Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of premises being excluded from Ofcom's revised second copper retirement threshold on the likelihood of those premises obtaining gigabit-capable broadband connectivity; and whether she expects those premises to be served through commercial rollout, Project Gigabit interventions, or other Government-supported programmes.

Ofcom’s copper retirement framework governs how Openreach transitions customers from legacy copper networks to Full Fibre (FTTP) and decommissions older infrastructure. On 9 September 2026, Ofcom published its new approach to the copper retirement second threshold setting out the conditions under which charge controls on Openreach’s copper-based services are removed. Following consultation, Ofcom lowered the Openreach ultrafast coverage threshold from 100% to 90% of premises within an exchange area. Ofcom also set out that the charge control on copper-based services can only be removed from 1 April 2029.

The government believes this additional flexibility will support the transition from copper to fibre networks, while the implementation date will give industry time to prepare for migrating vulnerable customers. Lowering the coverage threshold does not disincentivise Openreach from building but supports their ability to invest by limiting the cost of operating both copper and full fibre network in parallel. The implementation date will also give time to alternative networks to continue building their fibre networks, including in rural areas, hence helping achieving government's objective of achieving nationwide gigabit coverage. Through Project Gigabit, we will continue to focus government subsidies where the market alone will not deliver.