1Gbps ISP Options on Openreach’s UK FTTP Broadband Network – 2024

After skipping this study last year due to workload, we’ve today published an updated summary of the key UK consumer ISP choices for 1Gbps speed packages on Openreach’s Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband network – currently available to over 13 million homes and businesses.

The current market is chocked full of alternative full fibre networks, but despite this Openreach remains the largest open-access provider of such infrastructure, and as such none of the main ISPs can afford to ignore the operator’s significant and growing coverage – 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 we’ve thus attempted to extract 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.

In order to narrow the list down, we’re only going to cover those more established ISPs that offer packages based off the operator’s 1Gbps (1000Mbps) tier, both at a national level and at consumer affordable prices. Most of these providers will also offer slower package options too, but if an ISP is cheap for 1Gbps, then it’ll usually be cheaper on the slower tiers too.

Due to the advertising rules, such packages tend to be promoted as having average downloads (i.e. a median speed as recorded at peak times) of around 900Mbps+ (uploads of 100-115Mbps), although in the future this rate may increase as providers adopt Openreach’s new 1.2Gbps tier (the advertised average for this will be 1000Mbps+). Providers that don’t offer a gigabit package have been excluded from this list.

Gigabit ISP Choices on Openreach’s FTTP Network

The following table excludes some of the more expensive business providers (e.g. those above £100+), as well as any that didn’t show key package details on their website (sometimes due to an order or availability system not working), failed to clearly display whether their prices included VAT, didn’t allow customers to take broadband without bundling an energy service, or where we couldn’t ascertain whether the packages were even Openreach based.

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. Not all providers make it easy to figure out what extras they include, and attributing value to added extras can be notoriously tricky – often subject to personal preference.

We have not taken a view on the service quality of these providers, thus the list below is purely a limited price comparison.

Biggest Openreach ISPs – 1Gbps Plans

Smaller Openreach ISPs – 1Gbps Plans

In previous years we’ve tended to focus on the entry-level c.100Mbps packages in these comparisons, but as times change we’ve started to view Gigabit tiers as being more useful and some ISPs have even stopped selling the slower tiers. But as stated earlier, providers that are cheap for c.1Gbps are usually cheap for c.100Mbps too.

The data reveals that the average monthly price for a 1Gbps package during your first contract term, across all the listed providers and packages, comes out as £56.09. But we can also see that most of the smaller providers don’t play the first-term discounting game (i.e. big price cuts, until you reach post-contract) and thus, if we just look at the biggest players, the monthly average in that first term drops to £47.49. By comparison, the monthly average for just the smaller players comes out as £59.36.

Vodafone clearly came out as the cheapest ISP during the data gathering period (£36), although like most providers their post-contract pricing (£58) is much closer to the general average. On the flip side, AAISP (Andrews & Arnold) were the most expensive and their base data cap of 1TB remains a market oddity, but they’re also renowned for excellent service / support quality and their packages include Static IP addresses by default.

In the future we intend to come back and see how the pricing of these plans changes over time, although this will depend a lot on Openreach’s wholesale pricing and that is somewhat restricted by market regulation, as well as the usual competitive dynamics of the market.