Freeola Launch 1.2Gbps and 1.8Gbps Openreach UK Broadband Plans
Internet and web hosting provider Freeola has informed ISPreview that they’ve just become the latest on a small list of UK ISPs to launch consumer home broadband packages based off Openreach’s new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) powered 1.2Gbps and 1.8Gbps (both 120Mbps upstream) download speed tiers.
The 1.2Gbps tier is being promoted alongside “average” advertised download speeds of 1Gbps (true gigabit) for £64 per month, while 1.8Gbps is being advertised with speeds of 1.6Gbps for £73 per month (average advertised uploads are 110Mbps for both).
One crucial point to make here is that both of these plans are sold alongside a short 30-day contract and include a static IP address, much like all their other packages. But customers will need to pay extra if they want to add a pre-configured broadband router to their package, which might be wise given that the new tiers will benefit from having a higher end device with a 2.5Gbps LAN port.
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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Do we have a small list getting pulled together of ISP’s who are actively selling the higher speeds yet? So far I understand Freeload and EE?
There aren’t many live yet, but this page will help:
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/isp_list/ISP_List_MultiGigabit_Broadband.php
I’m still waiting for Zen to offer this! C’mon Zen I’ve got a 2.5gbpe router ready! 😀
I’m also with Zen and waiting for their 1.8gbps package. My router upgrade happened last week and it should be good up to 10gbit now.
Freeola uses zen, the support team told me this, thats the funny part.
Mark, just replied on Mastadon about some errors I think on the MultiGigabit listings
Fixed, thanks Simon 🙂
Do we know who Freeola resell? Is it BT Wholesale?
I’m with Freeola and they are reselling “Zen” Connections at least on the FTTC Side but as FTTP isn’t in my area yet unless I remortgage my house for 13 neighbours I can’t confirm the gigabit speeds as our copper is still active but there network is on the BT Wholesale side as I had to transfer back from Talk Talk to join which at the time cost £60 due to there Rolling Contract deals…treat Freeola as a no frills network where each minor change incurs a cost. Even to disconnect,attitude from the support team is that the customer is always at fault so I rarely contact them.
My question still remains…. why the limit on 120mbps upload? Why limit that at all?
It’s largely reflecting the constraints Openreach face due to capacity limits on their GPON setup. The new Combo PON approach they’re adopting (mix of GPON and XGS-PON, as required) will resolve this, but they haven’t yet made that available.
In many interviews, OpenReach CEO claimed that there is no demand from users for upload speeds to be equal to or faster than current offers. However, this assertion seems questionable. As mentioned here, this stance appears to be a way for OpenReach to avoid incurring additional costs associated with upgrading infrastructure and hardware, which would be required to increase upload speeds.
They only want higher paying customers to get the full 220mbps upload that is available
I have BT900 FTTP and the 1.6gbit service isnt available to me for some reason. Maybe its new customers only?
I think BT aren’t selling it to anyone yet. If you want this right now, you’d have to swap to EE (or Freeola or IDNet)
You have to go from BT to EE – it’s only available via the EE brand (so far, but likely to stay that way as they kill off BT consumer)
Sorry i wasnt too clear my fault. Freeola’s 1.6gbit service isnt available to me just the 900meg. I dont see why not as i get Openreach BT 900meg at the minute, and so should be able to get Frreola 1.6gbit as i am a FTTP area. Maybe they dont want to pay Openreach to upgrade my ONT? On the BT side i cant get EE 1.6gbit service either and keep EETV if i want to stay with BT/EE.
K, Freeola are reselling Zen. Where Zen have not unbundled an exchange, appears they are using BT Wholesale to resell, hence you only getting 900. Same for me, I can get 900, and Freeola only offer me the option of a 900 package too.
K, Freeola uses Zen to provide you the service, so if Zen isnt providing you 1.2 or 1.8gbps plan then this ISP will not either, for me Freeola offers me all the way up to the 1.8gbps plan.
Wonder if there is a list available of ISPs who are offering FTTP on 6 month or lower contracts.
Anyone know when BT Wholesale are going to open up 1.2 and 1.8 packages to anyone outside of their own ISP’s? EE is part of the BT group after all…
It isn’t only open to their own ISP’s. That’s against regulations.
EE started using the 1.2gb & 1.8gb tiers under an Openreach trial. Other providers were able to sign up to that trial but choose not to.
BT & Plusnet can’t currently buy this from BT Wholesale until everyone else can.
EE would have had to go via BT Wholesale though, and Openreach and BTw would have had to do the plumbing to make it operational. Despite previous comments claiming that the new EE service is using a separate network and cutting BTw out of the picture, it appears that’s not the case.
So – if BT Wholesale are still not offering this to their other customers then this might be a problem. Though I suspect these days BTw is overwhelmingly used by the BT brands, with other ISPs of any significant size building their own platforms like Zen did.