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Openreach Prices New UK Consumer 550Mbps and 1Gbps FTTP Tiers

Wednesday, Sep 18th, 2019 (1:31 pm) - Score 31,774

A couple of months ago Openreach (BT) cut the wholesale prices for their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) ultrafast broadband lines for UK ISPs (here) and revealed that they were planning to introduce two new top tiers for consumers – 550Mbps (75Mbps upload) and 1000Mbps (115Mbps). Today we’ve learnt how much these will cost.

At present the fastest consumer orientated “full fibre” tier on Openreach’s national network is their 330Mbps (50Mbps upload) service. Faster tiers of 500Mbps (165Mbps upload) and 1Gbps (220Mbps) are available but these are aimed at SME business users (details) and so tend to be a fair bit more expensive – particularly given the £500 one-off connection fee on those two tiers and their much faster uploads.

In fact Openreach have technically introduced four new FTTP broadband tiers today, although some of these appear to be a tweak of services that we’ve seen in the past (e.g. 220Mbps but with 30Mbps uploads instead of 20Mbps). The headline change though is surely the pricing for their new 550Mbps and 1000Mbps tiers for consumers.

The move to launch a new range of faster consumer options is no doubt partly being driven by greater competition and demand within the wider market (and perhaps also some political pressure), where gigabit capable services are increasingly being offered as an aggressively priced headline act from rivals (Hyperoptic, Vodafone/Cityfibre etc.).

Feature Operative date Connection
£ Exc VAT
Monthly Rental
£ Exc VAT

Up to 115Mbps / 20Mbps

23/03/2020

97.03

17.28

Up to 220Mbps / 30Mbps

23/03/2020

97.03

21.28

Up to 550Mbps / 75Mbps

23/03/2020

97.03

27.28

Up to 1000Mbps / 115Mbps

23/03/2020

97.03

31.28

As usual we must caveat that these are wholesale charges and thus do not include all of the many other elements that an ISP has to add in order to create the retail price that you or I will ultimately have to pay (e.g. 20% VAT, profit margin, capacity, service / network features etc.).

Just as a rough comparison, Openreach’s 330Mbps G.fast service costs £14.99 +vat per month at wholesale (£22.14 when you add the MPF line) and the FTTP equivalent is being reduced to £24.28 per month. Meanwhile ISPs tend to charge from around £60 to £80 inc. VAT per month at retail for the same class of service.

As such the new tiers may struggle to match that of the cheaper alternative network FTTP ISPs but we note that the jump in price to 1Gbps is much less dramatic above, which could make for an attractive proposition on the fastest plan. Not that any home users need or could fully use such speed but that’s another debate.

The new tiers will go live from 23rd March 2020.

NOTE: Check out our summary of FTTP ISP choices on Openreach’s network (here).

UPDATE 4:18pm

We’ve had a comment from Openreach.

A Spokesperson for Openreach told ISPreview.co.uk:

“This will enhance the Openreach FTTP portfolio offering and takes advantage of the latest technology to offer gigabit speeds.

Openreach is announcing this now as it reshuffles its product portfolio to make it more beneficial to all of its customers. It is the right time to make these pricing notifications on new speed tiers now that Openreach have a confirmed launch date. These pricing tiers have already been discussed with customers to ensure due diligence and consultation.

Moreover, Openreach wants to ensure that customers are kept aware of product and pricing updates in advance, to give them the time to consider their potential interest in consuming them.”

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Mark-Jackson
By Mark Jackson
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 and .
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Comments
36 Responses
  1. Avatar photo Joe says:

    Looks like 115Mbps / 20Mbps might all but merge into 80/20 just as 55/10 has.

  2. Avatar photo Sky says:

    Will FTTC become 115/20? I doubt it won’t!

    1. Avatar photo Joe says:

      While fttc technically can do 100 they won’t run it at that for various reasons. Its G.fast after 80 or over to fttp

  3. Avatar photo Sky says:

    @JOe G.fast are not worth it in my view way too overpriced by BTWholesale cost.

  4. Avatar photo arf says:

    Can’t complain – current wholesale 330mbit is £38, new 1000mbit will be £31.

    Hoping retail 550 is somewhat similar to current retail 330 pricing. Still assuming 1gbit will be sillymoney territory, and as above I definitely don’t need it.

    1. Avatar photo Jake4 says:

      I guess 500mbps will be around £55-£78 & 1gbps will be £80-£120~

    2. Avatar photo NE555 says:

      > Can’t complain – current wholesale 330mbit is £38

      Not really. Since 2017 it’s been on an extended “special offer” price of £25.39 (available to everyone – no minimum order commitment required).

  5. Avatar photo Martin Pitt - Aquiss says:

    @Mark

    The briefing I’ve seen is 110/15 and not 115/20. Is this one correct?

    1. Avatar photo Eccles says:

      115/20 is the one on the OR briefing.

  6. Avatar photo Chris says:

    Living in Southampton I’m hoping for toob to be able to provide proper 1gbps by end of next year. Failing that, this looks to be the best option, my 330/50 is just out of contact so I’ll be waiting to see what happens with this.

  7. Avatar photo Alex Haines says:

    “The headline change though is surely the pricing for their new 5500Mbps and 1000Mbps tiers for consumers.”

    er hum, over serious with the zeroes today?

  8. Avatar photo J. Walker says:

    I live in York where TalkTalk UFO (City Fibre) offer 1Gb up and 1Gb down for £21.70 at the moment, Openreach cannot even offer fibre down my street even though the exchange is enabled.

    If Openreach carry on like this they are going to loose out to the competition.

    1. Avatar photo Bill says:

      I doubt it. Most punters will never need 1 Gbps symmetric.

      As long they carry on deploying fibre they will do very well.

  9. Avatar photo T Roch says:

    I live in rural Cumbria and all I can get is BTs very basic phone line internet which is so slow…when will we get a look in for even 50 mbps not our 1mbps if we are lucky!!

    1. Avatar photo Gary says:

      Have you looked at 4G ? We get a very patchy phone signal here in rural Banffshire, but using an SXT LTE Am getting 30Mbps plus (we had 1.6 on BT adsl), with the recent pricing changes on unlimited sims its a very viable option.

  10. Avatar photo Sally says:

    Let’s hope the price is decent with the ISP cut on top .- The cheapest I have got a quote for is Cerberus who want £240 a month with £600 connection fee for 1000/220 and an extra £340 a month just because it’s a Market A exchange. Which is absurd!

    1. Avatar photo Spoffle says:

      It will be significantly cheaper. These are consumer connections without consumer grade service level agreements (basically just the voluntary thing ISPs are signing up to.)

      There also won’t be a connection fee IF you’re in an area that already has Openreach FTTP. I had an Openreach FTTP install (BT’S 300/50) last week and the only thing I paid for was the delivery cost for BT’s hub.

    2. Avatar photo Sally says:

      Thanks for that Spoffle. I’ve seen the BT offerings I was sort of trying to match or get faster than I had before which was on Virgin – The Business side of Virgin looked okay with max I think of 300/300 for about £480 a month after any build costs – that said if you have deep pockets and/or the build cost is not that high to your premise – Spectrum will do 1000/1000 for £199 a month on 24 month contract.

      We have BT WBC FTTP 1000/220 at this house and I am really wanting more – I am considering a mid way of 500/165 as I do need the upload more than down for work but that comes in for me as £343 a month which is good but it has a £600 connection fee – the other options don’t have a fee below 500 but it’s not the same connection they say – I was wondering if someone could have an ONT fitted for free and then upgrade to the higher speeds and avoid the install cost – but they say no.

      Still that’s cheap for connection to Fibre so it’s worth considering. Basically I can get all the speeds listed on this page https://www.cerberusnetworks.co.uk/connectivity-broadband/fttp-and-gfast# but I would like to get more than 50 up if possible.

  11. Avatar photo Russell says:

    Glad I’m with Gigaclear: 900 down and 900 up at £55 inc VAT is a bargain in comparison.

    1. Avatar photo Rory says:

      Gigaclear is currently at £75 per month for 900/900 – where did you get your cost from?

    2. Avatar photo Russell says:

      Their summer promotion £55 per month for 18 months.

  12. Avatar photo Chayne says:

    Does this mean BT are abandoning their plans for asymmetrical speeds for two top tier packages as mentioned in June?

  13. Avatar photo GS says:

    Is line rental an additional cost to those prices?

    1. Avatar photo NE555 says:

      No line rental to add – these are GEA (data only) services.

      But these are the raw wholesale prices charged to ISPs, who also have to pay for backhaul circuits, transit, IP addresses, billing, customer support etc etc.

  14. Avatar photo Matthew Allwood says:

    I live in a village that has fttp but bt is the only provider im wondering if bt is monopolising this for the first few years as im with sky and they cant offer it even though its already here

    1. Avatar photo Simon says:

      BT is not the only FTTP ISP – there are others such as Zen. Sky will be offering FTTP later this year I believe.

  15. Avatar photo john says:

    I am a bit confused. my cabinet is FTTC and FTTP Ready . currently on BT and I get about 12MB max , dips throughout the day. when I enquired about FTTP , I am being told it will cost £19K to have FTTP on Demand just installed. sounds like Gfast might help but not sure how to progress ?

    1. Avatar photo Alex Atkin says:

      Most cabinets I believe have FTTP on Demand as an option, its basically where YOU pay for the fibre to be installed all the way up the street.

      This is very different from areas where FTTP is available, as in the fibre has already been fitted up to your nearest junction point, so you only pay to get it into your house from the street.

  16. Avatar photo John Uncle says:

    Will BT provide FTTP 1000Mbps services to properties in Norfolk?

    Literally just seen that after years of slow speeds, finally, Openreach says on their main website that we are “Full Fibre Ready” and wholesale site that “FTTP is available”. with 330 Down and 30 up on the table at the moment. However, only the BT website shows “Ultrafast 2” as available whereas other providers do not show FTTP as being on offer to the same address.

    Would BT offer 1000Mbps from March 2020 then?

    Currently on Vodafone Superfast with a speed of around 4 Mbps on VDSL. The BT maximum product on offer is 330 Mbps. Would Vodafone offer the Gigafast service anytime soon because right now their own checker doesn’t show anything other than their FTTC offering despite Openreach saying this area is FTTP ready.

    1. Avatar photo Bill says:

      I would appear to be on the same boat.
      DSL Checker saying 1000mb down / 220 up.
      FTTP avaialable but can only order from BT or ZEN (300mb down 50 up)
      Thinking it may be worth waiting till March, but also thinking it could take several months after that date before prices are actually passed on to customers.
      Also don’t like the fact that BT want me to sign up to a 24 month contract.

  17. Avatar photo Alex Atkin says:

    “Not that any home users need or could fully use such speed but that’s another debate.”

    I guess you’ve never installed games on Steam or consoles then? Having a really fast connection means you no longer have to worry as much about having all your games installed, as reinstalling them is less painful.

  18. Avatar photo Jon says:

    “Not that any home users need or could fully use such speed but that’s another debate.”

    What nonsense – with some games hitting over 200GB, even Gigabit internet connections will still take 15-20 minutes to download them.

    Similarly there are a lot of power users around… we don’t all use our internet for Tesco shopping and Netflix, some of us run home labs and host our own storage for our families, or transfer 4K video etc: my 70Mbps fibre is regularly maxed out for hours at a time. I had a rare double-disk failure in my NAS last month, and I’m still in the process of downloading my backup from the cloud… on Gigabit, I’d have been done already

    Plus even if you aren’t going to max it out, being able to download large programs in seconds is nice – you don’t need to pin your usage at 100% to benefit from fast internet: most home users aren’t maxing out a 70Mbps fibre connection either, but they still appreciate it being fast

  19. Avatar photo Ryszard says:

    in England it feels like in the Middle Ages. in Poland, fttp can be connected in every village, the service is active two hours after registration. in Poland there are 5 national operators and I like here one BT which can not do anything. I learn from Poles how to connect to the Internet. orange, netia, virgin, upc,

  20. Avatar photo Mircea says:

    The Dark Ages, to be precise, Ryszard! 🙂 Same thing in Romania. Symmetrical Gigabit FTTP connections have been widely available in Romania for the past decade. And yes, you get connected in the next couple of days after placing the order. Oh, and it costs ~£7/month. Why is is so much more expensive in the UK? Is it speculation? All other consumer goods and utilities have a similar cost in both countries, apart from internet connections.

  21. Avatar photo Kenny J says:

    I’ve recently had fibre 150 installed which is 150 down and 30 up, do you think I’ll get a free speed bump up to 220/30

Comments are closed

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