CityFibre Prep New 5.5Gbps Wholesale Broadband Product for UK ISPs
Network operator CityFibre, which has already deployed their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband network to cover 4.4 million UK premises (4.2m Ready for Service), has today taken the wraps off their new “Multi-Gig” product, offering its ISP partners symmetrical speeds of 5.5Gbps (Gigabits per second) – over twice as fast as their current top 2.5Gbps tier.
The new product tier is being made possible by the operator’s ongoing upgrade from their existing GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Network) to XGS-PON (10Gbps symmetric capable PON) platform, which has already rolled out across 85% of CityFibre’s network and is currently “due for completion later this summer“.
In addition, the operator also hinted that they’re planning “faster Multi-Gig services due to launch” sometime in 2026, which we suspect might well see them push into the 7-8Gbps territory like other altnets (e.g. Netomnia/YouFibre, B4RN etc.). Going faster than 7-8Gbps on even XGS-PON in the real-world is difficult due to network overheads and other caveats.
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“Over three times faster than BT Openreach’s fastest available 1.8Gb downstream / 0.12Gb upstream service, and available at a much lower wholesale cost, CityFibre’s 5.5Gb symmetrical product will enable partners to offer a range of Multi-Gig speed tiers to customers, improving margins whilst providing a valuable customer retention tool for the long term,” said the announcement.
Greg Mesch, CEO of CityFibre, said:
“The UK’s full fibre future is here, thanks to CityFibre’s powerful, 10Gb XGS-PON network. Our ISP partners are already connecting customers with speeds over 2Gb and exceeding expectations when it comes to quality and reliability, but our next generation of full fibre will set a new standard for what’s possible.
CityFibre started out to challenge the incumbents and bring choice and competition to the UK market. This is another huge step-forward, giving ISPs more power and flexibility than ever before and bringing affordable Multi-Gig speeds and an unrivalled experience to millions of UK consumers.”
The network operator, which has so far attracted 550,000 live customers (March 2025), currently still aspires to cover up to 8 million UK premises with their new full fibre network (funded by c.£2.4bn in equity, c.£4.9bn debt and nearly £1bn of BDUK / public subsidy) – representing c.30% of the UK. But quite when they’ll reach that point is unclear.
The announcement comes shortly after we reported on how Openreach’s technical documents for their own XGS-PON deployment were hinting at plans for a top symmetric speed of 3.3Gbps (here). At the same time, we’ve also seen Netomnia pushing into 50Gbps capable (50G PON) territory (here), although business users will be the first to benefit from any future 10Gbps+ packages via that network.
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 more of a premium luxury product (Why Buying Gigabit Broadband Doesn’t Always Deliver 1Gbps). But technological evolution rarely waits for the slowest users.
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Naturally, there will always be those who find reason to moan, even when a network providers do things as striking as this. But pushing the boundaries of modern technology is part of what makes an operator exciting (marketing carries power) and as coverage matures then service performance / quality inevitably becomes the next battleground, alongside price.
The catch for retail ISPs is that, in order to take advantage of such speeds, they’ll need to invest in more capacity and better equipment (e.g. optical modems / ONT and routers, as well as fresh engineer visits for existing customers). All of that comes with its own costs and complexity, thus it may take a bit of time before all of CityFibre’s retail ISPs are pushing their new top speeds to consumers.
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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Openreach / BT Group are now way behind. Get a grip Openreach!
No Phil, they’re not.
I agree, certainly when it comes to symmetric connections. But this 2.5 and above speed, I do wonder what people get out of it. I was chatting to someone last week who was saying they have 2Gb/s on Zoom, great, it gives Zzoomm more money, but when I asked them some questions, it turned out that they were not getting anything out of it. Not saying that Zzoomm talk him into going for it, I think it was his choice, but I know that some people are being talked into going for speeds they don’t need and paying for it.
One of my brother’s is on BT 500Mb/s and is paying a fair bit for it, said he had an email about being out of contract, so asked my advice. I asked him what he uses his broadband for and to be honest, he could go for 50MMb/s, but if he can get 150Mb/s for a decent price then go for it, for new customers the difference in price is £1 more or less.
This is a problem I have with FTTP, ISPs trying to push people to pay more4 for a service they don’t need, this is with all providers, no matter who they are. Zzoomm have left me alone for the last 2 years, the only email I get from them is when my bill is due, which is good, but I do know of other providers who tend to try to push people to higher speed services.
Sure, if you have a load of people living in one place then the higher speeds are great, but it does make me worry how many people are paying for something they don’t need. Sadly this happens for other services, not just broadband
Hopefully this will help speed up the debt refinancing deal.
Fara.. got caught out with another log in. Same language. So x550T2 will be mandatory.
@Altnettruth, Good to see you defending the Altnets, you’ve come round /sarcasm
I’m sure this may help as a competitive advantage over BT for those who require it, who struggle with GPON.
Isn’t it just great to have choice in those areas that can choose, rather than the BT dinosaur telling us what we can or can’t have all the time. Splendid.
Anything that helps the Altnets is great in my book.
To be clear, the industry absolutely needs this deal to happen. It’s in paralysis until it is.
Yes, fallout from CityFibre poisoning the well continues.
Things are largely seized up while they debt raise and they and others are running out of cash and available credit line.
Not sure this will change anything and it’s probably a reaction to Openreach’s recent STIN featuring 3300. It’s a configuration change and less problematic than selling symmetrical gigabit on GPON for them.
Might raise ARPU slightly but not likely to see many purchases and move the needle. The people deciding whether and on what terms to lend care about the financials and this isn’t likely to make a dent in CityFibre’s cash burn.
Good headline though and always good to see new products. Be interesting to see what use it gets.
Companies on the National product over 10G ports need to be careful with it. For ISPs need 10G CPE, either few customers on a 10G or ideally 25G+ NNIs. One of CF’s technically minded National customers can’t use this.
Clearmind60: many other network cards are available that will work fine. Doesn’t have to be that specific Intel card.
@anon – how do BT struggle with GPON?
@The Facts, where is it then? Even future offering is tiered because it will be expensive so people go for lowest tier.
GPON vs XGS-Pon. No competition. CityFibre will have upgraded their older network areas to XGS-PON by latest end of this year and likely sooner.
@anonymous You keep focusing on the products offered and the prices charged purely from a customer perspective and ignore the fact that the company providing them is losing money hand over fist.
Cityfibre have said they will run out of cash by mid-2025 if they can’t raise more from lenders and shareholders.
So they launch a 5.5Gbps symmetric service to grab some headlines. If you want it and can get it and like the price then fill your boots, whatever they charge it will no doubt be exceptional value for money for those who want that speed. But that doesn’t automatically mean they are teaching BT a masterclass in how to run a successful, profitable telecoms business.
Companies (and individuals) go bankrupt when they run out of money – even if they have assets. Cash is king and it only makes sense to keep doing network upgrades if there are solid reasons for believing that additional funding will come through soon from existing shareholders (a £500 million equity injection) and lenders (an additional £1 billion in incremental debt).
Any product news around their ethernet services? 1Gbps Flex was great when it launched but looks a bit out of date now.
Just to highlight Openreach falling behind. They announced a symmetric 3.3 gbit symmetric service recently as well as a 2.2gbit symmetric too. News was on this website a few weeks ago or so.
For the cheap price of both kidneys
Misinformation alert. A tick box but in reality too expensive for anyone to sign up to one of the expensive tiers for upload on BT. Plus GPON would get congested more easily than an XGS-PON network….
We don’t know what Openreach intends to charge for those tiers, so it is misinformation to state that with such confidence.
These new tiers are on XGSPON, so why would OR have a higher risk of congestion than anyone else? I assume it’d be lower because my understanding is that they use a smaller split than the altnets.
Good grief, the comments on here are getting better and better.
Who said Openreach were struggling? I get 1.6Gbps down through my GPON connection just fine, and 95% of the population who can get OR FTTP will be managing just fine.
Anyone who says otherwise hasn’t got a clue about how this industry really works. Fast speeds are good, yes, we need progress – but for 95-99% of the population, folks just don’t need it.
Yes dial up is more than adequate, how dare of us keep asking for faster internet.
Millions still left out of the fibre revolution, still struggling on copper. It was just about OK until we got MS Flight Sim – now we’re hobbled on the connection! For now, we have to carry on paying much more to received much less, probably into 2026…
Meanwhile, millions already have multiple FTTP networks to choose from!
This comment perfectly highlights why the UK has fallen so far behind in terms of network infrastructure, and other types of infrastructure as well. There seems to be a widespread attitude of “this is enough for most people, so why do better?” rather than “does this create a good foundation for future growth and innovation?”.
Settling for just “good enough” is why rural areas were neglected for years, and why other countries built future-proof networks (see Romania) while we were still patching up copper. The fact that most people don’t need faster speeds right now completely misses the point, because infrastructure should be built with the next 50 years in mind.
Haha, if any of you knew me personally, you’d also understand why I get so frustrated with some of the commenters here.
Honestly, my point is – Yes, we’ve got 50GPON, but what annoys me is the “BT are struggling” type comments. For those who *CAN* get OR FTTP, 1Gbps is brilliant. Who the hell, realistically, *NEEDS* 50Gbps to their house? If you are crying about the fact that nobody can get you 50Gbps to your house right now, seriously, you need to take yourselves outside and give your heads a big ol’ wobble.
I apparently don’t know what I’m talking about when I can get 1.6Gbps, but apparently “I’m the reason why the UK has fallen so far behind”. No, I’m not.
The infrastructure *IS* being built with 50 years in mind. Once fibre is in the ground, upgrades are trivial. This is why BT/OR are sticking with GPON, economies of scale. Like it or not, they are the big player that has to try and build the whole country. Netomnia and their relatively small footprint can afford to be aggressive and offer 8Gbps, that’s their USP as a FTTP provider, surely.
Honestly, give me a break you lot, you don’t know what you’re on about.
Besides, technology like 50GPON is really for the benefit of backhaul in the short term, i.e. allowing more multigig customers on a single part of the PON.
Those pushing the “but Eastern Europe has fibre” argument forget that those countries had to rebuild from essentially nothing anyway, with the significantly lower costs being an added bonus.
The bit that is actually expensive and time consuming to build – the cabling itself – is already futureproof, with the boxes at the end of the fibre being quick and easy to replace when the time comes.
Comparisons to dialup also don’t work. With multi gig we are absolutely reaching the point of diminishing returns. We already see this with other computing resources eg processing power and RAM where software hasn’t got proportionally better, it’s just become a lot more inefficient because no one cares. Look at the rise of electron-based web apps as an example.
Of course if Cityfibre want to offer it for bragging rights then they’re perfectly free to do so, but it’s right to question whether anyone *needs* it.
It will all come down to cost. BT will be paying far less for GPON kit now. You have to remember they are connecting homes no other provider will touch. I would imagine most people upgrading from a DSL connection will be well happy with even the slowest FTTP speeds.
As I’ve said before fibre has been available in my village for 2 years but I haven’t felt the need to upgrade yet.
Ivor has understood my point, it’s no good comparing with dialup, but we are already into diminishing returns, for the current applications we run, @ 1Gbps and above.
No-one mentioned 50pon firstly secondly most people or some people would like 1Gig symmetrical to be the Standard Not 900/110 and it not costing an arm and a leg i think both BT INVESTORS like yourselves and People who want 8gig have lost the plot both sides in the wrong
Personally gig symmetrical is more than enough for the standard household it just needs to be around the 45 or 40 quid mark and I think BT would gain more than lose customer wise ofcom needs to loosen the lease on OR
@Cognizant speaks about download on BT. Whopee. They keep quiet about no equality on upload speed though lol apples are not equal to pears
/sigh.
Again, anonymous, whoever you are… (Let’s have a name eh? No good hiding in the shadows) – you do not understand the entire broadband market. 99% of people do not need symmetrical internet connectivity. That’s just a fact. Again, you are missing that Openreach have to cater for the biggest market, therefore they align their products and strategy accordingly.
The world is not made up of YouTubers and Creative people all uploading several gigabytes of video content every second of the day.
@A Stevens
I have been one of the Millions for 3 months. BT came and then brsk – and now CF and VM are trying to get in too. It’s bonkers I agree
Is the 50G-PON offering not symmetrical then? Also, why not LG-PON? Because no-one can count up to 100/1000 in Roman numerals?
50Gb: The Openreach trials were held using both symmetrical and non-symmetrical links. Netomnia is reported to be symmetrical.
@Fara82Light good on the Netomnia side, typical of OR approach though.
Strange that they don’t highlight it as 50(L)GS-PON.
@Richard:
BT has to evaluate products in the context of its architecture roadmap and existing infrastructure, thus the need to test a mix of scenarios. Further tests were focused on the evaluation of actual performance rather than validation of standards or integration.
No one is using the term “LGS-PON” as far as I can tell, certainly not the standards bodies, the trade bodies or the manufacturers. Is there any value in creating another term when 100GS-PON is adequately clear as it is?
Interesting. Starting to hit diminishing returns for me at 2.3 G so whether I would upgrade to this very much depends on price. Would also need to buy a 10 G network card to take advantage. Good to see one of the bigger boys pushing things along though.
You cannot praise an ALTNET. The BT fanboys have to have a therapy session when this happens.
You can only have adulation and unwavering dedication to dinosaur BT, their beloved icon.
Could I ask, do you have a particular use case reliant on the high bandwidths?
Pretty strong projection the person complaining about Hyperoptic disgracing altnets talking about fanboys.
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2025/06/hyperoptic-ends-campaign-against-mid-contract-broadband-price-hikes.html#comment-323183
Most people who disagree with you aren’t fanboys. You might treat ISPs like football teams but most live in a bigger world.
They need to deploy XGS first, still GPON only here in a CF area, also not a huge fan of allowing a single customer to use such a big % of a shared pipe. Hopefully they dont go all the way to 8gbps.
Its kind of surreal that people get so excited about this as well, as once you in gigabit territory its easily diminishing returns, the download time from 100mbit to gigabit is mighty, its transforming, but from 1 gig to 2gig, then to 5 gig? it will be barely noticeable as its already so quick.
Absolutely right. We’ve now seen the massive transformation that is Gbps broadband, much like ADSL was transformative for downloads compared to dialup, and FTTC to ADSL, but the jump this time is phenomenal. It’ll be several years before people will feel that 1Gbps is “slow”.
If yu are moving large volumes of data or need the low latency, it is very noticeable.
from 112 to 254MB/Sec is noticeable. I’ve had them both.
Units please. 100M. Or 100Mb.
Get a faster speed if you need faster downloads, but not to improve latency.
If latency increases under load, the cause is bufferbloat and the solution is to get a router that supports Smart Queue Management (SQM). A faster connection only hides the problem because the router spends less time under full load.
I have a 300Mbps symmetric GPON connection. With SQM enabled and upload/download speed limited to 98% of line speed, fast.com gives 2ms latency unloaded and 6ms loaded.
With the same router but SQM disabled, latency is still 2ms unloaded but over 50ms loaded.
@CJ says: the latency with respect to the end-to-end application – i.e. systems you are connecting via the fibre link – this is the critical determining factor.
‘They need to deploy XGS first, still GPON only here in a CF area, also not a huge fan of allowing a single customer to use such a big % of a shared pipe’
I mean they sell symmetrical gigabit over GPON with its roughly 1.2 Gbit of usable upload and sell 80% of the entire GPON downstream and over 80% of the upstream to their 2/1 customers. 5 5 Gbit out of 8.5 Gbit isn’t so bad.
A customer of a higher speed connection is not necessarily sending more data if their Use Case is to reduce end-to-end latency. They will also be paying a premium for the service which would not exist if there was no demand from customers who are willing to pay.
The argument that “no one needs more than 1Gbps” or “symmetrical isn’t important” misses the bigger picture. This isn’t just about faster downloads or streaming movies online. its about building an economy that’s ready for data-driven industries like cloud computing, high-intensity data services, AI, IoT, creative work and real-time collaboration. We are falling behind while other economies power ahead. It’s sad to watch the UK slip further back.
This is about enabling a digitally powered UK economy that isn’t gatekept by outdated technology, pricing models or narrow assumptions about how people use the internet.
Openreach has gatekept and held the UK economy back for decades, clinging on to legacy technology and offering end users crumbs, while other countries embraced true full fibre and symmetrical connectivity years ago. Their slow rollout, poor upload speeds and reliance on expensive leased lines have made it exclusionary for our start-ups, innovators and SMEs to access the infrastructure needed for a modern, high-intensity digital services for our economy.
The profit from Openreach’s legacy leased line business revenue is a mere drop in the ocean compared to the broader value of a truly digitally empowered UK economy.
Only been nearly 40 years since the telecomms market was opened to all.
A very buzzword heavy post.
As I pointed out to someone on a previous story (possibly you, since that post was also buzzwordy) – the US is the alleged “innovation” centre of the world, but most Americans are lucky to have two choices of fixed line ISP, and luckier still for them to be comparable in performance. This is true even in the cities that make up Silicon Valley.
The UK is much further ahead on price, performance, consistency of availability, etc. It was not that long ago, well into the 2010s in fact, that major US telcos thought T1-fed ADSL DSLAMs were an appropriate use of rural broadband subsidies. At least the UK required (at that time) 30Mbit minimum and thus we got VDSL or FTTP out of it. The US telcos are finally waking up and deploying fibre, but most of the US cable industry remains obsessed with coax.
And that’s before getting into whether the use cases you cite are a) worthwhile and b) being done in the most appropriate and efficient way. Firms that went big into public cloud are finding that it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, and the AI “boom” seems set to become a bust as the utility of LLMs isn’t living up the masses of hype and FOMO investment.
UK has been a leader in the online economy for years. More data consumed than any other European country besides Ireland, high e-commerce levels, high streaming utilisation, etc.
Your list of applications:
‘cloud computing, high-intensity data services, AI, IoT, creative work and real-time collaboration.’
IoT is low bandwidth. AI is done in datacentres, compute and hence power the issue in the UK. Real-time collaboration assume you are referring to people working on the same file so goes with cloud in which case if the file is produced in cloud via VDI job is done. Uncompetitive cloud costs in UK due to power prices and datacentre availability, not bandwidth.
Not sure what high-intensity data services are but likely also very high storage requirements and mostly done in datacentres.
SMEs aren’t being held back by not being able to run datacentres from a garage due to lack of bandwidth. High power costs and the regulatory environment are much more of a problem. For mission critical applications our Ethernet services are far lower price than the US, we’ve far more choice of carrier yet they’re kicking our backsides.
I work with US people full time. The kinds of prices I hear from them for relatively modest services are insane and until very recently full fibre was rare there, it was cable with uploads sub-50 Mbit and VDSL if you’re lucky. Fair to say it didn’t hold them back.
Neither did having the higher speed symmetrical connectivity make Sweden the European leader in those fields.
The UK is Europe’s primary services economy. London is the only tier-1 capital in the world. Connectivity infrastructure and services have helped both establish and maintain that position.
New York would like a conversation on London being the only ‘tier 1’ city. They’re the two Alpha ++ cities worldwide. Probably not a good metric to use when discussing the wider economy given the next UK city is a full 6 categories below, was 7 before last update.
The rest of us are abundantly aware we get the scraps, the stats for capital and regional cities elsewhere in Europe relative to us speak for themselves. Huge amount of wasted human capital and pressure on London housing as so many have to go there to progress their career as it’s on a different plane of existence from the rest of the UK.
@Polish Poler: I said teir-1 capital not city. New York also has no class, but that is another matter. 🙂
London represents a significant part of UK’s service economy – it subsidises most of the other regions in the UK, but it also illustrates how well the UK has and is doing. I would also point-out that Manchester is resurgent and is again becoming a major player in the UK and abroad on its own strengths.
Manchester’s ‘resurgence’ was partly catalysed by a massive terrorist attack. I’m not sure that’s really what should have to happen for areas to see the investment that’ll allow them to prosper.
I’m not sure you really have much idea on the state of the UK outside of London. Before we left we had pretty much the wealthiest area in the EU, London, and about half of the spots on the poorest 10. Tell the people living there how well the UK has done and is doing.
Rather a Hunger Games The Capital versus the sectors thing. We’ve the largest differential between the capital and the rest of the nation’s cities in the advanced world by a mile. We have the largest, most populous city in Europe without mass transit. To remedy that would cost less than 1/10th the price tag of Crossrail and carry a larger value add.
https://www.ippr.org/media-office/revealed-north-set-to-receive-2-389-less-per-person-than-london-on-transport
For all my angst about Starmer only now is the North seeing some investment.
Pretty difficult to get private sector investment without the enabling infrastructure.
I’m not sure what’s to celebrate or be flippant about unless you’re on the positive side of the equation. It would be a huge benefit to the nation as a whole if more were invested in developing the rest of our cities and it would likely be a huge benefit reducing the ‘pull’ factor to London and bring the housing costs there down to more sane levels.
You remind me of me before I moved from London and it was a huge learning experience. From Richmond upon Thames to the North of England was like moving to a different country. Doesn’t look so subsidised from here, looks more ignored in the hope it’ll go away with the odd scrap tossed to it when it gets too uppity.
I fully imagine if Parliament were moved to Leeds or Newcastle public investment and, in turn, prosperity, would follow rapidly. If/when they do start to succeed I would hope the people there don’t hold the same disdain for other parts of the country you evidently do.
@Polish-Poler: I am not fooled by the anti-London narrative, sorry. The UK is the world’s leading capital. It provides a range of services to the international community. These services need to be colocated. There is no need to turn this into another personal attack.
As to my original point, I think everything above just substantiates my point: The UK is Europe’s primary services economy. London is the only tier-1 capital in the world. Connectivity infrastructure and services have helped both establish and maintain that position.
I would rather they concentrate on expanding their network than working on better speeds (which like others say, is good for 95%+ of customers).
5Gb+ speeds are great, but when only 10% of the country can access them, of which only <5% will want to pay for them, it seems a bit silly to even look into this sort of area of business.
I am still in a FTTC area (30Mbps), OpenReach have said no upgrade, CityFibre won the contract years ago… Yet zero progress!
It’s really easy to offer this in areas where 2.5 is already available. Copy the 2500 configuration, change to 5500, decide what you want to charge, update billing system and documentation, spread the word, done.
Providers would not be offering these services if they did not think there was latent or confirmed demand.
Why is there always the comment “99% of people don’t need xx”?
Its been that way since 8mbit dsl. No one needs 8mbit/24mbit/80mbit/1GB/1GBsymetric/etc
From a very narrow view point, its arrogant: the presumption that they know what “most”people need, with no knowledge of how most people and households use their connection, how many simultaneous connections are in use, and so forth.
“most people are not content creators” – from own experience, many of my friends teenage children *are* content creators, all wanting to be “influencers” (sadly, but thats another matter) and uploading gigabytes of video to YouTube, TikTok, FB, etc. How many children and teens across the UK are engaged in this? I have no idea.
Remote working vastly benefits from greater bandwidth, especially when there are two remote workers in the same household. Add in kids using the internet in school holidays.
Add in [multiple] 4K video streams, video calling, etc etc. The point being, there will always be use cases for any bandwidth number, but whether a given use case needs X bandwidth is not the point. The real point is that we should have an infrastructure that can support todays demands, and scale as demand and bandwidth requirements increase.
And at the end of the day, it is the telco decisionw what to build/support,the ISP decision what packages to offer, and the individuals choice what bandwidth they require and what they purchase. Whether a package was “upsold” or they were “persuaded” to buy a “faster” package is not relevant to building out the infrastructure.
Its almost akin to stating that Land Rover (other manufacturers are available] shouldn’t offer Defenders because 99% of people dont /need/ one, whilst ignoring the requirements of those who do. No one is forcing anyone to buy a Defender. But they are available for farmers and other country-types who do need one.