Netomnia Goes Live with First 50Gbps UK Full Fibre Broadband Network
Alternative broadband operator Netomnia, which is supported by retail internet providers YouFibre and Brsk, has today become the first UK network operator to go live with a commercial deployment of 50Gbps capable 50G-PON based Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) technology (real-world speeds of up to c.40Gbps are expected for homes and businesses).
Just to recap. The network access provider, which has already extended their full fibre network to reach 2.4 million UK premises (RFS) and 310,000 customers, currently aims to expand their network to reach 3 million premises by the end of 2025 and then 5 million by the end of 2027 (inc. 1 million customers by 2028). The service is currently available across parts of over 90 UK cities and towns.
The network technology they’ve been using for this infrastructure, XGS-PON (The ‘X’ stands for 10, the ‘G’ for Gigabits’, the ‘S’ for symmetric speed and PON means Passive Optical Network), is already capable of delivering symmetric speeds up to 10Gbps. Indeed, YouFibre already have a 7-8Gbps package for homes, which costs just £99.99 per month on an 18-month term with free installation.
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However, Netomnia have made no secret of the fact that they’d also like to be the first UK broadband network to launch commercial services using Adtran’s 50G-PON kit (here), which was originally being targeted – somewhat ambitiously – for a launch by the end of 2024. But getting bleeding edge kit like this to market is no mean feat, and Adtran have previously acknowledged supply-side issues that slowed progress (here).
The good news today is that Adtran appear to be getting a handle on the supply of their new SDX 6400 optical kit (OLT/ONT) and associated services, which has enabled Netomnia to launch their first commercial 50G PON network and claim bragging rights in the process.
Jeremy Chelot, Group CEO of Netomnia, YouFibre and brsk, said:
“At Netomnia, we’re building a fibre network for whatever comes next — and with the UK’s first commercial 50G PON deployment, we’re proving it. This isn’t just about speed; it’s about power. From AI-driven smart homes to lag-free metaverse experiences and tomorrow’s enterprise demands, we’re making sure the most powerful internet lives on our network. Partnering with Adtran, we’re redefining what fibre can deliver — no compromises, no limits, just the future delivered.”
Stuart Broome, GM of EMEA sales at Adtran, said:
“We committed to Netomnia in 2024 that they would be the first provider in the UK to deploy a commercial 50G PON solution. Today, we achieved that milestone, helping them deliver a live ultra-high-speed service to an existing customer.
The deployment demonstrates how our SDX 6400 Series empowers operators to scale capacity, accelerate service delivery and support next-generation applications, all while leveraging their existing infrastructure. As demand surges for bandwidth-intensive services like generative AI, 5G backhaul and enterprise connectivity, this project shows how we’re helping partners like Netomnia stay ahead of the curve.”
Take note that a combination of issues like network overheads and advertising rules mean that this service, once live as a product, isn’t currently likely to be promoted as offering download speeds of greater 40Gbps. Not that anybody is going to complain about that, and there isn’t an independent web-based speedtest in existence that can currently give an accurate result for such a service, yet.
Naturally, going faster than 10Gbps will also require a new ONT (optical modem) to be installed in your home/office, as well as a monster router (details not yet known). But suffice to say that this is going to be more akin to premium business kit than something you could easily buy off Amazon. It’s not for everybody.
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On the other hand, this isn’t just about those top speeds, and Netomnia will also be using 50G PON to underpin their existing network and speed tiers too (there will be cost savings). The fact it exists is impressive, although at the time of writing the announcement doesn’t make mention of any new consumer packages, but we know they’re coming and the 10Gbps+ era is finally upon us.
The usual catch in all this is the difficulty of actually being able to harness all that speed when online. Most internet services still seem to struggle to harness more than 1Gbps (1000Mbps), assuming they can do even that, while the multi-gigabit domain remains a luxury product (Why Buying Gigabit Broadband Doesn’t Always Deliver 1Gbps). But technological evolution rarely waits for the slowest users.
Naturally, there will always be those who find reason to moan, even when a network provider does something as striking as this. But such developments are also the reason why Netomnia are one of the most exciting fixed broadband networks in the UK, which is in no small part down to their willingness to push the boundaries of technology – often while setting new benchmarks for consumer speeds and affordability.
However, Netomnia aren’t the only UK provider with plans to launch packages using 50G PON technology. Welsh ISP Ogi has expressed a similar desire for 2025 (here) and various other networks have trialled 50G-PON (examples here and here), albeit while giving few details about their own plans for a future commercial launch.
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UPDATE 2:06pm
Netomnia informs that they will be looking to make any faster packages available to business users first, which makes sense since going beyond 10Gbps tends to require kit that, at present, wouldn’t quite be right for a typical domestic environment. The first live connection is to a commercial customer.
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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So how far off are we to actually having a home router that can support such speeds?
10 years?
Depends on how much you’re willing to spend :), as well as whether you’re looking at speeds by the measure of what a single port can deliver or across WiFi + all ports combined (peak device capacity).
At the moment I doubt there’ll be any home routers that do even 10Gbps, never mind 25/50.
For this you’d need a full computer to do 25/50. Servers can do 100Gbps easily, with 100Gbps easily purchased. Not cheap, but possible if your pockets are deep enough.
Meanwhile, dinosaur BT/Brokenreach are mulling over introducing XGS-PON, but still deploying legacy GPON, telling us they know best, and symmetric as not needed (well until the other ISPs started eating away customers as in the news this week).Brokenreach “Holding back the UK for years”, should be their slogan….
Unifi do a 10GB WAN gateway for quite reasonable price – https://uk.store.ui.com/uk/en/category/all-cloud-gateways/collections/cloud-gateway-fiber/products/ucg-fiber
@anonymous – Really, do you absolutely NEED faster than 1.6Gbps download?
Really?
Openreach are looking at the market demand from the masses, not us nerds who want all the speed possible.
Openreach’s weakness is the upload speed not download. I know the majority of people are not interested in gigabit upload but I also think the market for it is not all that niche either. There are lots of different reasons for needing to upload large files and nobody likes waiting around for an upload to complete. Getting gigabit upload was a game changer for me working from home it’s like being on the LAN at the office.
@Cognizant
Asus BE-RT88U can do 10Gbps via RJ45 or SFP+ I have one
Cognizant, just because you can’t max it put, don’t assume others can’t. If you work in creative industry, large media files can literally be gaps to move around. We aren’t talking about tge sort of low bit rare files you probably watch.
And if you have an ALTNET, why would I even bother looking at legacy Openreach??? They can look at the masses as much they want, just like they did in the FTTC roll out when other countries were doing fttp, it won’t help them, and they will bleed customers as the ALTNETS consolidate and get bigger and get more take up.
@anonymous
How nice of you to assume what I can and cannot do. Just goes to show how much you actually know.
anonymous: you have Virgin Media cable. The person you’re insulting paid for Starlink as FTTC wasn’t enough, and when they were made available purchased two separate full fibre services. They still have two full fibre services active into their home.
Wind it in.
@Polish
I also have 2 – one BT and one Brsk – it’s always worth having a backup and 1Gbps and below is so cheap – why not.
I think some people just can’t stand the fact they can’t get it – or if they could they wouldn’t be able to use it fully. In which case they don’t need it but might still want it for whatever reason
Great news, but definitely a casw that this is more about having the backhaul to power their network at all points, and less about residential customers buying a 20gbps symmetric package. Although they will probably sell them through youfibre, they’re more likely just making sure plenty of customers can buy 500-1000mbps symmetric residential packages [100 customers on 500mbps service, 50 customers on 1000mbps service] without any backhaul capacity problems
This is 50G PON which is an access technology.
It’s got nothing to do with their network backhaul
Their core network update, was quite literally, yesterday’s news!
Their average customer uses less than 10 Mbit/s. I really don’t think they need state of the art, bleeding edge equipment to support 10 Mbit/s per customer on a 1:128 or 1:64 split.
Oh, here we again again. Statistics bended to support an agenda.
Right, many people have an internet connection in the millions. Many will just check email. That doesn’t mean a significant part do not use the faster speeds for 4K streaming, multiple people online at once in a household, downloading large updates (like game consoles).
The overall statistic is watered down because of internet minimalists (mainly they have it, but don’t realise its full potential in what can be done or prioritise other things instead), and some areas can only get slow speeds still.
If it was 10mbps, then why install FTTC and fibre, ADSL would have sufficed, they’d be no investment case 🙂
Citation required given the number I gave holds true both for median and mode. It’s actually pretty generous, both numbers are way below 10 Mbit.
You do have evidence to back up your opinion given you’re telling other people they’re wrong, right?
Sorry, just FYI the stats on usage are often means. These are heavily skewed by heavier users, the median is lower. Presume you know the difference between mean and median. Sandvine publish stats and before you try and claim they’re biased it’s in their interests to exaggerate usage.
If I’m brutally honest you’ve clearly never worked in the field and your comments strongly suggest you’ve no idea what you’re talking about. If you posted this stuff anywhere with more moderation you’d have been booted long ago.
You strike me as some random person still living at home repeatedly posting the same stuff on the Internet. Seem to be a NEET going by the content and timing of the posts.
If you’re an industry expert look forward to learning from you.
If you’re a random youngster thinking they know everything grow up.
If you’ve disabilities I am sorry, I do too, kindly stop sharing them.
If you’re none of the above get a life or get a grip.
Sadly ITS beat them?
ITS was a test, not a commercial deployment.
Choice at some point for those who want/need it. I’m guessing that its a business package at the top speed, and servers will be allowed to be used on it.
Fantastic news I was just about to update my at home AI robot but couldn’t due to my current limited GBPS. Great news.
@jrhop it’s a step in the right direction but still 40Gbps shy. Maybe buy 5? 🙂
Its interesting Adtran themselves see 20gig as the max for a customer to use, but ISPs using this tech will probably sell 40G to individual customers, as the temptation is too much for them so they allow one customer to max it out.
Highly doubtful. ONUs will have 10G or 25G ports only. 40G is very much legacy and almost no firewalls will be able to sensibly consume it, 10G or 25G — mark my words.
Max 10G makes alot of sense if you’re in a fibre constrained environment, 30 business customers in a office block each with a 1-10G service on a 10G port means they’ll comfortably fit one PON/fibre. A user needing 25G is probably best served on ethernet.
All Mini PC’s and Tower Desk PC’s ethernet lan port only do 2.5Gbps. Anything up to 1Gbps Full Fibre is fine for all home residential because most laptop and smart phone and TV only got 1Gbps wifi.
What about if you have NAS server connected with 10gbps card into 10gbps capable switch?
And other kit that is modern or upgraded to 2.5gbps capability?
A USB 2.5gbps ethernet adapter hardly breaks the bank these days.
Not doing a BT special are you? Telling us all what we need and can have? 🙂
Fitting 100Gbps NIC’s to machines is trivial, too.
“Netomnia informs that they will be looking to make any faster packages available to business users first, which makes sense since going beyond 10Gbps tends to require kit that, at present, wouldn’t quite be right for a typical domestic environment.”
This looks like a very compelling product for a business with small-medium-sized offices (and perhaps even large, if not too much multimedia). I expect it will cost a fraction of the cost of a leased line.
For homes, I could see the (rare) homeworker who needs to upload a lot of data to AWS and similar might benefit from 10Gbps+.
Great to see! There will be people that say this wont be needed as people have always expected things to take time. It would be great to see near instant download and upload times it could open up doors for new exciting tech.
Hopefully this means it will bring down the cost of the 2gbps plan. Currently on 1gbps but if i can upgrade to 2gbps for around the same price it would be great!
I highly doubt that, they’ve upped the price of 1G plan again so can’t see 2G coming any cheaper
Only thing I can assume is they might bring it down to the same price as Brsk? which is £55. Or brsk might even align up to YT’s prices – or they will stay as they are – only time will tell!
Orange have 100Gbps servers on nperf.com – not sure if they would do 40Gbps but wanted to mention it!
Are these tests and deploymenta of 50G-PON symmetric? Also, why no LG(S)-PON, did they worry that no one would remember that the Roman numeral for 50 is L?
It’s all worked out beautifully.
Well home routers can already support 10GB, my ONT has a 10GB port on it for my home router connection. And some of the top end consumer models have 10GB ports on them. 50GB would be quite something but only for the extreme home enthusiast of business as I expect it isn’t cheap!
Might be the first Netomnia article where people are actually reacting to it and not just whining that their homes are not connected by Netomnia yet
Now if only the same can be applied to Starlink articles
I use an ms01 for the 8gb/8gb package. Works just great. Recent maintenance though has impacted latency so I hope they resolve this but I won’t get my hopes up.
I think this encapsulates the problem with alt nets. No product bundling to drive ARPU so they keep trying to sell more speed nobody will use or pay for.
It’s a publicity stunt – theyre acting like it is 2020.
Well, this will upset you then. Netomnia/You Fibre will introduce mobile bundling soon. Probably just the start….