Vodafone UK to Focus on FTTH, But No Firm Plans for G.fast Broadband

Telecoms operator Vodafone has told ISPreview.co.uk that they have “no firm plans to launch” ultrafast broadband products based off Openreach’s (BT) new 330Mbps capable G.fast technology. Instead they intend to focus on preparing their new 1Gbps FTTH service for launch “later this year“.

At present Vodafone’s existing line-up of Home Broadband packages reflect a traditional selection of copper and hybrid-fibre based ADSL and FTTC (VDSL2) technologies, with the latter offering a maximum download speed of up to 76Mbps. The operator’s bundles also happen to be some of the cheapest in the United Kingdom, which seems designed to help grow their customer base as quickly as possible (currently at c.300,000).

Last year Vodafone and Cityfibre also jointly announced a new deal, which could potentially see a 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH/P) broadband network being deployed for up to 5 million UK premises by 2025 (here). The £500m Phase One of this roll-out is expected to start during the second half of 2018 and focus on around 12 cities, reaching a “minimum” of 1 million UK homes (a decision on whether to extend this will be taken later).

However the deal also raised a question or two about Vodafone’s stance toward Openreach’s new hybrid-fibre G.fast technology, which should reach 10 million premises by the end of 2020. Quite a few ISPs, including major providers such as BT and TalkTalk, are already in the advanced pre-launch preparation phase for this service but Vodafone remain non-committal.

A Spokesperson for Vodafone told ISPreview.co.uk:

“It is something that we are evaluating it but have no firm plans to launch. Our main focus is on offering great value Fibre Broadband today as well as working on the launch of Fibre to the Home (FTTH) later this year, which promises to provide a superior broadband experience for customers.”

Vodafone’s position is understandable, although we suspect that they’ll probably still adopt G.fast in order to remain competitive in the many areas where their fledgling FTTH network will not reach (full fibre takes years longer to roll-out). Otherwise they’d risk handing an advantage to some of their biggest competitors.

We are currently looking forward to the moment when Vodafone announces which cities have been chosen as the first to benefit from the new Gigabit FTTH service.

PICTURED: Nick Jeffery (CEO Vodafone UK) and Greg Mesch (CEO CityFibre).