Over the past week we’ve noted that Sky Broadband appears to have started making their new Openreach Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based “Superfast” (59Mbps) and “Ultrafast” (145Mbps) broadband package available to existing customers, after initially only appearing to launch it for new subscribers.
Sky began a phased introduction of their new FTTP service back at the start of September (here), which meant that initially only some new customers could order it (an exception was also made for those with standalone TV). Since then they’ve continued to expand its availability, although existing customers on ADSL or FTTC lines in Openreach FTTP areas often struggled to place an order for it (unless they were moving home into an FTTP area).
However, over the past week a number of Sky’s existing customers have informed us that the service has suddenly becoming available to them. As one reader said, “I’ve been checking daily since the Sky FTTP pilot was announced and it’s only just become available online for me today.”
We checked this and our sources have confirmed that Sky has indeed just extended the availability of their FTTP based plans to existing customers, although the word “some” is used because not all FTTP enabled premises will be able upgrade at this time (we aren’t sure why).
Naturally, you won’t be able to order this at all if you’re not in an area covered by Openreach’s FTTP network. However, Sky’s Superfast package is also available to those on FTTC lines and almost 3 million premises are covered by G.fast, which can similarly be used to deliver Sky’s Ultrafast package.
At present Sky Ultrafast (FTTP) costs from £35 per month for the first 18 months of service (£44 thereafter) and comes attached to a £19.95 setup fee. You can expect to receive their latest Sky Broadband Hub (SR203) router, unlimited usage, a 100Mbps minimum guaranteed download and various other things.
Given that I am North of Watford I won’t hold my breath over this one (thanks again BT) …
Let me reassure you – it’s bad enough in London. I lived in two separate blocks of new build flats (somewhere where you’d think faster speeds would be guaranteed because everything was newly built), both in fairly central London, and yet nobody could get speeds higher than bare minimums. Openreach is an absolute joke, no matter which part of the country you live in.
What did the developer who built those apartments do to ensure access to a fast Openreach service?
Unless they speed it up, I’m honestly not that impressed. I’m already on their G.fast offering and getting 160Mbps with guaranteed 100Mbps so this would actually be a downgrade for me.
Hopefully any installation just now will allow them to speed up in the future.
(And the competitive fttp here is offering up to 900Mbps)
Why would it be a downgrade? For me, the checker says for Sky Ultrafast (£35):
145 – 150 Mb/s estimated download
28 – 28 Mb/s estimated upload
100 Mb/s minimum guaranteed download
Umm, going to 145-150 from 160, you know, its like he would be quite literally downgrading to a slower service
It’s the same speed openreach tier for both g.fast and fttp from sky. But fttp is way more reliable.
They are both 160/30 only sold as 145Mb/s average.
If you think going from 160Mb G.Fast to 160Mb FTTP you need to think again.
I am an existing Sky customer and managed to order Sky FTTP when it was first launched as a pilot a couple of months ago! It was a bit of a lucky dip getting through to the right team on the phone, but once I did, it was a breeze! Anyway, I’ve now moved to TalkTalk’s Openreach FTTP plan as you’re getting 500Mbps for £39.95 with them!
Sky’s NowTv isn’t offering it yet though. Or at least they haven’t updated their coverage checker.
The article says Sky not NowTV, I know they are own by the same company but they tend not to follow Sky
Britan has lost 20 years due to the open reach monopoly on connection. In Europe man have had FTTP for 20 years. When Sky has been promoting super ultrafast Internet less the 80mb for the last 10 years they have just been milking it hopefully they will be pushing for FTTP now. But in Europe 500mb for 39is expensive
Two years ago, I was with Virgin, I was Recieving 200 my download. I bought a USB3.0 Gigabit Lan Etherne Adapter. Which gave me a further 62mb.
262mb two years ago.
Now I am with Sky getting 46 my. I have gone back to the dark ages with SKY. I must be crazy.
Two year ago a bought a Porsche. I could go really fast and race of the line at traffic lights. I even painted a stripe in the side that made me go faster. Now I have a Golf and it’s like going back to the dark ages.
I ordered Sky Fibre (FTTP) for my mother. Her line didn’t support FTTC though Openreach upgraded the pole for FTTP about 18 months ago.
When I checked a couple of weeks ago (after checking weekly for a few months) it was available to order. It was finally installed on Thursday, took a couple of engineers, and they left the old copper lines in place.
It was worth noting that it took several hours longer for the Fibre Voice line to be activated for incoming calls, though outgoing worked straight away.
I did speak to a Support Rep from Sky Broadband about a month ago, who informed me that Sky had to enable it exchange by exchange so that’s a likely reason for the slow rollout?!?!
If coming from the pole then would think that was G.Fast and not FTTP, unless they then installing fibre from pole to house.
If your current copper comes from a pole then it’s extremely likely any FTTP will come from the same pole.
It’s pretty rare that they dig up a street to install fibre if it already has telegraph poles.
Openreach uses poles near my mother (homes were built in the 1920’s, so do not have ducting). There’s a fibre distribution at the top of the pole where they simply plug in the fibre. Each pole has two fibre connections back to the nearest distribution point. Had to ask the OR engineer for that info! So, as they didn’t remove the old copper, there’s now three cables hanging (one was an old copper line when I used to live there).
Definitely NOT G.FAST as OR didn’t upgrade her local cabinet to FTTC, so she had to jump from 11mb/s dsl to 80mb/s fibre.
We have over 200 houses around us all get fttp but my street of 30 houses can only get fttc so we restricted to no more than 76mb
Ha!!!! I have 10M downstream sync and 0.6 upstream sync with frequent drop outs!
Count yourselves very lucky, I’m not even rural; my house is simply at the end of a ‘no through road’. I’m waiting patiently for FTTP and It’s frustrating to see so many areas upgrading “fast” lines to “super fast” lines when there’s so many slow connections like mine!
I too am frustrated at reading of people complaining when they are getting upgrades from a high speed to even higher whilst I’m stuck on 18 Mb (guaranteed 12Mb). I wonder if we’ve even got fttc. It seems the newer estate next door is already better and being improved, so not really rubbing our noses in it.
Why do you get frustrated at how a commercial company(s) deployed its broadband network? If you want it so bad then do something about it like B4RN or an Openreach CFP.
Complaining into the internet echo chamber will do nothing except make you feel worse.
Companies will do what makes them money, if your house doesn’t fit their business case it won’t get done. There is no obligation on any company to build FTTH to everyone.
Sky Superfast and Ultrafast broadband are not FTTP (fibre to the premises); they’re FTTC (fibre to the cabinet). Just an FYI. 🙂
Not correct. You buy a package from sky not the technology it’s provided on, they offer the package and they get it on the best tech they can eg fttc or fttp so depending on where you live and what is available super fast (up to 80) can be on either fttc or fttp and ultrafast 1 and 2* (150 and 285 respectively) will either be provisioned on Gfast or fttp
*ultrafast 2 not available quite yet unless as part of a trial
Sky provision your broadband on the best available.
Great to have the ability to buy higher speeds but the cost! If this is on top of someone’s existing package e.g Sky, then it too expensive for many to purchase. It’s just too greedy.
Sky’s FTTP is £27 for Superfast (72-75M) which is very competitive, or £35 for Ultrafast (145-150M), which is inline with others.
For comparison:
BT is £30 (74M) or £40 (150M) – reduced to £35 if you go via a special link (bt.com/campaign/full-fibre).
Talktalk Future Fibre 150 is £35.
Zen’s 100M service is £39.
It appears that once again the North is being left til last, spoke to a Sky advisor who says that it’s only available to certain customers but the only ones he’s seen in the last week have been in around London
I gave up waiting for Sky FTTP and went
to BT however yesterday I tried putting
in a local address into the Sky Broadband
page and it offered Ultra at 145Mps
download so maybe worth a try.
Seeing as I am happily paying Sky and AASIP for FTTC – probably spending around £90 a month for 130Mb.
I’d bite any FTTP providers arm off as soon as it’s available here. I’m not really up for paying for FTTPoD – Desktop quote was over £5K. I’ll wait.
Hi i have been a sky customer for years and time and time again get told you can’t have it. Really wanna leave but soghned upto a new contract when wasn’t thinking about what I was doing. Same rubbish speeds everyday cant have phone on WiFi if another things on it had many many phone calls too. Seen this article went to check and oh surprise I still can’t get it. Funny thing is I don’t want anything for free like the stories I here im willing to pay just want decent speeds for christ sakes . Can anyone help please lol.