Openreach to Stop Supplying Own UK G.fast Broadband Modems
In a small but notable development, network operator Openreach (BT) has finally announced that it will withdraw the supply of their hybrid fibre G.fast “ultrafast broadband” modems (CPE) from 1st December 2024 (i.e. existing customers who experience a fault with one of these modems will now need to look elsewhere).
Just to recap. G.fast (ITU G.9701) was an interim hybrid-fibre and copper technology, which was capable of download speeds up to 330Mbps, but which ultimately ended up being abandoned (here) in favour of Openreach’s welcome desire to deploy full fibre (FTTP) technology at scale. The service only ever covered around 2.8 million UK premises, and just a tiny number of ISPs still support it (here).
Openreach has since overbuilt many of their G.fast cabinet (extension pod) areas with FTTP (here) and take-up of the old service was so low that some of those don’t even have any active G.fast customers left. The network operator stopped supplying their own G.fast modems (Customer Premises Equipment) for new installs some time ago, partly because ISPs started offering routers with a built-in modem (these are becoming harder to find) and partly because the product is clearly on the way out.
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The latest small update is that Openreach are now withdrawing the supply of G.fast modems from 1st December 2024 (see change in price list), which means that those who still use the modem (usually as part of a two box solution from an ISP – wireless router + G.fast modem) won’t be able to get a direct replacement if that fails. The service currently costs £72 +vat.
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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I do own Openreach G.fast Modem ZTLink MT992 and also Zyxel XMG3927-B50A G.fast Wireless Router, current on G.fast. Both are different hardware but Openreach G.fast Modem is much higher sync rate than Zyxel. But, understood why they stopped sell it because FTTP are the future now without distance loss of signal.
Openreach G.fast Modem Sync 267/34
Zyxel G.fast Router Sync 210/30
They should have never even rolled out G.Fast in the first place, it was a complete and utter waste of money. Granted you got higher speeds but the money spent would had been better spent on getting more people onto FTTP. G.Fast like it’s older brother vdsl2 is unreliable, those tiny copper cables and often tin coated cables from the cabinet are not reliable when you compare it to the reliability and speed of FTTP.
When you get FTTP it just works, and the only limiting factor is the capacity of the switch your connected too and one of the biggest issues with having FTTP is your so fast, the quality of peering the internet provider really becomes noticeable, for example I have 1.8 Gbit City fibre, great UK speeds, not so great outside of the UK, due to the amount of peering they have, (different routes) and the capacity of those peers. It’s still great you get a few hundred mbits, but to get a gigabit you have to multi thread big time outside the UK to get maxed out.
Simon – you say it’s unreliable, what data are you basing this on?
Technically it’s no more or less reliable than FTTC. Sync speeds are more SENSITIVE to distance, SNR and line quality, but I believe those things are what you deal with initially which set the baseline for the experience going forward.
In 5 years I’ve never experienced a single drop out of my G.fast.
doesn’t g.fast also use seamless rate adaption, so it can degrade more gracefully instead of simply losing sync. This is also available on VDSL but Openreach doesn’t use it. One or two LLU firms allowed its use on ADSL way back in the day.
I would agree that VDSL (no g.fast here) can be very reliable indeed. Can’t think of the last time I lost sync. Latency equivalent to FTTP also. Would I upgrade to FTTP if it were available? Absolutely, but the only benefit to me will be faster speeds.
‘I have 1.8 Gbit City fibre, great UK speeds, not so great outside of the UK, due to the amount of peering they have, (different routes) and the capacity of those peers. It’s still great you get a few hundred mbits, but to get a gigabit you have to multi thread big time outside the UK to get maxed out.’
Sounds more like bandwidth delay product limiting throughput per TCP flow to me. Peering won’t do anything for the TCP stacks either side or likely the latency to a significant degree.
I can’t even get rid of mine on ebay. nobody wants it.
Maybe you can put This Openreach G.fast Modem can use FTTC as well. (I use Openreach G.fast modem via VDSL2 FTTC before as it work both FTTC and G.fast)
Just ordered G.Fast as an interim upgrade…
Sadly Swish Fibre have paused/stopped their build in my area of Farnham and Openreach haven’t started their fibre build yet, so g.fast is best we can currently get
Same here as G.fast is the only option here (no FTTP yet) but it likely to be next year say Openreach to rolling out FTTP in my area but they did put fibre optic cable in lately but not yet live until next year then will upgraded to FTTP 330/50 from G.fast 330/50
Phil says:
August 21, 2024 at 8:41 am
Hopefully CityFibre will come to Cuckoo Oak, Telford I rather to have CF than OR. I don’t want Openreach FTTP now.
Of course they have… It’s all getting ripped out.
They are not going to commit to further spend on new custom cpe.
I’ve been on G.fast since 2019 and very happy with it getting 305Mb down and 47Mb up. It’s very reliable and I’ve never experienced an outage in 5 years.
I am interested in FTTP but my area is not a priority build, presumably because G.fast is available?
My parents’ house has GFast, Virgin Media, Openreach Fibre, and now Brsk Fibre. I don’t think presence of other networks precludes new builds.
Whereas we have only VDSL and no one is coming to us any time soon
“Openreach’s FTTP network covers over 14 million premises” – now 15 million reported at the end of 2024 Q2. If they’ve continued at the same rate after 2 months of Q3 they’re probably up to 15.66 million now.
Thanks for spotting the typo Big Dave.
Your welcome Mark
FTTC was defensible for the early 2000’s as fibre was still expensive, but G-Fast should never have been implemented. What a terrible decision
For those with economy in mind, who are possessed of an existing Smart-Hub and still on a FTTC service, I wonder if there is any advantage in picking-up one of these cheap, even if a Gfast service is no longer provided locally because, I understand, they include a bridge function and two LAN ports and support for VDSL (As well as GFast)
Possibly, another way of supporting DV whilst using a third party router ?