ISP Aquiss Shuns “wasteful” G.fast Broadband in Favour of FTTP

Shropshire-based UK ISP Aquiss has informed their customers that – after conducting “months of trials” – they will not be launching “ultrafast broadband” packages based off Openreach’s hybrid fibre G.fast service, which the provider has described as being a “resource wasteful technology.” Instead they’ll focus on FTTP.

At present the 160-330Mbps capable G.fast technology has already been deployed to cover 2.42 million UK premises, although Openreach (BT) have put their related plans under review and currently only aim to reach 2.73 million premises by March 2020 (here). It’s still possible that some G.fast may be deployed after March 2020 but the focus has clearly now shifted to “full fibre” deployments.

Despite this a number of providers are still offering G.fast based services (e.g. BT, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk, Zen Internet, EE etc.), although Aquiss believes that “such mind-sets are somewhat misguided.”

Martin Pitt, MD of Aquiss, told ISPreview.co.uk:

“A full-fibre approach is now the only logical way forward, putting aside short term solutions for long term benefits.

Our conclusion on G.fast is that it’s a resource wasteful technology both in deployment costs and that its delivered benefits are far less than originally proclaimed. The focus should now be on full-fibre and complete scaling back of any plans for G.fast in favour of FTTP and FTTH solutions.”

Aquiss currently offers a selection of FTTP packages from as little as £30 per month (currently £15.00 for the first 3 months) with free installation, although it’s worth pointing out that they haven’t yet begun to offer any ultrafast speeds (100Mbps+) alongside these; those are expected soon.

Under Openreach’s original plan the G.fast service would have been deployed to cover 10 million premises by the end of 2020.