BT Openreach Names Latest Copper ‘Stop Sell’ Locations

Openreach has announced another tranche of locations in the UK where it is to halt sales of its traditional copper-based lines that provide telephone and broadband connectivity.

The firm emailed Silicon UK with the news that a further 79 new exchange locations, covering more than 900,000 premises across the UK, where it plans to halt the sale of traditional copper based phone and broadband services to encourage people to migrate to an ultrafast Full Fibre connection (other known as FTTP).

It was in December 2020 when Openreach had announced a ‘UK first’, after customers in the Wiltshire city of Salisbury became the first in the United Kingdom to switch to a full fibre network.

Legacy network

Then in September 2023, parent BT had announced it was putting the ‘stopper on copper’, by halting the sale of new copper-based telephones lines as part of the move to full fibre.

BT Openreach it should be remembered had inherited the UK’s public switched telephone network (PSTN) network from its predecessor (the General Post Office).

Copper at the time was a versatile material that served as the backbone for the UK’s PSTN.

But since 2010 BT and Openreach have been spending billions of pounds installing much faster fibre alongside these analogue copper connections. The carrier has also pledged to spend £15bn for a full-fibre broadband to 25 million homes by January 2027.

And it should be noted that BT is recovering some of the hefty costs – although modest in comparison to its fibre investment.

Last month for example, BT reportedly received £105 million in return for 3,300 tonnes of extracted copper cables. Openreach had reportedly recovered 3,300 tonnes of copper in the year to 31 March 2024.

It reportedly struck a deal with a bank and global recycler EMR to support the extraction and recycling of copper cable from its network until 2028.

Stop sell exchanges

Now another tranche of locations have been announced where Openreach has given Communication Providers (CPs) such as Sky, TalkTalk and Vodafone, a year’s notice that it will no longer be selling legacy analogue products and services where Full Fibre becomes available to a majority (>75 percent) of premises in these new exchange locations.

The 79 locations include Ecclesfield in Sheffield, Bottle, Anfield, Kempston, and Stafford.

Openreach sought to reassure those worried by the move, saying that customers in these exchanges not yet able to get Ultrafast Full Fibre at their premises won’t be impacted, and can stay on their existing copper based service until Full Fibre does become available.

It said that to date ‘Stop Sell’ rules have been activated in 748 exchanges – meaning more than six million premises are now under active Stop Sell – i.e premises where Full Fibre is available to a majority of premises and new copper products cannot be sold.

A further 41 exchanges covering another 292,000 premises are due to go live next month.

“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,” said James Lilley, Openreach’s Managed Customer Migrations Manager. “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 more than 15 million homes and businesses, with more than five million premises currently taking a service,” said Lilley.

“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. As copper’s ability to support modern communications declines, the immediate focus is getting people onto newer, future proofed technologies.”

Users can visit Openreach’s online postcode checker here to see if they can already order a Full Fibre service or alternatively, check by contacting their service provider.