Qatar ISP Launches World’s First 50Gbps FTTP Home Broadband
Most of the daily talk on these pages is currently about UK broadband ISP packages that reach top speeds of around 1Gbps (Gigabit per second). But spare a thought for internet provider Ooredoo in Qatar, who are about to achieve somewhat of a world’s first by deploying a 50Gbps capable full fibre (FTTP) plan for homes.
Qatar first started to deploy a national Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network at scale all the way back in 2011 and today that network is fairly mature. According to the FTTH Council, some 22 countries have achieved full fibre penetration rates higher than 50%, with Qatar being near the top on 97.8% (up from 84% in the previous year).
Customers of local ISP Ooredoo currently have a choice of package speeds between 1Gbps and 10Gbps, which were recently joined by a new Fibre to Every Room (FTER) product that does almost exactly what the name says (optical fibre ports in every room of your property). But now the provider has decided to step ahead of the pack by adopting the very latest 50G-PON standard to support a new 50Gbps package for homes (they previously used 10G-PON).
Advertisement
Sheikh Ali Bin Jabor Al Thani, CEO of Ooredoo Qatar, said:
“We’re proud to be the first operator globally capable of deploying such powerful technology, which aligns perfectly with our overarching aim of upgrading our customers’ worlds. We have long had a strategic commitment to partnering with global leaders in technology and innovation, enabling us to leverage both our expertise and experience and our partners’ capabilities.
This latest launch is an excellent example of the benefits we, and our customers, enjoy as a result of such partnerships. We look forward to further enhancing our offering as technology develops ever further in the years to come.”
At present there are no details on how much the new package will cost, but considering that their current top 10Gbps “Home+ Elite” bundle (includes three TV boxes, premium TV channels, fibre to five rooms etc.) costs a whopping 6,500 QR per month (about £1,440) then we suspect it won’t be the cheapest of services.
The reality is that harnessing all of that speed is going to be virtually impossible for home users, but that never seems to bother ISPs when it comes to bragging rights over new levels of broadband performance (Why Buying Gigabit Broadband Doesn’t Always Deliver 1Gbps).
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
« Openreach UK Preparing to Launch Ethernet Access Direct 2.0
What will Ad47 have to say about this?
Of course the people of Telford would not wish to have this
😀
I thought an ISP in Sweden had already done this?
Isn’t this just marketing hyp3. In practice, I thought websites couldn’t currently deliver data at sufficient speeds to make this useful?
More or less correct but something to consider is everyone/everything else on a network as well. 50Gbp/s assuming no congestion on the access or backhaul could be split up between several devices while maintaining an expected data rate.
We’ll use a 1 Gbp/s connection as an example. If you have an Xbox (or Playstation, Switch whatever) and the LAN port is rated for 1 Gbp/s and your ISP has enough capacity within their network then you could download new games or updates at 1 Gbp/s.
However, if you had a second Xbox on your home network that was also trying to download at the same time then what you would normally see is the 1 Gbp/s connection being ‘split’ as two 500 Mbp/s streams. Then once you consider all other devices on a home network connection it will possibly reduce quite a bit more. Then factor in that a data packet has to include additional metadata too (See https://www.aa.net.uk/broadband/gigabit/ ).
Multi-gig connections can help work around this but with very large households, prosumers, or both, even 2 Gbp/s & beyond connections can see quite a slowdown.
So yes it is a gimmick. Certainly not intended for 99.9% of regular households or businesses even but it can be a very useful service for the tiniest fraction of those who are liable to encounter problems at something such as 10 Gbp/s. They could have left it at 25 Gbp/s a little bit like what Init7 offers in Switzerland but that’s where the marketing gimmick/bragging rights come to play 😉
Yeah it’s absolutely marketing hype. No home user has anything that’ll fill the 42.5-ish Gb/s this will provide without building a NAS and running a Usenet server, a ton of torrents, a massive TOR exit node or some other service.
Could do it but would be very rapidly booted from the service. Even 8G is, bar speed tests, really tough to fill.
Consumers have bragging rights over how much bandwidth they have, providers how much they offer.
Yours, a You 8000 customer. I don’t like bottlenecks.
Few Openreach spy going to defend their company.
All your 10-base-T are belong to us.
Telford spy upset at a gentle ribbing
There was a 🙂 at the end of that, too.
It’s all good fun.
do they supply a Cisco router?
(other enterprise grade brands are available)
£1500 per MONTH?
Jesus wept, they really going all in for the bragging rights aren’t they? 😀
(Would be interesting to know if they have one ONT per room or what solution they have for their “whole home fibre”)
Broadband and connectivity costs are generally expensive in the Middle East due to incumbent telcos either being the sole supplier or all the available suppliers are in lockstep with each other commercially.
Yep, also here in UAE internet & mobile have eye watering costs. I pay nearly £200/m for a 1 Gbps FTTH line, mobile with Etisalat costs around £80/m for a sim only plan with 50gb data. Oh the joys of having a state owned monopoly telecomms provider 🙁 But on the other hand, Etisalat’s 5G mobile service is top notch so some might argue you get what you pay for…
Having 50Gbps at home is one thing but having everything filtered/prohibited is another. So far they still can use VPN but who knows for how long.
I imagine this is using Huawei kit so not an option in the UK, and the ONU is rack mounted. They’re probably using this – https://e.huawei.com/en/solutions/enterprise-optical-network/campus-optix. – from Huawei for the fibre to every room part turning the home network into a POL.
When you’ve the kind of wealth many Qataris do why wouldn’t an operator offer something like this? I know of plenty of instances of celebrities paying insane amounts for connectivity to their homes and enterprise-grade WiFi installations and no reason why wealthy Qataris wouldn’t. It’s a digital statement-piece.
All that speed, but then they have to slow it up by using a VPN to access many websites as their internet is censored by the government!
£1500/month for 10 gigabit? That’s crazy expensive. Can’t you get that in Switzerland, Singapore or Korea for $100-200? Community Fibre charges only £49 for 3 gigabit.
You have to remember that the example plan is a top end specialist bundle that also gives fibre in every room, not only to a single ONT, as well as a very premium TV package. But admittedly, it’s still darn expensive 🙂 . I couldn’t find just a 10Gbps standalone broadband option on their site with a quick check, which would have made for a better example.
Holy broadband BatMan, golly, darn good for the Bat Cave
Our 35Mb/s down, 5Mb/s up, works just fine for us. Netflix, Prime and Sky Go all stream flawlessly, at the definition we’re used to and happy with. Once FTTP becomes available on our road, we’ll probably have to consider price versus speed and will likely go for the cheapest option suiting our needs.
Goodo.
Sadly, in an age of lightning-fast technology, Openreach remains unable to offer symmetrical upload/download speeds to home users…Behind the times
Not unable, unwilling.
Openreach is a joke end of story.
In the Nordics Lounea from Finland already announced this in spring and are pushing to first deliveries in December.(50GPoN –> 40Gpbs service)
Done already.
In the Nordics Lounea from Finland already announced this in spring and are pushing to first deliveries in December.(50GPoN –> 40Gpbs service)