Vodafone UK Make 200Mbps Entry Level for Gigafast Broadband
Consumers looking to take one of Vodafone’s new Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) based Gigafast Broadband ISP packages (based off Cityfibre’s £4bn roll-out programme) may like to know that their entry-level tier is now a symmetric speed of 200Mbps – previously 100Mbps – and all for the same price (£28) as before.
Admittedly the 100Mbps tier had recently been reduced in price before it was replaced with the new 200Mbps tier at the entry-level, but that appears to have only been for a fairly short lived promotion and it’s otherwise been £28 since launch in 2018.
The Gigafast Broadband packages from Vodafone currently cost from £28 per month for an unlimited 200Mbps (symmetric speed) service on an 18 month contract, including free installation (you also get a good wireless router), which rises to £48 per month for their top 900Mbps (Gigabit) tier and in the middle is a 500Mbps option for £38.
At present this is still based off Cityfibre’s £4bn project to deploy a new 1Gbps capable “full fibre” broadband network across 1 million homes and businesses by the end of 2021, which is then expected to grow to cover 8 million premises in the future (due to be substantially, but not totally, completed by the end of 2025).
Vodafone also intend to launch packages based off Openreach’s separate FTTP network in the new future, but these are almost certain to be priced differently (more expensive) and won’t be symmetrical in speed.
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 Linkedin.
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Wow, the difference between the haves and the have-nots is getting ever wider in both performance and price. That is less than I pay for ADSL2+ for 20 times the download speed – (>200 times the upload speed).
Even if Gigaclear actually manage to build the long promised FTTP in my areas by 2023, they still charge £39pm for 30Mbps.
Some people have to be better off than the rest of us.
“us”? I thought you had gigabit FTTP?
I do, however it’s not symmetrical and costs more.
It’s a long ladder. I’m a lot further up it than your good self but, in time, you’ll overtake.
It looks like Vodafone are making their packages line up with BT Retail’s ultrafast packages of 145, 500 and 900:
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/03/isp-bt-prices-new-uk-gigabit-and-full-fibre-broadband-plans.html
At each tier, Vodafone is £12/month cheaper – although BT reputedly offers discounts to those who haggle. Also VF offers 18 month contract vs 24, and faster upload speeds.
It seems odd to be competing head-to-head in this way though, as I didn’t think there was much overlap between Openreach(BT) and CityFibre(VF) fibre yet.
Maybe VF found the consumer demand for ultrafast speeds is not as high as they hoped – but if so, upgrading the base package to 200 isn’t going to help them sell any of the higher tiers!
Come on, going from 80/20 -> 200/200 is a massive upgrade for most.
Most people would look at that and say yup my 80/20 is creaking but this will do me for now. It isn’t until bandwidth bloat hits down the road that further upgrade is needed.
I think more the point is that there isn’t much competition at this quality/price point – it kicks VM out of the park.
I was lucky that I jumped on VF offer last month and got 500Mb symmetrical for £30 a month on an 18 month contract. You do get what you pay for though. Had to change my installation date which I got a text confirmation only to find out that the date hadn’t changed at all. VF customer service was terrible telling me nothing they can do so had to pick another date. Then after 24 hours after install, still had no connection and took countless calls to get up and running.
However since then there has been no issues and consistently see speeds above 500Mb. Coming from a 65/8, this is leagues apart.
Im currently on VM M350 but will be switching over to the gigabit package whenever cityfibre cable my area all I know so far though is it’s within their rollout.
How come no Openreach-based packages offer symmetrical speeds?