Sale of copper-based phone and broadband services to stop in more areas

Openreach says the move is to encourage people to upgrade to new digital services.

The move covers more than 880,000 premises across the UK (Joe Giddens/PA) (PA Archive)

Openreach has announced a further 84 new exchange locations where it plans to halt the sale of traditional copper-based phone and broadband services to encourage people to upgrade to new digital services over an ultrafast full fibre connection.

The move covers more than 880,000 premises across the UK.

Openreach said it was giving communication providers that use its network a year’s notice that it will no longer be selling legacy analogue products and services where full fibre becomes available to a majority of premises in these new exchange locations.

This game-changing technology will become the backbone of our economy for decades to come, supporting every aspect of our public services, businesses, industries and daily lives

James Lilley, Openreach

James Lilley, Openreach’s managed customer migrations manager, said: “We’re moving to a digital world and Openreach is helping with that transformation by rolling out ultrafast, ultra-reliable, and future-proofed digital full fibre across the UK.

“This game-changing technology will become the backbone of our economy for decades to come, supporting every aspect of our public services, businesses, industries and daily lives.

“Already, our full fibre network is available to close to 14 million homes and businesses, with more than four million premises currently taking a service.

“Taking advantage of the progress of our full fibre build and encouraging people to upgrade where a majority can access our new network is the right thing to do as it makes no sense, both operationally and commercially, to keep the old copper network and our new fibre network running side-by-side.”