Openreach Reveal UK Price for 1Gbps Symmetric FTTP Broadband UPDATE
Network access provider Openreach (BT) has just revealed how much they’ll charge ISPs for their new symmetric 1Gbps speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband package, which is due to launch on 1st April 2025 and will initially only be available to locations being covered as part of their rural Project Gigabit contracts (here).
Just to recap. Openreach’s full fibre network has so far covered over 17 million premises (there are around 32.5m across the UK), but they aim to reach 25 million by December 2026 and have an ambition to reach “up to” 30 million by 2030. But the fastest FTTP package currently available to consumers on this network gives a top download speed of 1.8Gbps and 120Mbps upload (220Mbps for businesses).
The new symmetric tier goes beyond this by essentially offering customers the same 1000Mbps speed for both downloads and uploads. “On 1 April 2025, we will launch a new 1Gbps symmetric FTTP speed tier (i.e. 1000Mbps downstream and 1000Mbps upstream) to further enhance our GEA-FTTP portfolio offering. This speed tier will be available to all premises built to under the BDUK Type C framework contracts only,” said Openreach.
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The 1Gbps symmetric FTTP speed tier will launch with the following prices (excluding VAT).
| Standard Connection | £122.84 |
| Premium Connection | £152.84 |
| Advanced Connection | £297.84 |
| Connection – Multiport ONT Box Swap | £90.00 |
| Annual rental – Up to 1000Mbit/s /1000Mbit/s | £1,200.00 |
As usual, we must caveat that these are wholesale charges and thus do not include all of the many other elements that an ISP has to add in order to create the retail price that you or I will ultimately have to pay (e.g. 20% VAT, profit margin, capacity, service / network features etc.). So the monthly rental of £100 (or £120 if you include VAT) is, in reality, likely to be a lot more expensive at retail (£150+ seems likely).
The reality at this price is that Openreach are not going to be particularly competitive with other, more residential focused, alternative FTTP providers that already offer symmetric 1Gbps tiers for significantly lower pricing. At this price, the operator seems to be aiming more at small business customers, and this is underlined by the fact that it’s over twice the price of their asymmetric consumer focused 1.8Gbps package.
On the flip side, Openreach will be deploying this into areas where there are no alternative FTTP operators, thus they probably don’t have to worry too much about competition.. yet.
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UPDATE 28th Feb 2025 @ 8:58am
Openreach has just sent us a quote and some extra details.
Matthew Sledge, Openreach Product Manager, said:
“We’ve already successfully launched to CPs new download speeds of up to 1.8Gbps over our Full Fibre network and we’re keen to continue pushing the capabilities of the network so we can further diversify our portfolio and offer our CP customers, and their own end customers a broader choice of fibre based products.
With broadband data usage growing year on year, we’re also planning for the future, and have recently announced our intention to trial FTTP over XGS-PON in 2026.”
Openreach mentions their plan to trial XGS-PON in 2026, which confirms that the 1Gbps trial is largely still using their existing GPON network. Indeed, any end customers signing up to the new 1Gbps symmetric service will be able to use their existing Optical Network Terminal (ONT or ONU), which is the optical modem that Openreach engineers hang inside your home (obviously this doesn’t apply to ONT/ONUs installed by rival networks).
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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mark can you ask them, what about the people on 1.8gb plan? will they just get 1000upload or pay more?
Nothing will change. 1.8Gbps is a separate tier at a different speed and price point. Right now, the 1Gbps symmetric tier is entirely separate from that, so it would be a different package.
This is like when an insurance company quotes you ten times the price of the most competitive option – they do not want you to take this service.
I was just thinking the same thing. It’s the same way insurance companies (who are supposed to divide risk across their entire client base) say to an 18 year old with a perfect driving record that they have to pay many thousands of pounds a year to drive the smallest car. Don’t like it, go elsewhere. What’s that you say, Openreach are the only provider to your property? Well then you have no option but to pay if you want to get to work.
Regulating this sort of thing is literally Ofcom’s job. How they ever allowed asymmetric fibre to be marketed only on the download speed boggles the mind.
If it’s 1Gbps download and 70 Mbps upload, it’s a 70 Mbps service.
OFCOM do regulate it. They set the price at which 40/10 FTTP can be sold, and leave the rest to the market.
Openreach didn’t have to launch a 1G symmetric service at all. If they choose to do so, then they can sell it at whatever price they want.
At this price, they won’t sell any, but that’s probably their intention – they don’t want to wreck their leased line market.
Sorry but on the point of “Openreach didn’t have to launch a 1G symmetric service at all.”
They DID, it was a condition of the BDUK money that they offer symmetric 1G, that’s the only reason they did it.
BDUK/Ofcoms fault for requiring they do something but not making any comment about price. They may as well of not bothered setting that requirement without saying (and it should be no more than 4x the regulated 40/10 price) or something
Wow. “not going to be particularly competitive” is quite the understatement. Why did they even launch this product? Even I wouldn’t buy at the price. Aimed at business?
This is only to enable them to get the subsidy from BDUK under their type C GIS contract which presumably required access to gigabit capable up and down.
Because it doesn’t completely destroy their EAD product.
Exactly on the money. Where in the ether net is OFCOM? OUT TO LUNCH! Please can we have a regulator not a snoozenator!
Wow, I didn’t see that price coming.
Even big providers like VM charge only a £6 premium for symmetrical service I can’t imagine much demand other than business customers.
Kris, at those laughable prices, on BT yo may be right.
IT’s probably so that BT can all tell us they trialled symmetric and uptake was low and that nobody needs it. They don’t want to really offer it at all, but those pesky non-dinosaur ALTNETS are delivering at least. Its probably better this way as gives the ALTNETS more customers, especially as they continue to offer new products and technologies going forward whilst BT been flogging a dead horse with GPON for years now when others moved on…..
Someone tell openreach you don’t do april fools while it’s still February
what a joke
Basically available in areas where there isn’t Alt nets so if you a business wanting 1gig upload it’s cheaper to do that than a dedicated lease line.
This! And I’d instantly buy it even here in an under-covered large town in the midlands. It’s half the price of an ethernet leased line so it’s a bargain for the target audience! Just a shame that we can only get FTTC…
It’s also worse than half the quality, it is a much better choice to get 2X 1000/115 services.
Ruddy ell!
Sky FTTP 1Gig Sym will be £200 a month by the time you add on all the sky channels!
Thanks, but no thanks dinosaur BT.
I’ll stick to an ALTNET called Netomnia who sell through You Fibre ISP, who give an amazing symmetric speed as standard, price, and latency We went live this week at my partner’s house, whilst we wait for you to do my road at my own house. Even the install was good.
No in contract price increases and re-contracting customers get new customer deals.
I pay £50/month for 2gbit symmetric from youfibre. So this is going to be 3x the price for half the speed.
It’s not remotely competitive, but of course they’re clearly targeting those that don’t have a choice of other providers.
totally agree the pricing of broadband under FTTP for high speed is way over city fiber pricing with many still only charging 25 pounds a month for 1 gb granted you may only get 800 but its symetric more than enough for business work from home and gaming, bt should be made to pull the copper and scrap it for the profit it would also allow many 3rd party under the share platform and dark fiber links to build easier, we really should be now in a stage where no matter if you where bt or cityfiber or community fiber, all isps would be able to offer packages under it, BT has to reduce 1gb symmetric to 35 pounds and end the exist asymmetric 1600 900 and 500 plans
further more rules on peak acceptable usage has to be tightened to 80% at full speed, and low of drop of 70mbs is acceptable many only reach half of what they are paying for in peak, also annual in contact price rises has be to outlawed, as well as only offering new customers that rate, that is unacceptable and should be outlawed. as it forces people to swap for no reason
It’s almost like they don’t want to sell it
That is the correct answer. They don’t.
BT once told us that FTTC was going to be fast enough and all the UK needed for residential.
ONLY when ALTNETS came along and VM expanded, did they then want to deploy FTTP and that was because they looked at the savings of closing exchanges, less people after deployment ramps down, recycling of copper wire and return from that and other financial gains.
To this day, Brokenraech are still deploying outdated GPON technology, whilst everyone else is deploying XGS-PON (and soon better with Netomnia). Even ALTNETS like CityFibre who initially deployed GPON will be upgrading to XGS-PON.
Could they charge less if they wanted to or are they restricted by Ofcom competition rules?
Is this a case of show you can offer it, launch and get some gauge of interest and resolve issues, then offer at 40% discount to make it sound a good deal?
Definitely aimed at business’s as an alternative to Symmetrical Ethernet.
Most likely those that need the upload.
Seeing this price reminds me of when Maggie Thatcher forced BT to open up their lines for other providers to offer competition, which caused prices to fall in the 1990s. Without the likes of CityFibre offering this for £30, we’d all be paying this now and accepting this as the going rate for 1GB/s.
We are awaiting a statement from our BT spokesperson, Ivor 🙂
Exactly this. Anyone saying there shouldn’t be competition in the broadband market and it should all be nationalised, just needs to look to Australia to see how well that (didn’t) work out.
Thank goodness for the alternatives. Even if many people can’t get them (not that Brokenreach’s* coverage is much better) they show how things could be done.
*Thanks to the above poster for that, it’s the most appropriate play on the name I’ve heard. 🙂
By the looks of it being said that there’s no FTTP in the area, I presume this doesn’t include providers like VM & their non FTTP Gig1? If the area has no VM/Netomnia etc etc then it’s looking like they’re making the prices insanely high just because they can since someone will pick it up.
I was waiting for more info on this. As my contact is up soon. I’ll stay with Zzoomm on 2Gig plan £56 a month no thanks Openreach.
Why would you want to move from Zzoomm? Unless you are having problems, you are better off staying. Not sure why anyone would want 2Gb/s, but there you go, but at least you can get it, there are some people who can only just about 24Mb/s or less.
I have been with Zzoomm for around 20 months and happy with what I get, I have no plan unless i move house.
Also, now they have gone in with Full fibre, people will eventually have more choice
The FTTP 160/30 & 330/50 must drop price sooner or later. I knew Openreach same speed will cost a bomb!
Of all the alt-nets to come to my area, why did it have to be VM.
Guys, don’t you see why Openreach set that price? It’s due to the fact that Openreach have deployed GPON instead of XG-PON and thus know that if it is competitively priced, that it will require entire areas upgraded to XG-PON.
This is my thought as well. Openreach keep failing to invest in what’s needed and delay for years until the last moment when they’re about to be eaten by competitors, then what they install is 10 years out of date.
Then the cycle repeats…. ISDN, local calls for dialup, ADSL, ADSL2, VDSL, PON, XGS-PON etc.
I think you mean XGS-PON? The “S” for symmetrical is actually somewhat important in this instance 🙂
What a flop, this pricing makes Virgin look good! I honestly thought that would be impossible haha,
Currently pay £45 for 2000/2000 to Virgin. best of luck to them!
I use yayzi broadband and just upgraded to their 2.3+ service which is 2.3 Gbps symmetrical for £55 a month. I had to check the date on this article to make sure it wasn’t the 2010s
Its dinosaur BT/Brokenreach what do people expect? It’s all smoke and mirrors.
Just pray those bigger ALTNETS get more coverage and stable profitability with take-up, because it’s the only realistic way of getting symmetric on current technology rather than legacy GPON Brokenreach use.
Also ALTNET Netomnia/YouFibre leading the way with no in contract price increases and existing customers that re-contract always get the new customer deal pricing.
People need to support the ALTNETS though, no good keep going to dinosaurs like BT and overpriced VM if there is an ALTNET in your area with a wait and see attitude. They need funding now else it will be a world of just BT and VM again….
Can get 2 gig up and down for £54.99 on a 24 month contract with Lothain Broadband. Where are Openreach getting their pricing from?
You need to understand, this is BT ticking a box for symmetric offering on just one tier so they can withdraw it or not extend its reach, but citing the trial had no take-up and therefore people don’t need it.
It’s all BT’s ploy because they simply detest the thought of symmetric services that could impact their (expensive) leased line offering. Right now, the ALTNETS are a thorn in their side by offering it, and the mighty Netomnia also going ahead this year with 50PON (50gbps) – BT can’t even get their act together to go to XGS-PON (10gbs). BT/Brokenreach should have a slogan “Holding back the UK for years” just like VM should change theirs to “Overcharging the UK for years” 🙂
Roll on Altnets, particularly Netomnia and CityFibre and CommunityFibre with more coverage and take-up.
I guess that explains why there is no need for a trial. It will be available in few places and priced to motivate people not to use it. Will be good for small businesses compared to current leased line costs, but few others.
Crazy price! Airband offer symmetric Gigabit for £58/month after 20 months. Like Mark’s said, I reckon this will be aimed at businesses!
It’s BT pricing 🙂 You didn’t think it would be attractive for most residential customers did you?
If you have an ALTNET, use it is my advice. #DEFUND the incumbent dinosaurs, else they will continue to think they offer great products and pricing….
Not with those prices, no! Thing is, in this day and age, 1 Gb/s symmetric should be available to everyone and not at those prices!
BT said “trial FTTP over XGS-PON in 2026”. Talk about snails.
OMG, TRIAL in 2026!!!! So availability of migration to XGS-PON from GPON is circa late 2027 onwards then and that will be a slow process as people renew contracts or for new customers.
This is great news for ALTNETS, they can continue to offer keen symmetric pricing without fear of BT eating any customers, because quite frankly, GPON is going to get congestion as take-up increases.
Netomnia will be on 50PON easily by then (50gbps) and I’m sure other ALTNETS would have started moving to newer tech by then too.
I’d guess the trial is perhaps more around how they do ONT swaps, can and end user do it, can a cheaper engineer do it, how do they surface to the ISP who needs a new ONT etc
It seems this GPON-based symmetrical 1Gbps product will be confined to Project Gigabit areas eligible for the GIS (public subsidy) contracts where no CP has plans to provide gigabit-equivalent products within the next three (rolling) years. Openreach’s Type C ‘cross-regional’ contract(s) require them to make a wholesale reference offer based on a suitable benchmark. Question is what benchmark is being used here given Alt Nets have lower RETAIL prices for symmetrical 1Gbps.
The fact that they don’t need to trial it proves they’ve been able to offer it all along, they just don’t want to. My bet is that symmetric bandwidth was made a condition to of winning the Project Gigabit contract. Hence they offer it at a ludicrous price that means they tick that box and, if anyone orders it, they make a ton of money. If they are challenged on the high price then they just point to the hypocrisy of having to keep the rest of their prices above a certain level by regulation. Win win for Brokenreach.
Truly mental pricing from a company no one wants to deal with anymore as they are living in the past. 2gig symmetrical from Trooli has been amazing for £55/m
but for how much longer?
The alt-net cheerleaders seem to have forgotten that their wonderfully cheap service is backed by masses of debt and of course cherry picking to the extreme. They can’t even make it work when they get low cost access to their main competitor’s physical infrastructure. Trooli’s own financial problems have been covered on this very web site.
Or, put another way – if other firms thought they could do a better or cheaper job than Openreach, why didn’t they bid for these BDUK contracts? BT steps in to save the day and of course the symmetric obsessives don’t like the fact that they have to charge a more sensible price for a service tier that few people would take up anyway.
I happen to live in a Trooli area myself. “no one seems to want to deal with them. Nor is anyone really using the Cityfibre overbuild. Plenty of shiny new Openreach fibre boxes on the walls of the houses, though.
Calm down Ivor, your BT shares won’t plummet overnight 🙂
The ALTNETS, well some like Netomnia, are efficient and that’s why they offer lower prices. Yes they have debt, it’s factored in. City fibre had trouble, they have now started to recover and reverse their situation.
How is the BT pension shortfall debt going by the way 😉 And have they completed sell off their outsourcing enterprise unit yet?
Pay attention to the bit that says this pricing exclusively relates to premises provided via the Cross Regional contracts (Type C) given to Openreach (pretty much exclusively) by BDUK.
Looks like poor suckers in those areas will be at distinct disadvantage (pricewise) compared to those who live in areas which will be served by Altnets providing BB service for BDUK contracts on Type A and Type B contracts.
I suggest that anyone worried about this pricing should get onto the BDUK Gov.uk website and work out if you are in one of the Cross Regional areas. If so, and you don’t like the look of this pricing, I would suggest that you write to BDUK, and your local MP, to complain at the marked difference in potential pricing between Type A/B contracts and Openreach’s Type C contracts.
Speeds aside, if you don’t want to stump up for ethernet or leased line then this is an attractive alternative.
For some users, features like multiple static IPv4’s and no filth like CGNAT are desirable, a lot of alt nets out there use CGNAT so if you want to route something inbound, forget it! Begrudgingly with Virgin 500/500 XGS-PON at £39/month “introductory offer” which gives me a fairly sticky IPv4 which might be good enough, but it’s still virgin, who’s customer services department and requiring users to call to renegotiate their renewal every 18m strategy seem to let the entire brand down ugh!
Most ALTNETS, if not all, offer option of static IP or IPv6.
I am not trying to start an argument but Compare Broadband Packages website says Openreach 1gig symmetrical price will start at £47.50 (starting price). Surely this makes more sense than £100+vat? Has anyone else seen this price of £47.50 per month for 1 gig symmetrical from Openreach?
If you mean the fake comparison site that rips off headlines from TBB, ISPr + others and then uses AI to re-write their stories, with often entirely fictitious claims, then I’d call complete BS on that one. No retail ISPs have announced any prices, and the prices they do release will be well above the ex. VAT rental.
How are we so far behind to other places in pricing, like symmetrical speeds are standard in some other European countries, yet we get price gouge at every opportunity and our regulators don’t give monkey, one would think there is money changing hands.
A lot of people here saying if you have an Altnet in the area then use them but I find it very hard to know of there is an Altnet in the area. Most Altnet providers don’t exist on SamKnows so won’t show up as being available, and there are so many Altnet’s for the average Joe to keep up with so looking at their sites is out.
The Better Internet Dashboard bidb.uk is a great checker that checks the vast majority of alt nets.
yeah bidb is a good shout, but think broadband maps are also good and list many altnets.
to be honest it’s tiresome when people rattle on about their favourite altnet, fantastic, the rest of us living in openreach or VM areas don’t have a choice. If you’ve got super amazing cheap symmetric broadband that’s great. For you. But it doesn’t help the rest of us
have you seen altnets building?
brsk around here have their logo stickered on the box which is on openreach’s pole
What a joke the UK is compared to other countries. I lived in New Zealand for 12 years and paid just under £50 per month for 2000Mbps up and down. Even when I had the 1000Mbps service, it was just over 500Mbps up. for about the equivalent of £30.
In some residential areas it is possible to get 4000Mbps and 8000Mbps service for less than £100 per month with no usage cap, and no installation.
All this from a country with a population less than the whole of Greater London area – about 5 million people in the whole country.
Still paying 2gb/2gb plus static ip for £53 pcm..
With broadband data usage growing year on year, we’re also planning for the future, and have recently announced our intention to trial FTTP over XGS-PON in 2026.”
I am shocked, why is openreach so bad at seeing what people want? There are other companies starting 50G-PON.
Whilst OPENREACH IS TRIALING not even starting but trialing in 2026..
What a sad company.
Because most people don’t want symmetrical speeds, people are happy with 300 or 500. It’s not often I install a 1gb line, people just want the cheapest option which stops their kids moaning about buffering.
So basically a nothing burger, nicely done Openreach.
Any way of getting a list of areas which were included in the: BDUK Type C framework
Insane when I pay £29 for cityfibres offerings
did Aprils fools come early?? Really, what is in the minds of management when pricing these speeds??
Alt – nets are doing a good job of giving us good speeds at reasonable cost, but BT is really taking the p***.
An excellent reminder why I detest contracts in the ISP space.
Sign up to a daft contract now to pay £150pm for symmetrical FTTP, only to have an altnet go live six months later.
I do wonder why Ofcom hasn’t mandated (encouraged?) councils to lay their own dark fibre infrastructure in their constituencies, usually by creating their own company to do so, or having a publicly-owned national company do it. Then people can freely pick their providers and only ever need ONE hole drilled into their walls. A portion of the sub goes to ‘leasing’ and maintaining/growing the infrastructure.
That’s competition. Fifty different holes drilled into your walls to have a choice between fifty different providers is the epitome of daftness and a complete lack of foresight.
I really detest the way ISPs function in the UK and how they’ve been allowed to get away with it.
£150 for symmetrical fibre. Despicable.
What a load of rubbish, thank god there’s competition, currently on 1,25gbps symmetrical for £25/month
which supplier?