UK ISP Options on Openreach’s FTTP Broadband Network – 2022
We’ve today gone back to summarise most of the key UK consumer ISP choices on Openreach’s new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based “ultrafast” (100Mbps+) broadband network, which is currently available to 8 million homes and businesses – rising to 10 million by the end of this year.
Today’s market is chocked full of alternative full fibre networks, yet Openreach remains the largest open-access provider of such infrastructure, and as such none of the main internet service providers can afford to ignore the operator’s significant commitment to build – this will eventually ensure its position as the largest FTTP network in the UK.
Nevertheless, many consumers still find themselves confused about what their choices are, and thus we’ve extracted a few of the more consumer friendly Openreach-based options from our UK ISP Listings to help. This guide is not intended to be an exhaustive list, just a reasonably reflective one.
In order to narrow this list down, we’re only going to cover those ISPs that offer packages based off Openreach’s cheapest 100Mbps+ class of “ultrafast broadband” packages – at consumer affordable prices. Most providers typically adopt their 160Mbps download (30Mbps upload) tier for this, but others pick the 115Mbp (20Mbps) or even 110Mbps (15Mbps) plan instead. Providers that don’t offer these plans have been excluded.
ISP Options on Openreach’s FTTP Network
The following table excludes some of the more expensive business focused providers (e.g. those above £100+), as well as any that lacked key package details, failed to clearly display whether their prices included VAT, or where we couldn’t ascertain whether the packages were even Openreach based. We have not taken a view on the service quality of these providers, so the list below is NOT to 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 Wi-Fi hotspots and phone services etc. The table below is merely intended as a quick broadband guide, ordered by price.
Ultrafast (100Mbps) UK ISP Plans – Openreach
| ISP | Price | New Install | Contract | Router |
| Vodafone 115/20 | £25 (£36) | £0 | 24 | Yes |
| EE 110/15 | £28.50 (£40) | £0 | 24 | Yes |
| Plusnet 160/30 | £29.99 (£35) | £0 | 24 | Yes |
| Shell Energy 115/20 | £30.99 (£37.99) | £0 | 18 | Yes |
| Giganet 160/30 | £32 | £55 | 12 | Yes |
| TalkTalk 160/30 | £32 (£39.95) | £0 | 18 | Yes |
| Sky Broadband 160/30 | £32 (£40) | £0 | 18 | Yes |
| Direct Save Telecom 115/20 | £34.95 | £8.95 | 18 | Yes |
| BT 160/30 | £35.99 (£39.99) | £29.99 | 24 | Yes |
| Pulse 8 115/20 | £36 | £99 | 1 | No |
| 1310 115/20 | £36 | £60 | 12 | No |
| No One (Trunk Networks) 110/15 | £35.99 | £60 | 24 | Yes |
| Zen Internet 115/20 | £37.99 | £19.99 | 18 | Yes |
| Vispa 115/20 | £38.99 (£44.99) | £0 | 24 | No |
| Cerberus Networks 115/20 | £39 | £48 | 12 | No |
| Cuckoo 115/20 | £39.99 | £0 | 12 | Yes |
| Unchained 160/30 | £41.99 | £0 | 12 | No |
| Aquiss 160/30 | £42 | £0 | 12 | No |
| iDNET 220/30 | £42 | £60 | 24 | Yes |
| webmate 160/30 | £42.50 | £0 | 1-12 | Yes |
| Freeola 160/30 | £42.98 | £0 | 1 | No |
| File Sanctuary 160/30 | £43.20 | £0 | 12 | No |
| AAISP 115/20 | £47 | £100 | 12 | Yes |
| Spitfire 115/20 | £50.40 | £0 | 24 | Yes |
| Optanet 160/30 | £50.40 | £0 | 24 | Yes |
| Juice Broadband 160/30 | £52.99 | ? | 12 | Yes |
| Distance Voice 160/30 | £55.14 | £64.80 | 12 | No |
| Stream Networks 160/30 | £61.50 | £0 | 24 | Yes |
The list above excluded a number of providers for different reasons. For example, SAQ, CIX, Giant, Your Coop and ZYBRE weren’t included because they didn’t appear to offer a 100Mbps class package (i.e. anything between 100Mbps and up to 199Mbps). In other cases, we couldn’t be sure whether the provider’s packages were Openreach based.
On top of that, a few ISPs also failed to display key package or price details for Openreach-based services (e.g. Voice Host) and some others were excluded because you couldn’t take them without bundling in a mobile service (e.g. Utility Warehouse). In addition, Green ISP was excluded because their online ordering system has been closed to new orders for a long time (blamed on the pandemic, but it’s never returned).
However, a quick look back at our original articles from 2021 (here) and 2019 (here) reveals that the prices for Openreach’s 100-160Mbps tiers have generally fallen, and often by quite a lot. For example, in 2019 Giganet charged £65 per month for their 160Mbps tier, but today the same plan is just £32 – this is a fairly common theme above. Competition and Openreach’s “Equinox” discounts have helped, but prices were falling before that.
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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You have the No-One (Trunk Networks) speed tier listed as 115/15.
Looks like it’s 110/15.
Nice wee round up Mark.
Why was Plusnet left out? Full Fibre 145 is £29.99 (£35 out of contract), 24 month contract, currently £0 activation (“was £20”), router included. The out-of-contract pricing is somewhat obscured, but it’s there on https://www.plus.net/broadband/full-fibre/ if you expand the T&Cs.
I also think you need a column for “voice service”. At the moment the only ones I know of are Vodafone, Sky, BT – and Zen if you pay extra. Migrate to any of the others from an ADSL/FTTC service and you’ll most likely lose your phone number; or else you need to do a separate voice to SIP migration, carefully scheduled.
Ah yes, forgot about them as they announced the day after I’d polished this article off. I’ll add them now.
Very useful list. Yes, it would be great to add a voip column, with a * if you can keep your number.
Prices will have to drop if they want people to go to FTTP, with the way prices are rising energy and food wise, people will not be able to afford these high prices.
Prices have dropped dramatically, and take-up doesn’t seem to be an issue on Openreach’s network.
How are you expecting these price drops to be funded? The ISPs and telecomms companies are paying more for power and everything else, too, and their staff rightly expect to be paid more. Meanwhile the telecomms companies are spending billions rolling out full fibre so need to make a return on that investment.
Are you thinking BT, CityFibre, VMO2, etc, should be selling at a loss while they are spending billions? Or should they just stop building, make tons of people redundant and cut everything to the bone so that you can have slightly cheaper Internet?
People are buying the products in their millions at the current and past pricing. Given the increase in energy bills marginally cheaper FTTP isn’t going to make a dent. People are likely to spend more on their broadband as they spend more time at home. With a pint closing in on a fiver nationwide and well above that in many places a few quid extra a month on higher quality Internet so that Netflix and everything else are faster and smoother isn’t a big deal.
You’re counting pennies when our collective issue is about huge amounts of Pounds.
@Mark Jackson, Lets see what happens now with the price of energy going up once again. I realise that the prices above are for speed over 100Mb/s and the cheapest one I think is Vodafone, but a lot of people will not have any need for 100Mb/s, so no incentive for them to leave FTTC. No incentive for me to leave FTTC, I know that much, even when openreach do bring their FTTP here.
Also, the long contracts unless you pay stupid prices, most are 24 months.
@ad47uk all the big ones have sub 100mbps packages, usually for the same price as FTTC.
@An Engineer, I get where you are going, yes with price of energy rising and people needing a decent wage, it is a catch 22. I don’t know what the answer is, we all try to get things at a lower price, that is why we shop around for services and products. Broadband, one of these products which is needed these days, just like water and energy, ok not as important as energy and water, but getting there. some online service is needed these days to do most things, so people are going to try and get a cheaper price.
To be honest, I would get rid of broadband tomorrow if I could, just another thing to pay for, which is why I am not bothered about FTTP and I did not ask them to spend millions on updating to FTTP.
@Alex A, I have heard that the big ones have lower speed FTTP, but they don’t promote them or they don’t seem to.
@ad47uk They do, on the broadband postcode checker they all show the sub 100mbps packages there.
They might not go “£24.99 for 36mbps” in their adverts (its not a very impressive speed) but they usually will go with something along the lines of “with prices from £24.99 and speeds up to 900mbps” because” which still promotes the lower packages.
On a side note 36mbps seems to be dropping, both Sky and TT don’t seem to offer it on FTTP (and Sky price it the same as 65 on FTTC). Not really a big deal, the Openreach cost difference is less than £1 per month and the backhaul cost difference will be tiny. Presumably the providers want to reduce the number of packages they offer.
@Alex A, yep you are correct, part of the city now have FTTP, so I put in a post code of the street on plusnet’s website, and it came up with 74Mb/s at £24.99 on a 24-month contract, £29.99 for 145 and £39.99 for 500Mb/s. Gave no option for FTTC, so if you live in that area and want broadband it seems to be fibre or nothing.
£24 a month for 74Mb/s is good, I pay that for 36Mb/s from plusnet. I don’t know when FTTP will be available up here from openreach. I don’t know when zzoomm will start, and they have already laid their fibre.
I have just seen the small print on the plus net site for the 74Mb/s package. 40Mb minimum guaranteed speed, that is only about 5Mb/s more than what I get now, sure it may be more, but I would think with this new superfast, super reliable fibre they would be able to guarantee a faster a speed.
Bt goes down to 36Mb/s and cost £29, again give no choice to go with FTTC, it is full fibre or nothing.
sky is the same, so it seems if you order broadband where FTTP is available, you have to have FTTP. I don’t know what happens if a person change from one provider to another and the last provider was FTTc, would they be forced onto FTTP if it is available?
it is not that I don’t want FTTP, I am not bothered how the broadband is delivered, but I just don’t want to pay any more and the other problem is the hassle of getting it installed.
FTTC is easy, you just plug in a filter and your router and it is done. Ok so my filter is built into my faceplate, but you get the idea.
We will see what happens when it gets up here, could be months yet. I was surprised to see how big a area of the city has been covered by openreach, I did not even realise they had started. I knew about zzoomm, but not Openreach, amazing how fast out of reach works when they have a bit of competition
@Ad47uk
> one I think is Vodafone, but a lot of people will not have any need for 100Mb/s,
> so no incentive for them to leave FTTC. No incentive for me to leave FTTC, I
FTTP is about more than just speed. It’s about overall quality of Internet connection.
@Andrew Clayton, I know FTTP is about more than speed, I have said this before, if my connection is fine, and I have no problems, which is the same for lots of people, and they don’t require the extra speed, then what is the incentive to change? Just the hassle of having someone in, pulling more cables around another box taking more power with again more cables and yet getting nothing for it.
Prices may have dropped for fttp, but they are still more than fttc or ADSL.
Where are the sub £25 or even sub £20 deals?
The article specifically mentions 100Mb+ packages so not a surprise they’re more than FTTC and, especially, ADSL.
FTTC costs more than ADSL, and cost way more when it was a relatively new thing. ADSL cost way more than dialup when it was new. Prices dropped.
Regardless at the current prices people are buying FTTP in numbers considerably higher than were expected. In Milton Keynes 40%+ of those that can get FTTP have it from either Openreach or CityFibre.
@An Engineer, ADSl was a new thing compared to dial up and it made a big difference, no more dialling up, your phone was free instead of being blocked when using the internet, always on connection, people paid more because it was a better system and not just about speed, but the speed did help.
FTTC for many people was and still is a great improvement on ADSL due to the faster speed, certainly now with everything online, but do the majority of people really need 100Mb/s or more? FTTP offers speed, okay, maybe better reliability to some people, but that is it, there is nothing groundbreaking. You say people are buying FTTP in numbers, maybe because they are getting good deals to go over to it and once you are on FTTP you are stuck on it or maybe people are not looking into what they are getting and thing, oh faster speed even if they don’t need it. Like people who buy the top mobiles phones or computers and yet they do nothing special on them.
A friend is on FTTP, not open reach, but the only reason she is using it is that FTTC is rubbish, where she lives, after the end of her contract it goes to £40 a month. That is a fair bit of money, it is ok for her, she can afford it, but that is not the point. If FTTC was better, she would have stayed on that.
As I have said before, I am in no rush, no rush whatsoever to change to fibre, I will see what Plusnet offers me at the end of my contract and if they don’t offer me a good price i will go elsewhere.
Sky does 500/60 on BT WBCFTTP I know someone who has it – its the top package
No its not
Sky also do a 900Mbps package as well on OR infrastructure.
It’s also not 500/60. There’s no such package over Openreach.
It’s 550/75.
For advertising reasons they sell it as an average speed of 500Mb/s but I’ve no idea where the 60Mb/s upload comes from.
it comes from what Sky can offer me even though BT can offer 900/100 Sky can only offer me 500/60 – I guess it’s a sky FTTP being crap or exchange being crap reason?
Or you know more than Sky does – which I admit is not likely. And this is whilst signed in.
So hmmm?
https://ibb.co/wS4Qd9M
https://ibb.co/gRft0KV
You realise those screenshots you claim are for your property show the current package and it’s the lowest level of service Sky offer, right?
Leased line at home, FTTP available at home, subscribed to Sky Superfast?
Seems legit.
I think I trust Sky’s adverts for ‘gigafast’ 900mbps and their article on this website (https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2022/04/sky-broadbands-new-900mbps-gigafast-uk-package-goes-live.html). It may not be showing for your address due to exchange capacity.
@angry man
Are you getting your knickers in a twist with all this disinformation you are posting
@angry man
Youre not the sharpest tool in the box are you dude 🙁
We now know youre on a 59/16 Sky broadband package so don’t give us all the waffle about a leased line anymore as we all know its total rubbish.
I mean it’s right there on the website.
https://www.sky.com/broadband
‘Availability to UK homes: Ultrafast 32%, Gigafast 24%.’
However looks like there are a bunch of areas with OLTs handling both FTTC and FTTP where they’ve only a 1 Gb Cable Link.
Well well
@angry man has been uncovered by his own stupid mistakes. I can now see why he continually lies about having a LL, how embarrassing to get caught this way.
Hopefully he will crawl under a stone and wont bother us again.
You’re all just jealous because you can’t afford a leased line.
@Fake_Buggs8
He he 😉
The extra speed won’t help most people. I have 50MB with two of us working from home as well as kids using it, most times it’s absolutely fine and fits the bill. My prime use as family is nearly 1TB.
If I could get FTTP, I would and that’s for the reliability as my connection was terrible before switching ISP and now better but still drops
I presume you mean 50Mb/s, not MB, that would be 400Mb/s. If everyone is watching 4K on netflix at the same time, then you may have a problem, but that don’t normally happen in a household, I doubt. People will go for FTTP because of the faster speed, even if they need it or not, it is faster so must be better. I know FTTP is better, normally, just saying what people have said to me.
If you are getting 50Mb/s, then you have to be pretty close to the cabinet, if you have reliability problems, I suggest you have a work with your ISP, is it Wi-fi that is bad or the internet connection itself?
I must be lucky, as I only had one problem, granted it was a large problem, and we got around it, took a long time to solve, but we worked around it so my broadband would work. I am over 500 meters away from the cabinet via the road and is fine here now, speed is around 36Mb/s, which is fine for me.
An extra column for CPI+ increases would be good, some of those 24 month contract prices will be 25%+ higher in April 2024 if inflation is 10% for the next 18 moths or so.
We need more pressure on Openreach to give faster upload speeds. I love my 900mbps connection, but 100mbps upload still feels very restrictive.
and cut in to their valuable leased line revenue….
It’s a pity that Virgin Media’s network isn’t opened up to cheaper third party ISP’s, as BT have no interest in putting any find of fibre into an exchange that has over 3,000 properties (unless it’s the many new builds springing up everywhere), large secondary school, leisure centre, at least five pubs, two supermarkets, four/five takeaway’s, small industrial estate. Virgin have had fibre i. Our area for well over 15 years, but I really don’t want to sell my other kidney to be able to afford half a years service. So it’s be nice to have cheaper alternatives but sadly they all have to use the wanky BT infrastructure.
“BT have no interest in putting any kind of fibre into an exchange that has over 3,000 properties”
Fibre usually doesn’t come from your local exchange. It may come from a larger “parent” exchange, also called a handover or Head-End exchange.
If your exchange has FTTC available then it has the necessary infrastructure for FTTP.
They always come from the same exchange, often the exact same equipment in the exchange.
Every single parent/handover exchange in UK has the necessary infrastructure to deliver FTTP.
Every 1 actually has “some” FTTP, just some have more than others.
In short, your exchange has what it needs to deliver FTTP.
It’s just a case of them rolling it out to your property.
Some exchanges might need incremental upgrades to deliver FTTP on a very large scale but that goes for all exchanges at some point in their lifetime.
Before someone tries to link me to Samknows that says there is no FTTP on their exchange, don’t bother.
Samknows is very out of date. They no longer regularly update their exchange availability pages.
Their business switched to focusing on their Speed tests and their whiteboxes.
‘BT have no interest in putting any find of fibre into an exchange that has over 3,000 properties’
Openreach have full fibre in exchanges covering more like 30-40,000 properties than 3,000 – see Basingstoke / THBZ, Bradwell Abbey / SMBA and many others.
3,000 is well below average and there are tons of exchanges way bigger with lots of full fibre.
That’s a really bizarre statement and entirely inaccurate.
Would be great to see the minimum speed guarantee in the table too as they seem to vary by quite a bit.