Cityfibre Show Cost Savings of Taking its UK FTTP Broadband Network
A new study from CityFibre, which is building a 10Gbps capable full fibre (FTTP) network across the UK, has claimed that consumers switching to entry-level broadband plans from ISPs on their network could save as much as £119 in 12 months (rising up to £458 for those requiring 1Gbps speeds). Plus, you can now get an extra £50 discount.
At present the operator is busy working to cover up to 8 million premises (funded by c.£2.4bn in equity and c.£4.9bn debt) – across around 285 cities, towns and villages (c.30% of the UK) – by the end of 2025 (here). So far, they’ve already covered 2.2 million UK premises as Ready For Service (RFS) via ISPs. The new network is being backed by various consumer ISPs.
Naturally, as part of that effort, the operator is keen to highlight the potential cost savings of switching to a full fibre ISP, particularly those on the network they’ve built. The key point being that such packages are often a fair bit cheaper than on rival networks, but it does depend upon where you live (most of the UK is not yet covered by Cityfibre or, more generally, a full fibre network) and thus how wide you cast your net.
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The catch with this study is thus that it’s very limited and only seems to be comparing Cityfibre against Openreach based ISPs (inc. TalkTalk, Vodafone and BT) and Virgin Media. But this excludes around 100 other alternative networks, as well as many more ISPs, some of which may be in the same areas and for an even lower price than Cityfibre (note: social tariffs are excluded).
Lest we forget, price is also not the only factor for some consumers to consider (e.g. Cityfibre highlights its ability to offer symmetric upload speeds).
Cityfibre’s Source Data
Vodafone Full Fibre 1 over CityFibre (41/41Mbps) at £21/m vs Vodafone Full Fibre 1 over Openreach (36/9Mbps) at £22/m
TalkTalk Fibre65 over CityFibre (78/20Mbps) at £25/m vs TalkTalk Fibre65 over Openreach FTTP (76/20Mbps) at £26/m.
Vodafone Full Fibre 100 over CityFibre (100/100Mbps) at £24/p vs Vodafone Full Fibre 100 over Openreach (100/18Mbps) at £25/m.
TalkTalk Fibre 900 over CityFibre (948/112Mbps) at £36/m vs TalkTalk 900 over Openreach (948/112Mbps) at £49/m.
NB: Products and Prices correct as of 13th January 2023.
Base for the £119 Figure
Comparing BT’s Fibre Essential package (copper network – 36/9 Mbps with voice) at £33.99/m +six months free, + free connection to Vodafone’s Full Fibre 1 package (full fibre network – 41/41Mbps with voice) over CityFibre at £21/m + free connection.
Monthly saving £5.74/m x 12m = £68.88
Saving + CityFibre £50 new connection offer = £118.88Base for the £458 Figure
Comparing Virgin Media’s Gig 1 Broadband + Phone package (cable network – 1130/52Mbps with voice) at £64/m + free connection charge to Vodafone’s Full Fibre 900 package (full fibre network – 910/910Mbps with voice) over CityFibre at £30/m.
Monthly saving £34/m x 12m = £408
Saving + CityFibre £50 new connection offer = £458
Cityfibre also reiterates some of its research from last year, which suggested that 64% of consumers didn’t know the difference between full and part-fibre networks, and that 22% believe incorrectly that switching to the new technology will mean higher costs. “The lack of consumer education is hampering take-up over the new networks and leaving significant household savings unrealised in a cost-of-living crisis,” said the operator.
Dan Ramsay, Chief Marketing Officer at CityFibre, said:
“Full fibre broadband is proof that a new technology, offering faster and more reliable services, doesn’t have to be more expensive. Millions of consumers will soon see their broadband prices increase significantly, and given the already huge pressure on people’s finances in this cost-of-living crunch, now’s the time to upgrade to full fibre. Not only will they receive a better quality broadband experience, but they could save hundreds of pounds in the process.”
Overall, the operator is clearly trying to take advantage of the current frustration over annual price hikes, which are this week (here) being adopted by many of the market’s largest providers (most will hike prices by up to 14.4%). The vested interest from Cityfibre is clear, but they’re certainly not wrong to highlight the price advantage that many of their supporting ISPs and packages do still carry, even if Openreach’s next “Equinox 2” discount might take another bite out of that (here).
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On top of all this, the operator has today launched an additional incentive to upgrade, which reflects a £50 connection offer for every home joining its network (this comes as either an Amazon voucher or PayPal credit). Consumers just need to register for the offer online at https://refer.cityfibre.com/cityfibre-26 .
We also recommend checking our last price summary of FTTP ISPs on Openreach’s network (here) and our study of 1Gbps broadband prices across multiple networks (here), which covers a much wider section of the market.
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, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Gargage figures, and a garbage comparison from CityFibre. Vodafone aren’t £30/month over the contract length: in just a couple months it’ll be £34.32, and then 12 months later it’ll be even higher.
Yet they’ve complained to Ofcom that Openreach prices are anti-competitive? Seems they can compete just fine…
City Fibre funded studies prove City Fibre is good. Somehow sounds more legit than Pfizer funded studies
I would happily use a CityFibre ISP but they (obviously) aren’t interested in any even remotely rural/non-urban areas.
Little bit angry with their constant complaints regarding Openreach attempting to compete as well given Openreach are the only FTTP option for many people and those of us with no choice do benefit if OR are in a position to compete with CityFibre in the towns/cities as they necessarily need to be.
Not entirely correct..
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/09/cityfibre-quietly-builds-fttp-broadband-into-first-uk-village.html
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2022/06/cityfibre-sign-gbp4-9bn-debt-raise-to-boost-uk-full-fibre-rollout.html
So it may be worth keeping a close eye on future contract awards under Project Gigabit, since there are a few that might fit more closely into their plans.
I love how Cityfibre advertise they are “Nationwide” but have no footprint in Wales at all?
Any ides why not @Mark?
The sort of urban areas that Cityfibre like to target are already being reasonably well covered by gigabit services from Openreach and Cityfibre in Wales, as well as some patchy coverage by smaller players (Ogi, Netomnia). I suspect the risk vs reward decision just doesn’t make enough sense and Cityfibre have no plans to do anything in Wales, that I know of.
Or plenty of urban areas for that matter. My city of 120K residents has been excluded from their rollout plans (not included in the first 8 million premises).
People forget that Cityfibre are building a network from scratch with just a core nationwide backbone that exists.
The Rural areas all fall under the BDUK project that network builders will all bid for.
People expect to much from a very new company in such a small time, openreach are ancient in comparison and also NTL/Virgin.
Went on to the website, typed in my email address and postcode. Website says they haven’t planned my area yet. Seconds later an email arrives from them saying that my area is enabled and I can go to their website to choose a provider…
Cityfibre laid the fibre in my street in October. Little green cab up the path. Alas, 3 months later and I still cannot place an order with my ISP (Vodafone). I’ve been checking the Vodafone website near daily.
keep an eye on bidb.uk for it going live 🙂
I’m waiting for them to go live here and change from EE to Vodafone. A few people are saying to avoid them, but I have to say I’m a big fan of brand familiarity.
Something we probably all need to snap out of for better deals etc.
Anyone have any positive Vodafone reviews on CityFibre?
I’m looking to jump from EE to Vodafone via CityFibre when it goes live in a few months. Anyone have any positive reviews regarding Vodafone and their service using them?
Problem with Vodafone is the router they give you is utter naff. And they really do not want to give you your PPPOE username and password to use your own. If you can somehow get out of them the username and password to use your own the service will be great. Mind however you will not be able to use Vodafones telephone service as that is tied to their routers. TalkTalk give you Amazons Eero routers and their service is entirely based on DHCP. Which means you can use PFsense with old hardware.
What about their new Pro 6e router package though?
Yes sorry my comment was directed towards their old FTTP router. From what I have read online the new 6E Router from them seems to be very good. So just make sure you get this one off them it seems.
I’m pretty sure Openreach ISPs would be competitive on price if the AltNets didn’t complain when Openreach announce they are going to do price cuts via Equinox…
This sort of comparison, IMO, gives more ammunition to Openreach to push for more aggressive price cuts so prices are similar (more competitive).
In all honesty I don’t care how they do it. Cityfibre should do or say anything to get the masses to convert onto their network as it is so much better than FTTC it is unreal. Going from 30mb/s FTTC with 80ms ping to 500mb/s FTTP with 6ms ping is like going back in time and giving someone a UHD player when all they had was a VHS.
I would disagree about your comment on the Vodafone router, I have a family member who has the VF Pro router which has Wi-Fi 6E so very good and much better than BT,EE,Sky and Talk Talks provided equipment
Just looking it seems the 6E Vodafone router was released late last year. Its the router before this one that was problematic.
Apparently City Fibre are in plymouth, although you’d hardly know as they dont seem to provide any coverage updates for the city other than a fanfare when launching in the city – two years ago. By the time that get to my area i will have signed up elsewhere – we now have Virgin, Openreach and Grain all installing at the same time
Cityfibre are live in Hartley Vale area of city but only offer Talk Talk at the moment. They went live a few weeks after Openreach FTTP went live. We have Openreach, Cityfibre, Virgin and a satellite based Full fibre service available now. Personally we are with BT but I may consider Cityfibre Vodafone if it is available next year as BT are getting quite pricey! It does work though to be fair!
Price will be the problem for some people going to FTTP, the alt network here the lowest price is £33 a month for 150/150, while it is possible to get lower p[rices on the openreach FTTP network, it is a lot lower speed and some people will say what is the point
Maybe do a 70ish Mb/s for around the £25 a month mark on an 18-month contract, not 24 and maybe some more people would be interested.
Well £30 is about right as your own ISP will tell you.
@haha, maybe £30 is about right, but still a lot of money for something I don’t really require. £33 a month is still £8 a month more than what I am paying now.
I received letter from CityFibre around a month ago to say that full fibre is coming to the area and work outside will commence within 7 days. I didn’t know they co-exist with Openreach who did some work several months ago and became a live option over a month ago. There has been further work along the street over the past month.
The CityFibre sign up offer/checker told me “it’s coming” then I get an email to say “you can connect to Full Fibre with CityFibre”. When I check TalkTalk it still gives the Openreach pricing. I checked the bidb.uk site and it says Openreach is live and CityFibre is planned. The location also says this:
“CityFibre
01/03/2023, 00:00:00 – 31/08/2023, 23:59:00
Status: Granted”
Does this mean it could be up to the end of August before CityFibre will be available?
Apart from the Talktalk gigabit service, all those comparisons show that the customer’s saving for taking a service over Cityfibre rather than Openreach is – wait for it – £1 per month!
But that’s enough to make people switch. Most people don’t care who provides their broadband, as long as it works, any more than they care who collects their bins as long as they’re collected.
The main business case for altnet rollout is not demand for higher speeds, it’s being able to undercut Openreach’s regulated pricing in cherry-picked areas. But that’s not a bad thing. If it weren’t for the altnets, Openreach would still be sitting on their hands, so they should be congratulated for this.
Is cityfibre network better than Openreach? Some people will use it if the technology is better than Openreach and they get symmetrical connection. People I knwo that are gfoijng to fibre here are going to Zzoomm because in the the network is better than Openreach, just a shame the router is so bad, well that is what I have heard is the main problem with the unreliability.,
I surprised that Zzoomm don’t start having different providers on their network like City fibre does.
We have two new FTTP networks and they are more expensive than other ones, typical of our city
> Is cityfibre network better than Openreach? Some people will use it if the technology is better than Openreach and they get symmetrical connection.
Currently, Cityfibre and Openreach use the same technology (GPON), but Cityfibre have taken the commercial decision to permit higher upload speeds than Openreach as a differentiator.
Cityfibre are starting to roll out a newer technology called XGS-PON, which will allow them to offer higher download and upload speeds (up to 10G), or to put more customers on the same fibre to reduce cost, or a mix or both.
Both technologies run over exactly the same fibre, so Openreach *could* easily upgrade if they chose to do so, just by upgrading the exchange equipment.
> I surprised that Zzoomm don’t start having different providers on their network like City fibre does.
No doubt they would be happy to, but the problem is the other way round: the big providers won’t want to connect to Zzoomm.
That’s because their network is so small. It would cost a lot of money to do the integration work (connecting to Zzoomm’s network and ordering systems), but they would gain hardly any customers from doing so.
CF also use smaller splits than Openreach, often around 1:10 or so, vs 1:32 that BTOR use, which is probably partly why they are able to offer 1g up.
Really looking forward to XSGPON tho.
Any idea why TT cap the upload speed on their CF plans? Sounds like a stupid decision and clearly they would lose many customers for Vodaphone. Well, they are probably betting on average customers not noticing/caring about this “tiny” detail.
I would assume because it is intended to be a domestic use service and not a business use product?
TalkTalk is in the same situation as Zen. De facto symmetric upload speeds. However, they don’t have enough data to advertise symmetric speeds; most of their data comes from asymmetrical Openreach.
Sadly I expect this offer not to be available by the time City Fibre have enabled our street (Efford in Plymouth). The date keeps getting put back, I got a bit too excited about a roadworks sign appearing on the street a fortnight ago, checking the councils roadworks website confirmed Cityfibre were ready to dig up our street, but a day later the signs disappeared. Now it looks like at least March before they reach us, and who knows how long it’ll be before its live.
We’re currently with Virgin and were looking at a provider over Openreach FTTP but with at least a 12 month contract, we don’t want to sign up and find that 4 months in Cityfibre is available, at least with Virgin we’re out of contract (even if it does mean we’re paying slightly over the odds).
Looking on the bright side, at least they’re rolling out so hopefully we’ll be able to get it eventually.
At these prices, how long will it take to break even on a 30 pounds a month contract, let’s look at cost of fibre build, head ends, rental of almost everything from international links to car vans and buildings, salary, pia, I made it 57 years with 50k customers, how can investors get ROI. Question , will fibre in the ground last as long as the metallic cables or will they need to be changed if it breaks down and light starts to escape, are the products we are using quality. Have the networks been built by skilled people, I fear for all these investments.