ISP Choices on Openreach’s UK FTTP Broadband Network 2021
In this short article we attempt to clear up some of the confusion over ISP choices on Openreach’s new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based “ultrafast broadband” (100Mbps+) network, which usually occurs once people realise that it’s not yet available from all the UK market’s internet providers.
Historically people have tended to assume that all the most popular ISPs, except for Virgin Media, will support Openreach’s latest technologies, but that isn’t always the case. Several reasons for this exists, although the key issues relate to limited network availability, capacity (some ISPs have to upgrade first), the cost / time required to adapt existing systems to a new product and the fact that the market today is full of many alternative FTTP networks (summary).
Nevertheless, over the past couple of years many more providers have begun to offer Openreach based FTTP packages, including major ISPs like Sky Broadband and TalkTalk that initially appeared to shun it. At the end of the day none of the main ISPs can afford to ignore the network provider’s significant commitment to build, which will make it the largest full fibre operator in the UK.
Advertisement
Suffice to say that many consumers have been left feeling confused about what their choices are. In response, we’ve extracted a few of the more consumer friendly Openreach-based options from our UK ISP Listings to help. But this guide is not intended to be an exhaustive list, just a reasonably reflective one.
ISP Options for Openreach’s FTTP Network
In order to narrow this list down we’re only going to cover those ISPs that offer packages based off Openreach’s 160Mbps download / 30Mbps upload tier at more consumer affordable prices. This package is probably one of the network’s most popular “ultrafast broadband” tiers due to its attractive balance of speed and affordability. On ISPs that don’t offer this, we’ll take the closest ultrafast tier (usually 115Mbps or 100Mbps) – listed separately at the bottom of the table.
On top of that we’ve excluded some of the more expensive business focused providers, as well as those that lacked enough package detail, failed to clearly display whether their prices included VAT, or where we couldn’t be certain whether the packages were even Openreach based. We have not taken a view on the service quality of these providers, so the list below should NOT be taken as a table of recommendations.
Something else to note is that we aren’t highlighting any of the other value added features that may come with these packages, such as cloud backup, static IP addresses, access to public WiFi hotspots and phone services etc. The table below is merely intended as a quick guide to the cheapest monthly options.
Advertisement
Summary of 160Mbps UK ISP Plans (Openreach)
| ISP | Price | Upfront (New Install) | Contract | Free Router |
| TalkTalk | £32 (£39.95) | £4.95 | 24 | Yes |
| Sky Broadband | £35 (£40) | £9.95 | 18 | Yes |
| EE | £39 (£44) | £25 | 18 | Yes |
| BT | £39.99 (£47.99) | £9.99 | 24 | Yes |
| iDNET | £42 | £60 | 12 | No |
| Vispa | £46 (£52) | £7.95 | 12 | No |
| Optanet | £48 | £0 | 24 | Yes |
| Aquiss | £48 | £0 | 12 | No |
| Freeola | £49.99 | £48 | 12 | No |
| Cerberus Networks | £52.80 | £48 | 12 | Yes |
| Juice Broadband | £52.99 | ? | 12 | Yes |
| Structured Communications | £52.99 | £60 | 12 | Yes |
| Distance Voice | £55.14 | £64.80 | 12 | No |
| Spectrum Internet | £56.99 | £49 | 24 | Yes |
| Spitfire | £58.80 | £15 | 24 | Yes |
| AAISP | £60 | £100 | 12 | Yes |
| I Need Broadband | £69.99 | £49.99 | 24 | Yes |
| Vodafone (115/20Mbps tier) | £26 (£29) | £0 | 24 | Yes |
| Pulse 8 (115/20Mbps tier) | £36 | £99 | 1 | No |
| Zen Internet (115/20Mbps tier) | £38.99 | £29.99 | 18 | Yes |
| No One (Trunk Networks) (115/20Mbps tier) * | £39.99 | £0.00 | 24 | Yes |
| 1310 (115/20Mbps tier) | £46.20 | ? | 12 | No |
| Giganet (220/30Mbps tier) * | £35-£59 | £9.95-£55 | 12-24 | Yes |
- Vispa also gives the option of a 24-month term with a free router, but we couldn’t see the monthly pricing for this on their website without first ordering.
- No One is the residential outlet of Trunk Networks and seems similar to Leetline, as such we’ve used the consumer prices for No One above.
- Giganet has some unbundled exchanges via Openreach, which are cheaper than their regular FTTP packages. Sadly they don’t offer the 115Mbps or 160Mbps tiers, so we used 220Mbps (30Mbps upload).
We’d like to add a few points about the above packages. Spectrum Internet only tends to sell their FTTP packages to parts of Wales and South West England. Meanwhile several ISPs, such as Zen Internet, Giganet and Vodafone, hide their FTTP packages behind an availability checker and that makes it a bit more tedious to see what they’re offering.
We also found that you had to go deeper in AAISP’s ordering system before the 160Mbps option is shown (oddly this only comes after you first pick an 80Mbps tier, which may cause confusion). Sadly, several of the ISPs also do not allow you to order their FTTP packages online and instead force you to go through the tedious hassle of ordering over the phone. A few others also made it difficult to see the upload speeds being offered.
A number of ISPs were excluded from our list for various different reasons and the most common were: 1) We couldn’t be sure whether the FTTP packages were Openreach based or not, 2) the ISP lacked a 100Mbps+ class tier, 3) the ISP was too expensive (£100+) / too business centric and, 5) key package / price details weren’t shown or easy to find at the time of checking.
Advertisement
The excluded providers (these are often still worth consideration) included Unchained ISP, Jibba Jabba, Gradwell and BitStreme. Finally, a quick look back at our original article from 2019 (here) shows that prices for the 160Mbps tier have generally fallen and often by a fair amount.
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.
« UK Fibre Builder Lightspeed Broadband Creates HQ in Spalding
Latest UK ISP News
- FTTP (5902)
- BT (3615)
- Politics (2676)
- Business (2392)
- Openreach (2382)
- Building Digital UK (2310)
- Mobile Broadband (2099)
- FTTC (2073)
- Statistics (1870)
- 4G (1771)
- Virgin Media (1720)
- Ofcom Regulation (1552)
- Fibre Optic (1452)
- Wireless Internet (1444)
- FTTH (1384)
Thought this was worth mentioning, first mentioned here:
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/07/isp-talktalk-uk-soft-launch-openreach-fttp-broadband-plans.html
500mbps FTTP via Openreach network – £40 p/m
Is available nationally, where Openreach FTTP has been rolled out?
Yes, but….. it’s TalkTalk
Not even if they gave it away.
Nothing wrong with TalkTalk from a performance PoV, they are no better/worse than BT, Sky etc. Been with TT for donkeys years on FTTC and more recently on FTTP, and have always got line speeds 24/7.
Well, their customer service is often considered the worst around and they were the actor of the largest data breach ever in the UK, but I guess memories fade quickly…
TT forum support is pretty good actually, never had any problems getting issues resolved through the uk based TT OCEs.
As for the TT data hack, as unacceptable as it was, no customer financial details were leaked. Compare that to the BA, Tesco bank and Sony PlayStation network hacks where customers card numbers WERE leaked. Hell even Ubiquiti was hacked recently, yet I don’t see people refusing to buy their kit anymore.
For the TalkTalk 500mbps (data only) package, it’s currently £35 a month.
I checked the price by putting an address in Worcester into the checker, that has Openreach FTTP available in that street. See link below:
https://i.ibb.co/3YtgXkY/Talk-Talk-FTTP-availability.jpg
Unfortunately the author has been caught out by Talktalk’s confusing branding.
The £29.95 price shown is for “Fibre 150 Ultrafast”, but that is G.Fast not FTTP. See https://new.talktalk.co.uk/broadband/ultrafast
If you want FTTP, you need to select “Future Fibre”: https://new.talktalk.co.uk/broadband/fttp
The product is called simply “Fibre 150”, and is £32.00 per month, plus £4.95 setup.
If a widely respected and experienced technical journalist is misled by this, what chance do consumers have!
Also, Fibre 150 (FTTP) has a 24 month contract, as opposed to 18 months for G.Fast.
“If a widely respected and experienced technical journalist is misled by this, what chance do consumers have!”
All of this because the ASA couldn’t be bothered to do its job.
Just my mistake when manually checking all the results in a short space of time (too many windows open), which is quite a laborious process. Happens.
TT Fibre 150 (FTTP 160/30) works out at £28/m over 24 months, given that they’re currently offering the first 3 months free before being billed £32/m for the remaining 21 months.
This is useful. Could we have a similar like for like comparison of ‘Gigabit’ FTTP providers?
I second this!
Talktalk 160/30 at £30 is G.Fast only.
It’s £32 on FTTP.
And FTTP has a minimum 24 month term, not the 18 month listed above.
18 month is also the G.Fast minimum term.
No mention of FluidOne? I have an OR FTTP service from them.
They are business focused
O.R recently installed FTTP in my road. Tried to order from current ISP which is Vodafone but they only offered me FTTC. Same with Talk Talk who didn’t offer me any FTTP choices. Hence ordered 900 package from BT. Was hoping for the SH3 but looks like that’s still 2 b released.
Hopefully I can buy and connect my own wifi6 router to BT ONT?
It would be interesting to see a list of Openreach ISPs who offer / have an option for a static IP.
This will be a massive deciding factor for me when my renewal comes up soon.
Pretty much the only “consumer” ISP who does a static IP is Zen. They don’t have a 160/30 tier, so it’s either 115/20 or 330/50 or more. Plusnet are rumoured to be starting FTTP later in the year, and they currently offer static IP on their residential service for a one-off £5 charge (that may or may not remain true for FTTP).
Otherwise you’re looking at the more expensive, more business-focused options in that list. There are other options not listed there such as TalkTalk Business – who will give you static IPv4, but no IPv6 at all.
If you are technically advanced, you could consider the AAISP L2TP service at £10/month. You can use this via any ISP, but is limited to 100Mbps and 1TB/month. It might be useful if you only need the static IP for inbound services.
Trunk networks consumer brand (No One) or gaming brand (Leetline) also can offer static IPs
Freeola also offer /30 and /29 for a small additional monthly fee.
Mark, Very useful – could you think about a similar exercise for SME Business Users ?
Has anyone signed for Talktalk’s FTTP 500mbps Openreach package, and if so, is it any good?
I took out the 500 Mbps FTTP package from Talktalk a few months ago, getting 450+ Mbps day and night. No issues at all
Good to know, is it possible to configure both the ONT / modem through a web interface? What router comes with the current Talktalk 500mbps FTTP package?
The Openreach ONT is locked down so can’t login into this. Not too fussed though because with FTTP you ‘sync’ at the speed you pay for
TT supplied me with their black Wi-Fi hub, it’s not bad but i prefer using my own router. Im using an Netgear RAX200 connected to the ONT and it works a treat.
Thanks for the info! Sings like the ONT won’t be a problem especially since you can connect whatever devices you need to, like a third party router or switch.
Can most FTTC routers handle all the network traffic/packets on FTTP? Or, are special FTTP routers required?
I will likely get my house wired up with ethernet, before Openreach builds to my area, so not too bothered about wireless.
Any FTTC router which has a WAN port will work on FTTP, no need to spend money on new kit if you’re happy with your current setup.
Talktalk Still part of BT so two both garbage companies reunited basically. You’ll get no quality from both of them. So go for Talktalk because you’ll save money. And enjoy your dial up modem.
I’d be happy with anything thats faster or more reliable than my £30 p/m FTTC 50mbps (max speed) connection. 10x the speed on 500mbps FTTP TalkTalk can’t be that bad can it?
We are with Zen internet on their 900mbps Tier for £52.49 per month EX VAT for 24 month and no Landline / Digital Phone. Very happy with the service and speeds received 930 DL 110 UL.
The Openreach FTTP providers list Spectrum and Vodafone as being able to provide fibre products, but when you actually go to their websites and do a check it states we are currently unable to provide you with a service at the moment. we are connected to the Colyton exchange WWCOLY.
David Lomax: May 29, 2021
Could we have a similar like for like comparison of ‘Gigabit’ FTTP providers?
I’m with a FTTP provider which used the Gigabit scheme to connect the village.
Current pricing, contract is 24months and price is fixed for 2 years.
120/120 £19
250/250 £29
500/500 £39
1000/1000 £60
Voip comes extra but as I gave up using a landline years ago, not really an issue.
They say the speed won’t fall below 80% I’m on 500/500 and currently I get around 480mbps down and 460mbps up. The supplied router does the biz with both WiFi channels not giving any grief at all with a good range on it – even though the user settings are a bit more restricted compared to the Fritzbox and TP link routers I’ve used. I get nearly 250mbps both up and down on the mobile phone. No complaints here.
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2021/04/how-much-does-1gbps-uk-home-broadband-cost-isps-compared.html