UK ISP TalkTalk has confirmed that their new CityFibre and Openreach based Future Fibre packages, which offer top broadband speeds of up to 500Mbps via Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) technology, have been extended to homes in the cities of Cambridge, Stirling, Leicester and Leeds – provided you’re within reach of the network.
At present, Cityfibre’s network is still in the early process of building out to cover 8 million premises by the end of 2025 (well over 650,000 have been completed), although until today you could only order this via TalkTalk if you lived in Aberdeen, Bolton, Bournemouth, Doncaster, Milton Keynes, Peterborough, Adur and Worthing, Ipswich, Inverness and Coventry. But this has now been extended to Cambridge, Stirling, Leicester and Leeds.
The same packages are also available via Openreach’s rival FTTP network, which currently covers 4.8 million premises and is aiming for 25 million by December 2026 (here). Prices tend to start at £32 per month for 150Mbps (symmetric via CF) on a 24-month term (plus £4.95 postage) or £35 per month for 500Mbps – the pricing between Openreach and CF is the same, although you’ll get slower upload speeds on the Openreach product (CityFibre is symmetric).
At the current rate, we’d expect TalkTalk’s Future Fibre service to be available across all of CityFibre’s deployment areas by around the end of this year.
How can TalkTalk offer 500Mbps FTTP (Openreach) for £35 + first 3 months FREE, whereas other ISPs would likely offer this package for over £50 (Zen = £56) – in fact, the 500Mbps package tends to be cheaper than most other ISPs lowest Ultrafast package?!
It seems a bit ‘too good to be true’. I know TalkTalk’s customer service can leave a lot of be desired but being FTTP there should be very few issues after installation.
What am I missing?!
I’d like to know how there’s is so cheap as well.
It’s all down to ‘economies of scale’ which means bigger discounts from Openreach and Cityfibre. Plus the fact that they have their own backhaul network which means they can bypass BT Wholesale completely.
I’ve been on TalkTalk’s Future Fibre 500 service (OR based) for a few months now, rock solid service. I actually managed to get it for £30/m after a bit of haggling over the phone.
@JamesP
It is possible that TalkTalk will be happy to have higher rates of contention on its backhaul etc in order to drive down costs. This is unlikely to be an issue at first but may become apparent as volumes increase.
Also, TalkTalk very much aims to compete on price whereas some other ISPs will focus more on other aspects such as the quality of their service etc. As with all products and services, you choose based on your budget and priorities.
@New_Londoner
If contention was an issue on TT, then they wouldn’t have approx 4 million customers. Only thing lacking on TT is decent phone support, however their network is as good as BTW, Sky, etc.
No thanks
I have tried to order TTB Full Fibre 100 only to be told the order has been canceled because they do not have a ‘Cablelink’ in the ‘Headend’ exchange.
Hopefully Zen will follow in those cities as well, or is that exclusive agreement between TalkTalk and CityFibre ?
Yes, I think most providers will be available across their network at some point.
Checked a few addressees in Leeds that get CF via Vodafone – but talk talk’s website still doesn’t show them… Is there an official date for this? Thanks!