Openreach selects Huawei and Nokia to support its ultrafast broadband roll-out

Openreach has chosen two of the world’s leading communications technology companies, Huawei and Nokia, to provide a range of equipment in support of its ultrafast broadband roll out across the UK.

The companies, which have been working with Openreach on the world’s largest trials of ‘G.fast’ technology in Huntingdon, Gosforth and Swansea, will provide cutting edge switches, modems and cabinet ‘side pods’ to help deliver download speeds up to 330Mbps – more than 20 times the current UK average – to 10 million homes and businesses by the end of 2020.

The new kit will be rolled out in parts of Gillingham and Cherry Hinton later this year and will help Openreach deliver its ambition of getting ultrafast broadband of at least 100Mbps to 12 million premises in the same timeframe, and the majority of the UK by the end of 2025.

Clive Selley, Openreach CEO, said: “Openreach is pioneering G.fast technology because we want to get affordable ultrafast speeds to as many people as possible in the fastest possible time.

“We also want to deliver this next generation of broadband services in the most efficient and least disruptive way – so it is a testament to our world leading R&D team that they’ve managed to define and drive new standards with operators and equipment manufacturers around the globe.

“This country already has the best superfast broadband coverage and take-up amongst the big economies in Europe, and we want to repeat that success with ultrafast. We’ll be going flat out to reach 12 million homes by 2020 and we are really leading the way by bringing cutting-edge kit to the UK at a huge scale.”

Jeff Wang, president of Huawei Access network, said: “Huawei has been working with Openreach for many years and we are looking forward to continuing the partner relationship through the G.fast contract. Huawei’s investment and innovation in G.fast will help Openreach to deploy ultrafast broadband from the street cabinet instead of the distribution point, making the business case viable for a large scale rollout and accelerating the rollout speed.”

Cormac Whelan, CEO Nokia UK and Ireland said: “Openreach’s selection of Nokia is a testament to excellent performance in the trials underlined by our world class vectoring capability. We know that G.fast is the key to quickly rolling out ultrafast broadband. We’re excited about our cooperation with Openreach and are confident that our innovation, strength and operational expertise will benefit all broadband subscribers in the UK.”

Today, more than 91% of homes and businesses in the UK have access to superfast speeds of 24Mbps and above[1], whilst the Openreach fibre network is available to more than 25 million homes and businesses. More than 100 different communications providers (CPs) are offering services over the company’s open wholesale fibre network, and all CPs will have access to these new ultrafast services under the same terms, conditions and pricing.