or even pause their network builds. The BT Group also benefits from an established base of several hundred supporting ISPs and plenty of related brand familiarity.
On the flip side, some altnets are continuing to build at a rapid pace (e.g. Netomnia) and others (e.g. CityFibre) are looking to grow significant scale through consolidation. At the same time, those altnets that did slow their builds have instead switched strategies to focus on greater commercialisation, which means more effort going toward pulling customers away from Openreach and BT. The move by one of the market’s largest altnets, CityFibre, to sign-up Sky Broadband to their network is another problem for Openreach (here), although it remains to be seen how much of an impact this will have.
At a certain point, Openreach may look to respond by trying to push another round of wholesale price cuts on FTTP lines through Ofcom (i.e. Equinox 3). But BT’s past commitments mean that the earliest we might see this is spring 2026. In the meantime, Openreach may struggle to match some of the prices being charged by altnets, which will themselves no doubt complain that they’re in a vulnerable state and could be put under strain if the incumbent is given more flexibility on pricing (although consumers would benefit from a price war).
The suggestion that Openreach should deploy their FTTP build “faster” is another interesting one to consider, not least because their focus over the next few years will increasingly switch to rural areas and semi-rural towns / suburbs (most of the big urban locations are already very advanced in their coverage). The nature of such locations is that roll-outs tend to slow, and costs rise, as properties become harder to reach and sit further away from exchanges.
One other risk to consider is Virgin Media’s move to open up their newer XGS-PON full fibre (FTTP) network to wholesale in the very near future, which when combined with nexfibre’s coverage (technically a sibling by similar parents) could give Openreach a run for their money (particularly once the XGS-PON upgrades finish in 2028). But much of this will depend upon VM/nexfibre’s ability to offer attractive pricing and terms at wholesale, and we still don’t know exactly how they’ll be positioned.
One final point to make is that analysts are constantly changing their opinions, which tend to vary quite a bit. For example, BNP Paribas upgraded BT to “neutral” last week, Barclays rated them “underweight” earlier in March, Arete upgraded them to “buy” in Feb, Citi downgraded and Goldman recommended “buy” in January etc.
The reality today is that we’re rapidly moving past the mid-way point of the national FTTP roll-out, and the wider market is in a state of some flux. Time will tell how it all pans out.