Openreach trials will speed up broadband upgrade

Tests to focus on process of migrating households and businesses to fibre to the premise and voice over IP.

Mildenhall, Suffolk, will host Openreach’s testing of migration from analogue telephony to digital voice services. This will help prepare the industry for the upgrade to voice over internet protocol (VoIP) technology and the withdrawal of wholesale services on the traditional telephone network by the end of 2025.

Openreach has been working on full-fibre network builds in 25 other cities, towns and suburbs around the UK, but Salisbury will be the first to have universal access.

Openreach’s target is for four million homes and businesses to have access to a full FTTP service on its network by the end of March 2021. More than 1.2 million premises now have FTTP, with about 20,000 more added every week.