Alternative ISP WarwickNet Beats BT to Deploy 500Mbps G.fast Broadband

Alternative network provider WarwickNet (CableCom) has today stolen a march on Openreach (BT) by upgrading their own street cabinets to support the latest hybrid-fibre G.fast broadband services with ultrafast download speeds of ‘up to’ 500Mbps (well above Openreach’s 330Mbps peak).

The ISP has a long history of building their own Sub-Loop Unbundling (SLU) based connectivity solutions and harnessing Openreach’s existing cable ducts, which has enabled them to build a variety of superfast FTTC (VDSL2), ultrafast FTTP and gigabit style leased line services to cater for business parks across England.

However the news that they’ve now been able to adapt the very latest G.fast technology and deploy it with a faster peak speed will come as a pleasant surprise (easier to do when your cabinets are located so close to their target businesses).

Ben King, WarwickNet founder, told ISPreview.co.uk:

“We’re delighted to be leading the way nationally with G.fast implementation. Unlike the majority of other ISPs, we’re not just waiting for Openreach to deploy their service to simply resell a service.

It’s a significant move for us WarwickNet to now be able to deploy this technology, offering businesses the ultimate intelligent interim solution until fibre has the same coverage as copper does today.

We also like to think it is a testament to our dedication in helping the UK lead the way across Europe in superfast broadband technology.”

Apparently the first roll-out of the new technology, which only takes them two weeks to deploy, has occurred in Warwickshire and comes ahead of a wider roll-out across the country. Openreach’s approach involved building G.fast extension pods on to the side of their existing PCP street cabinets (48 ports initially, rising to 96 ports later) and we believe that WarwickNet may have done something similar as they’re also using existing cabinets.

The service is said to be able to provide “download speeds of up to around 500mbps for premises located within a few hundred metres of these cabinets,” but the exact specifics aren’t yet known. We hope to update again shortly once we have more information about their coverage, cost, performance and deployment style.

Openreach has talked about pushing peak G.fast speeds ‘up to’ 500Mbps once before, although at the time they suggested that this might not happen until much later on (by 2025).