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Strategic report
OCU Group | Annual report and financial statements 2025
Governance
Financial statements
Market opportunity
Digital Infrastructure
Fixed networks: Fibre rollouts, fibre maintenance and legacy asset retirement Full-fibre broadband in the UK is entering a phase where maintaining and operating the network is as critical as building it. The number of full-fibre (FTTP) connections in service has surged to about 7.5 million as of mid-2024, up from 4.6 million a year prior – a ~60% annual growth in active fibre lines. This rapid rollout means a massive installed base that requires ongoing upkeep. Operators are already handling hundreds of thousands of engineering tasks per region each year; for example, in Scotland Legacy copper networks are being steadily decommissioned as fibre becomes the default technology. Openreach has started withdrawing traditional telephone lines, planning to switch off the PSTN (public switched telephone network) nationwide by 2025–27, including decommissioning legacy telephony exchanges. A ‘stop-sell’ on new copper‑based services
The number of full-fibre (FTTP) connections in service has surged to about 7.5 million as of mid-2024.
Meanwhile, the UK Government expects new infrastructure to be ‘gigabit‑capable, reliable, secure and widely available’ nationwide. Building Digital UK (BDUK) – the Government’s broadband delivery arm – ties public funding to outcomes like network resilience and reach: over £1.3bn in rural fibre contracts were committed by 2024 to deliver fast, reliable broadband to hard-to-reach communities. With fixed broadband now deemed critical national infrastructure, network reliability and resilience standards are higher than ever, creating a strong demand for operational excellence. For investors, this means the long-term value in digital infrastructure will be driven not just by fibre rollout, but by the quality of ongoing maintenance, rapid repairs, and customer service that keep these gigabit networks running at peak performance.
is in effect across hundreds of exchange areas, migrating new orders to digital (VoIP) alternatives. With nearly 10 million copper lines still to convert to fibre, the ongoing copper asset recovery and exchange decommissioning will continue throughout the latter 2020s. Industry regulators and government policies are reinforcing high operational standards to make sure these fibre networks stay robust. Ofcom has set strict service KPIs for fixed broadband operators – for example, Openreach is required to complete at least 85% of repairs within the targeted timeframe (typically one working day for standard care faults). Such benchmarks underscore the emphasis on rapid fault response and minimal downtime. Openreach, which operates most UK broadband lines, is explicitly responsible for maintaining a reliable service through continual network investment and upkeep. Thanks in part to regulatory pressure, repair and installation performance has improved over time, and fibre’s reliability advantages are being realised in practice.
alone, Openreach completed 418,000 new broadband installations (including 135,000 FTTP) in 2023/24. Dozens of alternative network providers (‘alt-nets’) are simultaneously building out fibre; the commercial sector plans around £44bn in full-fibre investment by 2030, which brings parallel demands for field maintenance and support services on those new networks. Notably, full-fibre technology is inherently more reliable (Openreach reports ~60% fewer fault rates on fibre vs legacy copper lines), but the sheer volume of new connections means total fault repair workload remains significant. In short, fibre network maintenance represents a growing opportunity as UK fibre coverage matures, even while network builds continue at pace.
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