Openreach Update FTTP Broadband Spec for Future 5.5Gbps and 8.5Gbps Speeds UPDATE
After revealing the pilot pricing for their future 3.3Gbps (3300Mbps) full fibre broadband tier last month (here), we overlooked that network operator Openreach (BT) had also published an updated technical document (SIN) for their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) technology. This has now added a selection of faster tiers beyond 3.3Gbps, such as 5.5Gbps and up to 8.5Gbps.
As previously reported (here, here, here and here), Openreach are currently in the final stages of preparing to launch their first customer pilot of faster 10Gbps capable XGS-PON based full fibre technology with UK broadband ISPs (Passive Optical Network – the ‘X’ stands for 10, the ‘G’ for Gigabits’ and the ‘S’ for Symmetric speed).
The new technology, which many of Openreach’s rivals are already using, will go beyond today’s top download speeds of 1.8Gbps on their GPON full fibre network and push up to 8.5Gbps, although the initial pilot has so far only published prices for symmetric speeds of up to 3.3Gbps.
Advertisement
The pilot itself is due to get underway in March 2026 and, at present, the only confirmed location for this is 40,000 premises in Guildford (it’s likely to expand). “As part of the pilot, we’re exploring the full range of speed capabilities offered by the technology including symmetric 3.3Gbps and asymmetric options up to 8.5Gbps. This will help us understand how best to support future customer demand,” said Openreach to ISPreview in September 2025.
However, something we forgot to reflect is that last month’s announcement of the pilot pricing for speeds of 3.3Gbps was also accompanied by an updated STIN document from Openreach – STIN 1007 v1.1 (XGS-PON for FTTP), which now includes all the speeds that Openreach could potentially support beyond 3.3Gbps (they’ve listed 3.3Gbps since April 2025).
Just a reminder that Openreach’s main consumer products will, for now, focus on the 3.3Gbps speed, while 8.5Gbps will initially more be part of a technical network test. We don’t currently have any pricing details for anything beyond 3.3Gbps (symmetric).
Advertisement
UPDATE 2:35pm
Take note that there’s a slight error in the STIN document on the last entry, which puts 5500 (Mbps) instead of 8500.
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.
« O2 UK Gifts Free 10GB Mobile Broadband Data Boost to Customers
Advertisement
Leave a Reply
Privacy Notice: Please note that news comments are anonymous, which means that we do NOT require you to enter any real personal details to post a message and display names can be almost anything you like (provided they do not contain offensive language or impersonate a real persons legal name). By clicking to submit a post you agree to storing your entries for comment content, display name, IP and email in our database, for as long as the post remains live.
Only the submitted name and comment will be displayed in public, while the rest will be kept private (we will never share this outside of ISPreview, regardless of whether the data is real or fake). This comment system uses submitted IP, email and website address data to spot abuse and spammers. All data is transferred via an encrypted (https secure) session.
Incoming stream of people triggered by Openreach offering their customers options on the upload speeds.
No mention of pricing difference on most of them yet and if they get released it’ll be modest given it’s £3 a month to go 10:1 to symmetric on the 3.3 so will probably be a fiver retail across the board but let the pile on commence.
Prioritised rates also a good one. Doesn’t mean anything for the actual performance in use but whether Openreach or CityFibre prioritised/guaranteed triggers people.
Grab your popcorn. ETA of usual suspect: imminent.
Not so sure about the bit talking about Cablelinks. Presume that’ll be updated as gigabit isn’t going to go very far and 10 isn’t great with 5.5+.
Hopefully all the OLTs will connect to a switch or a couple for resilience and those switches will have a trunk between them and 100 gigabit Cablelinks become a thing.
> No mention of pricing difference on most of them yet and if they get released it’ll be modest given it’s £3 a month to go 10:1 to symmetric on the 3.3 so will probably be a fiver retail across the board but let the pile on commence.
Unfortunately you can’t deduce anything like that, because no final commercial pricing has been published – only pricing for the pilot. That pricing even undercuts regular 330/50.
The only official symmetric pricing we have is for 1G/1G (available only in BDUK type C areas), which is £100+VAT per month at wholesale, compared to £39.10+VAT for 1000/115. On that basis, you can expect symmetric products to be approximately 2.5 times more expensive than asymmetric.
Was thinking the same. 1GE cable links are prehistoric and not much use even for the current products and 10GE is going to be horrible for 5.5 and 8.5G services.
I really hope that Openreach are planning a 100GE cable link. If they could also look at multiple port options eg. LAGs would also be good.
I see their proof reader failed to notice the error on the 8500/8500 profile too. Table in the STIN and reproduced by Mark shows 5500 downstream.
And this, ladies and gents, is why I’ll never do contracts. Whoever offers the better service wins, and when/if that changes, so does my subscription.
Here’s looking forward to more choice.
Surely given XG-PON2 is synchronous Openreach can do away with the asynchronous products at those faster speeds now? If anything upload should have higher assured speeds given its lesser used, but it all seems to be downrated for some reason. Wouldn’t having fewer “products” help simplify things and make mistakes less likely, i.e. customers getting incorrect profiles set.
XG-PON2 is an old standard no-one uses, Openreach stated XGS-PON which is what most of the Altnets already use, including CityFibre who have a launched 5.5G symmetrical product.
Upstream is lesser used but each ONT present on the PON (regardless of if it has a service) has a management channel assigned which reduces the overall bandwidth for customer traffic. I’m interested to see if Openreach can really get 8.5G in both directions with all the overheads.
And I agree a crazy number of profiles, all of which they will have to test across all their platforms (Adtran and Nokia? + ONT vendors).
@Phil – symmetric/asymmetric, not synchronous/asynchronous. This is fibre, not copper leased lines 🙂
I’ll be all over this as soon as it becomes available…
I’d love to know what the use case is, as I certainly can’t think of one. How much does a 10G-capable home network cost these days? I think I’ll wait for Wi-Fi 9 to be standardised…
I already have 10GbE network at home so no additional cost there. The main use case for this is fast storage.
My bother has a 2.5Gbps symmetric connection and we transfer large files back and forth. Would be nice to have the ability to transfer them quicker. My current upload is 115Mbps so this would be a nice boost in transfer speed.
A Stevens:
A use case would be for using a VPN on a home network for accessing large files from anywhere. Thats just one i can think of. Another would be applying filters in adobe packages where fast upload is needed to keep your sanity. Thats two off the top of my head.
Why is that openreach employ such idiots. That table says 8500/8500 in the description then 5500 Download and 8500 Upload in the actual spec. Come on guys, this isn’t hard.
It’s a minor mistake in a long technical document, we’re all human, it happens.
I’m more intrigued by the downstream prioritised figures as they reflect the notionally “guaranteed” rate. The fact that they are the same as the GPON products suggests that Openreach may be leaving themselves the option of wider splits than the 1:32 employed for GPON. Either that or there is a limit elsewhere in the Openreach hardware / software which prevents assigning a higher rate.