Most homes getting full fibre in the UK already have it
Of the 1.2 million premises that gained access to a full fibre network in Q3 2026, around 70% were already served by at least one other network.
This is according to new data from analytics firm Point Topic, which shows that while the country has seen impressive fibre growth and uptake, much of this is ‘lumpy’ as providers build over each other’s networks and take each other’s customers.
The data shows that overall FTTP coverage, including Openreach FTTP, CityFibre, Virgin Media O2’s RFOG and XGSPON networks, Nexfibre, KCOM and altnets, reached 29 million premises as of 30 September 2026.
Fibre network overbuild (building on top of existing networks) continued to deepen as premises with access to two or more FTTP networks rose from 46.4% in Q2 2026 to 47.9% in Q3 2026, three or more went up from 12.4% to 13.1%, and four or more increased from 1.1% to 1.2%.
So, most of the premises that gained an FTTP network this quarter were already served by another, rather than being first-time FTTP coverage.
The deepening was concentrated in premises that previously had a single network: about 530,000 gained a second or third, against about 310,000 that already had two or more networks and gained another. This is a genuine, if modest, further deepening of overbuild.
Northern Ireland leads on any-network FTTP coverage at 97.4% (little change from 97.1% in Q2 2026), ahead of Wales (89.1%, up from 87.6%) and England (85.6%, up from 84.7%), with Scotland lowest at 78.8% (up from 77.2%), weighed down by its island and rural authorities.
Scotland and Wales posted the largest gains of the four nations, at about 1.5 percentage points each.
The number of premises reachable by two or more altnet networks rose 3.4% in the quarter. Premises with three or more altnet networks rose 10.8%, while total altnet full fibre premises grew by just 1.6%.
In East Lothian, around half of the 23,900 new premises Lothian Broadband reached already had another altnet. Freedom Fibre and LightSpeed added 2,300 premises in Cannock Chase, but only 600 of these were new to altnet coverage. This means that altnets now cover some 50% of UK premises between them.
