Vodafone today claims to have “overtaken” BT to become the UK’s “largest full fibre broadband provider” via their Gigafast Broadband plans, but they aren’t referring to customer figures (1 million). Instead, this reflects the fact that they now sell gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) plans via both Openreach and CityFibre.
The operator has actually been selling FTTP packages via both Openreach and CityFibre’s respective full fibre networks for a while, but until recently they weren’t available to every single one of CityFibre’s build locations. But last year they announced a new agreement (here) that would see their reach expand across CityFibre’s entire network, which was due to complete this spring (we were given an end of April 2022 date).
According to the announcement, this means that Vodafone can now sell their full fibre packages to more than 8 million homes via the two networks (CityFibre seems to get priority in areas where the two networks overlap), which sounds about right. The operator also notes that their fastest 910Mbps Full Fibre plan is currently £10.99 per month cheaper than BT’s equivalent, although there are plenty of other ISPs in the market.
Max Taylor, Consumer Director at Vodafone UK, said:
“During the current cost of living crisis we want consumers to know there is no need to pay too much for an equivalent broadband product, and we urge them to take a look around to get the best price possible. Most major broadband providers, including Vodafone offer the same Openreach service so customers can switch their broadband and often save hundreds of pounds.
As Vodafone now offers Full Fibre to 8m homes, more than anyone else, more families than ever before can get the most reliable broadband technology, at an affordable price from a brand they know and trust.”
However, the claim of being the “largest full fibre broadband provider” may be short-lived, largely because Vodafone aren’t the only ISP harnessing multiple full fibre networks. For example, TalkTalk and Zen Internet will soon achieve a similar status, while Giganet aren’t far behind (Zen expect to reach this stage by “late 2022” – here, while Giganet should be there by around the end of April 2023 – here).
UPDATE 11:30am
We’ve noted that Vodafone’s service still doesn’t appear to be available to every location covered by CityFibre’s full fibre network (e.g. Newcastle). We’re attempting to find out when this might be achieved.
UPDATE 4:50pm
A spokesperson for Vodafone has informed us that they are still “awaiting CityFibre’s onboarding of some cities – Newcastle being one of those. Most of these remaining cities are due to go live later this year.” The mixed messages around availability continue to cause confusion. CityFibre’s rollout in Newcastle started in 2019 and some other providers (e.g. TalkTalk) are already selling services over it.
Feels a bit “Emperor’s new clothes”
I am sick of Vodafone making these announcements when they are not true. They said in November 2021 they would have FTTP available over the whole of CityFibre network by the start of April. They then said they would have it available by the end of April. Then it was by the end of Spring. Summer is officially a week away and still no FTTP in Newcastle even though the cables are laid and the service is active for both TalkTalk and Giganet.
The CityFibre footprint sold by Zen, TalkTalk in Newcastle is not counting towards the 8 million.
Yep take these Vodafone claims with a pinch of salt. For example in Inverness (IV2 5FJ), Cityfibre has been live for nearly a year yet the fastest speed VF can offer at offer at this location is 200/27 Mbps – which is clearly Openreach FTTP based. TalkTalk, Zen and Brawband (spit) have been selling Cityfibre based services for a while now in Inverness.
The 8 million is a merge of Openreach and CityFibre footprint.
Inverness is still TalkTalk/Zen/brawband area for CityFibre
Even if so, making these kind of announcements when they cannot fulfil their previous announcements is pretty bad form. They need to fulfil what they promised multiple times. Then they can make all the announcements about how great their coverage is across the country.
If BT Retail was truly independent from Openreach (as it likes to claim) then theres nothing stopping it from selling FTTP services over the Cityfibre network. Oh look, are those pigs I’ve just seen flying past my window?
While BT Retail and Openreach are seperate, they are still under BT Group leadership who are paying for Openreach FTTP and will want a return.
I would be happy if just Sky started selling CityFibre FTTP.
I don’t understand this claim, are Vodafone saying they offer their service over all Openreach FTTP lines? I live in a new build with Openreach FTTP and Vodafone’s website says “Sorry, we can’t get broadband to your address” for my postcode.
Btw, I’m quite happy with my current supplier, not particularly keen to go back to Vodafone, just trying to understand their claim.
@Nic
Yes Vodafone sell operneach FTTP, this doesn’t mean that Vodafone actually have presence in every BT exchange required to be able to consume every area covered by FTTP
With Cityfibre Vodafone can pick up the entire FTTP network in multiple locations and sell services much more easily, this is not a service Openreach offer and ISPs need to have presence in the relevant serving exchange with the relevant links to the BT kit in place and other factors to offer a service. This is true for any provider consuming FTTP directly from Openreach not just Vodafone.
“With Cityfibre Vodafone can pick up the entire FTTP network in multiple locations and sell services much more easily, this is not a service Openreach offer and ISPs need to have presence in the relevant serving exchange with the relevant links to the BT kit in place and other factors to offer a service.”
Anon, how does CityFibre offer wholesale service within its Franchise areas, different to Openreach? To be honest, I don’t know how Openreach unbundle FTTP either.
My guess is the easiest way to seperate CP’s, on the same OLT, is to place the individual CP customers into dedicated Vlans dependent on the relevant CP; Once the data is placed in Vlan’s you can stream it wherever, either sharing the infrastructure providers backhaul connectivity, or breaking it out locally and backhauling it over the relevant CP’s own links. I would guess other services might come into consideration, like offering various CP’s ONT access, and testing facilities for their own customer connections. I’m only asking, as you seem to know the different methods, for offering wholesale service, utilised by both CityFibre, and Openreach.
To connect to the entire Openreach customer base needs a connection to every Openreach OLT in the country. Directly, via a fibre cable, with your own kit in each of the thousand or so handover exchanges.
Or you pay someone like BT Wholesale to handle that and deliver it all to you across one or more NNIs. They will of course charge you to do this.
CityFibre now offer both options. They can handle both the Openreach and BT Wholesale part and allow an ISP reach of all their network from a single NNI or many. They’ve been knitting together their networks via their own fibre and a deal with Neos in order to do this.
“CityFibre now offer both options. They can handle both the Openreach and BT Wholesale part and allow an ISP reach of all their network from a single NNI or many.”
Since when have Cityfibre been using Openreach last mile FTTP cabling?
I didn’t say that, Billy, I said that they could replace both Openreach and BT Wholesale. Apologies if this wasn’t clear.
Yeah same here… Also no talk talk… I was also wondering if that’s got to do with CF coming to the area soon and VF don’t wanna build up expensive OR capacity before the cheaper CF will be available?
This is where Equinox might cause an issue for Vodafone, migrating Openreach FTTC customers onto CityFibre FTTP; Since a significant reduction in FTTC customers, within the CityFibre franchise areas, could reduce the national balance of FTTP, and FTTC, Openreach customers. Reduce the FTTC customers too much, and the Equinox discounts could be put at risk, if I’m understanding it correctly.
Have I got it back to front in that post? If I have, it begs the question, why is CityFibre fighting the Equinox offer?
The discount is on the Openreach fibre plans so they’d get no discount if they signed up to City Fibre. It would therefore depend on if City Fibre is cheaper for Vodafone than Openreach and Equinox.
It is cheaper though not by a huge amount.
Vodafone CityFibre’s footprint is less than a quarter of Openreach’s and isn’t going to be more than a third of it this side of 2026 even if CityFibre hit their coverage target. Vodafone will have produced forecasts and submitted them to Openreach with this in mind.
Losing FTTC isn’t a big deal. Equinox is based around proportion of signups that are FTTP, not retention of FTTC customers.
I have Openreach/BT installed FTTP and have speeds of 900mbps for the last 5 years. Vodafone says they can only offer max speeds of 200mbps. Can anyone explain why they would limit the offer to 200mbps if the Fibre is already installed by Openreach?