ISP Vodafone Pick 50 Homes as First to Test 1Gbps FTTH Broadband UPDATE

Some 50 family homes in Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire) have been selected as the first to trial Vodafone’s new Gigafast Broadband product, which is based off the 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) network that is currently being deployed by Cityfibre to cover 1 million UK homes in up to 12 of their existing cities by 2021.

The £500m Phase One deployment (details) has already confirmed that Milton Keynes would be the first city to be covered (here), which alone should cost around £40m. Since then several additional cities have also been confirmed, including Aberdeen, Peterborough, Edinburgh, Coventry, Huddersfield and Stirling (accounting for about 500,000 premises and £315m of the planned investment).

If all goes well then Vodafone have indicated that there’s the “potential to extend” this “full fibre” deployment to reach up to 5 million homes by 2025 (approximately 50 towns and cities, representing 20% of the current UK broadband market), which would require significantly more investment.

The construction phase for Milton Keynes alone has already started and is being built out from Cityfibre’s existing 162km Dark Fibre network in the city. The good news is that some 50 homes have now been chosen to help trial the service and the first of those went live yesterday (pictured – bottom).

Micaela Perez Amaro, Dance Instructor and First Customer, said:

“Before we started using Vodafone Gigafast Broadband, I couldn’t work from home. There’s no reliable broadband where I live in Milton Keynes, so every time I wanted to send a video to a student, I had to drive to a relative’s house in London to use their broadband.

Now I can get work done at home if I need to, and everyone in the family can get online at the same time without a problem. I feel like we’ve gone from the Flintstones to the Jetsons. It’s made such a difference.”

Nick Jeffery, Vodafone UK CEO, said:

“Full fibre is vital to our digital economy and to the UK’s future as a digital leader, yet just 3% of UK premises currently have access to it. That’s why we are offering Vodafone Gigafast Broadband and making it available on a mass scale, reaching a million UK homes by 2021.”

Greg Mesch, CEO of Cityfibre, added:

“Bringing the first Gigabit homes online in Milton Keynes is a great moment for full fibre in the UK and shows just how quickly this powerful partnership between Vodafone and CityFibre can bring towns and cities transformative digital connectivity. Our rollout is gathering pace, with the first homes live within four months of breaking ground in Milton Keynes and more to follow quickly in Peterborough and Aberdeen.

These networks are future-proof, capable of delivering Gigabit speeds today but potentially up to 40 Gigabits per second in the near future.”

The development marks an important moment of progress for Vodafone’s partnership with Cityfibre, although there’s still a very long road ahead. Meanwhile we continue to await some solid details on their first consumer packages and prices. Locals can at least pre-register their interest in the service here: https://www.vodafone.co.uk/broadband/ultrafast .

Separately Vodafone also used the event as an opportunity to launch a number of new Internet of Things (IoT) devices, including two new wearables and a smart home kit. We’ve detailed the devices below.

Vodafone’s New IoT Devices

V-Kids Watch is a smart watch designed for younger children. It has several safety features, including a built-in SOS button to call for help if required. Parents can exchange voice recordings with their children and use geographic coordinates to set ‘Safe Zones’,[iii] places where their children will typically be spending their time, such as their home and school. Parents can also check on their children’s whereabouts with GPS tracking and receive updates if required. Built-in child friendly games help to keep wearers entertained.

V-SOS Band is an easy to use smart bracelet designed for vulnerable family members or those who have mobility issues. The band’s safety features include an SOS button that when pressed sends a notification to family members, along with a timestamp and geographic coordinates. A notification alert is also triggered if the wearer falls down, or if the remaining battery power falls below 15%. The band is waterproof and features a long life rechargeable battery.

V-Home hosts a range of smart home devices and services designed to help you keep your home safe and secure, even when you’re not there. V-Home includes a security camera, a multi-sensor, an indoor siren and the V-Home Hub, which connects all the devices through one easy to use app. Customers can also add devices such as water leak sensors and smoke sensors. As part of our V-Home service, customer care agents will contact you to ensure that you are aware of any missed alerts – all for much less per month than traditional monitoring services.

UPDATE 19th July 2018

We understand that a commercial launch is now being targeted to happen between mid-August and early September, at which point around 4,000 homes in MK should be covered with more to follow.