ISP Giganet Reveal Price for Openreach 1Gbps Home Broadband
UK ISP Giganet today appears to have become one of the first providers to reveal how much they will charge at retail for Openreach’s new 550Mbps and 1Gbps Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband tiers, which are due to go live from 23rd March 2020. But there’s a catch.. the pricing is currently only for homes in Salisbury.
Just to give this announcement some context. Openreach’s (BT) “Fibre First” project last year pledged to invest around £8 million in order to roll-out a new Gigabit-capable “full fibre” network to cover all 22,000+ premises in Salisbury (Wiltshire) within just 12 months (here). The city also plays host to their first major FTTP exchange migration trials.
On top of that Giganet has also invested quite a bit of money to unbundle the local exchange (i.e. building their own dedicated equipment rack into the exchange and connecting that back to their resilient London-core network), which gives them more flexibility than providers’ that just take a regular wholesale solution from supplier(s).
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As it stands Openreach’s citywide full-fibre roll-out is around 80% complete in Salisbury, with the remaining schedule to be reached by the end of March 2020. From next month, Giganet will thus start accepting orders via their website for homes and businesses to access a range of exclusive local packages, which are cheaper than their regular FTTP services in non-unbundled areas.
Residential Services (Salisbury) – inc. VAT
| Service | Download Speed | Upload Speed | Activation | Price per Month | Available from |
| Salisbury UltraBEAM 80 | 80Mb/s | 20Mb/s | £55 | £35 | 1st March |
| Salisbury UltraBEAM 200 | 200Mb/s | 30Mb/s | £55 | £38 | 23rd March |
| Salisbury UltraBEAM 300 | 300Mb/s | 50Mb/s | £55 | £47 | 1st March |
| Salisbury UltraBEAM 500 | 500Mb/s | 70Mb/s | £55 | £65 | 23rd March |
| Salisbury UltraBEAM 1000 | 930Mb/s | 100Mb/s | £55 | £79 | 23rd March |
Take note that their 300Mbps service is cheaper than BT’s comparable tier, which was one of the cheapest in the market on Openreach’s FTTP network (at least for the first contract term). All packages come with a 12 month contract and Technicolor DGA2231 802.11ac Wave 2 WiFi router, except the 1000Mbps (1Gbps) tier that comes with the superior Technicolor DGA4231 802.11ac 4×4 MIMO WiFi 5 router and a longer 24 month term.
Matthew Skipsey, Head of Giganet, told ISPreview.co.uk:
“Next-generation fibre Internet is our lifeblood. It’s what we’re known for and what we’ve been successfully delivering to our UK business customers for well over a decade. We’re extremely pleased to now launch our leading service to homes in Salisbury, and across the nation.
Our significant investment in the Salisbury exchange, with 80,000Mb/s of connected capacity, along with our partnership with Openreach enables us to provide truly game-changing fibre technology at highly competitive prices. Not only for residents in Salisbury but also to other Giganet Local cities such as Winchester and Basingstoke where we have unbundled, and Giganet National cities across the UK.”
You can see the Salisbury specific packages and prices here – https://www.giga.net.uk/salisbury/ , although you do have to select the residential tiers as by default it only shows the business plans and those are more expensive. Just by way of a quick comparison, Giganet’s normal Openreach FTTP tier at 300Mbps is £65 per month (£47 in Salisbury). Quite a saving.
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Take note that we also expect ISP BT to launch consumer 550Mbps and 1Gbps tiers from Openreach soon too, albeit with the same pricing for everywhere.
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, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Very interesting. Not least as they’ve unbundled the Salisbury exchange so no BT Wholesale in between them and Openreach.
People expecting gigabit to come in without at least a 6 at the start of the pricing per month are likely to be disappointed I would imagine.
Now I’ve written that someone will come in with a special offer at £59.99 🙂
I’m expecting 59.99 from BT with a reshuffling of their current pricing. I feel like practically no one is paying BT’s currently listed prices. I called up to enquire about their FTTP service last August and they offered 300/50 for £46 without me even trying to get a discount. So I signed up for it there and then.
Would be shocked if even BT did 1G for £59, as that is about £20 for BT Retail after Openreach takes there share / tax. BT Retail are up to something on the FTTP front as they have no offers at all this week, which given their addiction to cash back cards etc is unusual. So it might not be long till we get an idea.
Well they had to reduce the many layers taking many cuts and making the offer uncompetitive.
You can only squeeze the juice out of a lemon once…..
The main thing is to enable OR so full fibre network usage and growth continue.
This is getting very interesting. Let’s hope it is rolled out fast.
All this talk of FTTP, it’s great for those people who are getting it, we were inside the Open5 map of chelmsford for FTTP, Openreach have now been finalised the install, now we fall outside of that map. I suspect it’s not going to happen for a very long time if ever as we have VM, sadly a very inferior product to full fibre.
“we have VM, sadly a very inferior product to full fibre”
but not as inferior as ADSL!
My area has full Virgin coverage, yet Openreach installed FTTP as well, which I promptly moved to.
Wrong. You are more likely to get something else as most of the FTTH networks are over building existing cables networks.
At least you have VM cable for now!
Think of those that are still stuck on ADSL on rural exchanges to far from the FTTC cabinet to even get FTTC. They will not get FTTH in the near future, 4G is their best bet for the next few years and after that StartLink/OneWeb if they go into commercial service and are affordable. 5G will never reach remote areas at high (100Mbps+) speeds (4G today is only managing 2-10Mbps in rural areas if there is a signal).
I’m in a rural area and get 30-70Mbps on all 4 4G networks.
All these arguments about 4G/5G in rural areas… It shouldn’t even be considered.
Enjoy the data caps, port/protocol blocking (Vodafone would block the ports for teamspeak and discord after 2 minutes of use).
Until the limitations are brought closer to par of fixed services without a stupid price difference then the shouldn’t be considered viable.
Valid points about ADSL though and boohoo for Chris.
Vodafone have better 1gb deals with 900mbs upload around £67 per mnth last time i checked, need to be in a cityfibre area though
It’s £48 for 900/900
Vodafone’s pricing is much much better. If only their CityFibre network would extend around more of the UK. As someone on Vodafone VDSL (with slow speeds), I use their Mobile Wifi to get 4G speeds (with unlimited data). Now after a decade (and told by Openreach that Fibre was six months away every year), finally there is FTTP in my area.
However, FTTP with Openreach is limited to a few providers, of which the best (or least expensive) option is BT. Bizarrely they also only guarantee half the 330 speed (150mbps). The price is much higher than the symmetrical Gigafast product from Vodafone where one can get 930mbps for £48. And Vodafone usually offer a discounted price for mobile customers as well.
Vodafone certainly could give BT a run for their money when it comes to complaints and poor telephone support/service, BUT their pricing is a hell of a lot better. It seems ridiculous that the BT price is so high (£50). In March, prices may well drop. But the best thing would be if Vodafone offers FTTP via Openreach. Their FTTC prices are much better than BT already. That would really add some competition to FTTP if another retail brand (Sky, Vodafone, TalkTalk etc) were to offer nationwide pricing.
BT’s price looks even worse if you look at regional prices for specific FTTP prices. As well as CityFibre, Hyperoptic offer the 1000mbps package for around £30. All this talk about Fibre being expensive to install doesn’t compute when Openreach should have ECONOMIES OF SCALE to be able to deliver this more competitively than the smaller infrastructure providers!
Vodafone’s pricing is much much better. If only their CityFibre network would extend around more of the UK. It’s £48 for 900Mbps symmetrical.
It seems ridiculous that the BT price is so high (£50). In March, prices may well drop. But the best thing would be if Vodafone offers FTTP via Openreach as well as CityFibre. Their FTTC prices are much better than BT already. That would really add some competition to FTTP if another retail brand (Sky, Vodafone, TalkTalk etc) were to offer nationwide pricing.
BT’s price looks even worse if you look at regional providers as well. Hyperoptic offer the 1000mbps package for around £30. All this talk about Fibre being expensive to install doesn’t compute when Openreach should have ECONOMIES OF SCALE to be able to deliver this more competitively than the other infrastructure providers like CityFibre!
Is there any chance Vodafone could extend their symmetrical network to include those on FTTP from Openreach (paying to lease lines and installing their own equipment at the head end and customer’s property)?
Apologies thats £48 on vodafone for 900mb/s both ways 😉
Sadly no use at all to those outside of CityFibre areas – 99.5-99.9% of us give or take.
Finally some bold, competitive pricing and decent competition for Openreach FTTP!
I think this makes it finally worthwhile for me to switch away from FTTC!
Ach, I didn’t realise these prices were only for 1 city… their nationwide prices are still very expensive.
I guess I need to keep waiting for some real competition…
It, er, is Openreach FTTP?
@125us
The thing is here it is unbundled so it is a direct OR sale and you don’t need to go thru BT Wholesale by the looks of things.
Hence why they are cheaper than national.
It is the removal of an historical administrative layer seemingly.
Hi Colin, I work for Giganet and yes our nationwide FTTP home pricing is currently still higher, however we will be releasing new, lower nationwide pricing next month, so keep an eye out for that. We’re able to offer this special pricing in Salisbury as we have unbundled the exchange.
Currently on 330/50, tempted to get this but will depend on pricing. I’m not paying more than £75 a month for 1gbps.
Wow, those 1G prices are still so much higher than Hyperoptic’s. I guess because Hyperoptic only has to run a little bit of fibre down the road where flats are, instead of a whole town?
Some towns are £199 if you are on Net (usually under CithFibre partnership) otherwise it’s like £600 a month for 1Gbps both ways
Sorry CityFibre even. I am in Sheffield and that’s what it is here But I am still on Virgin
I’ve just signed up to BT full fiber 150Mbps down 30Mbps up for £29.99, with one off cost of £9.99 and that’s moving from VM. If I’d wanted the 300Mbps that was £39.99 so these prices don’t seem to be better than what BT is offering in Bristol. They are first 12 months prices bit by that point there should be loads more competition and I will already have a connection set up. I just got fed up with the crappy upload speeds on VM recently gone up from 6 to 10 Mbps on there 100Mbps down plan.