Broadband ISP File Sanctuary Launch UK 2.3Gbps CityFibre FTTP Plan
Consumers looking to join UK internet provider File Sanctuary, which sells broadband packages via Openreach and CityFibre’s national networks, may like to know that they’ve today launch a 2300Mbps (symmetric) speed package via the latter’s platform. The price starts at just £55 per month.
“We’re excited to bring 2.3 Gbps FTTP to our customers,” said Aaron Russell, Managing Director (MD) & Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at File Sanctuary. “This launch reflects our commitment to delivering future-ready connectivity with honest pricing and real human support.”
The unlimited usage 2.3Gbps package costs £55 inc. VAT per month on a 12-month contract term and with free installation. But the package doesn’t bundle a router, thus new customers must either use their own or pick from a choice of FRITZ!Box router models. The provider also claims they don’t do mid-contract price hikes, offer UK-based support and native IPv4 and IPv6 support (no CGNAT, but if you want a Static IP it’ll cost an extra £2.40).
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Finally, customers can optionally pick a monthly (1-month) term, but you’ll then have to pay the £66 one-off installation charge.
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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Might see a rush of even more ICUK resellers announcing these speeds, given ICUK launched these packages today?
Much cheaper than UnchainedISP CityFibre 1000/1000 £70 a month.
Its only £15 cheaper.
Only? In the economy. No you’re getting more for less
BT fan boys say NO to symmetric speeds and faster speeds. They simply wont have it!
I agree, Anonymous, more choice is great to have, and those that want it, pay the extra. Far better than an incumbent provider that tries dictating what people can have.
@FANNY ADAMS, Are you talking to yourself again, or have we got a new anonymous, on ISPreview!
What do you actually do with your symmetric connection, other than obsessively post about a firm you apparently want nothing to do with?
I know you’ve heard it all before but it bears repeating for others. The BT Group are achieving great success doing what they’re doing, with financials and market demand that every altnet is dreaming of. Investors loved last week’s trading update. They will continue to make huge profits while building fibre out to places of the UK that an altnet won’t touch, not even with the huge leg up given by forcing BT to rent out its crown jewel physical assets at knockdown prices.
I can’t imagine how you’ll feel if Openreach launch a lower cost symmetric option as is widely assumed. If you have the choice, there’ll be very few reasons to want to use an altnet at that point!
I don’t get the BT fanboys, why they are so intent in supporting a large monopoly of a company. Yes, i know altnets are supported by large companies, and I may not agree with where some of them get their money from, but that is the same country wide, from Supermarkets to any other company you use.
BT is funded by shareholders, some from undesirable parts of the world and BT is not British any more and have not been for years, if they ever have been, even if it still has British in their name.
If you’re going to worry about things like that, then you will buy nothing and be living in caves.
I have said it before, and I will say it again, BTIvor and co must have shares or work for them. You would think otherwise they would want the competition, to keep open reach/BT on their toes. If there were no competition, they would do what they want to do, there would be no need for Ofcom or regulations. People would be paying £50 or more for speed below 1Gbit.
It is good we have competition, and good that people have a choice.
As for what I use symmetric connection for, I can send files to my partner quicker and the same for her the other way. While I don’t use cloud storage these days, if i did, then it would be quicker to upload files to that.
Sure with small files you would not notice a lot of difference, but larger files you do.
I sent some video files of a steam show to someone in the states a week ago, makes hell of a difference.
I have gone from not really wanting the faster speed of fibre, to I am glad I have it,
Maybe BTIvor can answer me this question, I doubt it, since he has failed to answer any other, unless i missed them
Why would I want to change to the Openreach network?
Zzoomm offers me a good connection at a good price, they are reliable, have symmetric connection, true I may not upload as much as I download, but it is useful. They give a fixed price for 12 months when other providers, shoves people into a 24-month contract and keep increasing the prices.
zzoomm give me everything I need, more than what I need, for less cost than what the majority of providers charge using the Openreach network.
No doubt BTIvor will come out with some rubbish.
Before you say it, yes i know that Openreach is large and as a company is here to stay and the risk of them going belly up is slim. Before I changed to Zzoom, that was one of my worries, after trying out a wireless network years ago and that failing, I did not want to go through it again.
But I thought stick it, let take the chance and as I get older, I should take more chances. you only live once so the saying goes.
I work my guts out for a faceless company, who is more interested in making the next billion than their staff.
What will happen in the future, who knows, that asteroid that is coming towards us, may hit the earth and that will muck things up a bit, but they say it won’t.
Companies aren’t funded by their shareholders, they are owned by them.
How is Openreach a monopoly? It’s very hard to reach the conclusion that they are if you’ve actually read and understood any of the articles on this site.
Believe they don’t have a symmetric connection, they’re on VM or FTTC.
Choice is good, this is to be celebrated. I don’t get why the need to randomly insult people again but troll be trolling and has form for popping up on irrelevant stuff.
Ad: if you regarded using an altnet as a risk so great you’re proud you overcame it through YOLO might be time to do more with the one life you have. Also, yes, we’re quite aware of how happy you are with your connection. You remind us near daily.
Hello BT Ivor,
BT are unable to produce a fully symmetric service that is cheaper than the Altnets, unless they just do it on the lowest speed level tier. I’d agree, IF BT did proper up and down equal symmetric connection, without hideous expensive price tiering (read gauging) then yes, I would be a lot more happy. To do that would require an uplift to at least XGS-PON to avoid congestion, their current legacy deployment can’t handle everyone being on symmetric.
BT don’t want to be symmetric, its easier and cheaper to give a low ratio on upload. They’ve now been partly forced to look like they are introducing it at some point undefined in the future by offering “tiers of speeds”. Basically, they were hoping the ALTNETS would go bankrupt first, then not offer any higher upload, and now the plan is to offer something, so that if the Altnets go in the future they can claim “No demand” for anything other than the lowest tier and only offer that. This will because of the expense of the tiering system to differentiate between the upload speed levels.
Other things unable to be changed about BT without Ofcom intervention: Ridiculous inflated yearly price increases when some ALTNETS don’t during contract, or ability to have new customer pricing when re-contracting (like Netomnia’s YouFibre).
Sort that lot out and your argument/proposal is more realistic.
@84.08khz, they still have the advantage over other networks and still in a lot of places that have no alternative.
I suppose going by the proper meaning of Monopoly they are not, but they are pretty close to it in many places and, as I said above, still have a huge advantage.
That is what Zzoomm charges for their 2.3Gb/s connection, but they do supply a router, to be honest, I prefer the choice of having one of theirs or my own.
FRITZ!Box routers are pretty expensive and from what I have seen , they all only seem to have 1GB/s lan, which is not a lot of cop if you want to use more than that, the Wan on some is 2.5.
I did see the AVM FRITZ!Box 4040 for £85, but 1Gb/s wan.
The TP-Link Archer BE400 is £130 and got 2.5Gb/s lan and wan.
Not sure why some people go crazy about FRITZ!Box, maybe they are more configurable
Not that I have the need to go for 2.5 or45 1GB/s for that matter.
The FRITZ!Box 7690 is notable for having a 2.5 Gbps WAN port in addition to one of the LAN ports also being 2.5 Gbps (the other two LAN ports are 1Gbps), which is why we advise this router for our 2.3 Gbps plan.
The full spec is available on our website at https://www.filesanctuary.net/broadband/fttp/cityfibre#routers
The FRITZ!Box 7690 is £260,, that is pretty expensive and yes I know it has one 2.5 lan, but if you have more than one device that have 2.5 lan you have to buy a switch, while 2.5Gb.s switches have4 come down in price, that is still money on top.
The TP-link I put above offers the same thing for half the price. So what is so special about the FRITZ!Box, Is it configuration?
If I was going to get into that sort of thing, I would make my own router, I am thinking of doing it at some point just for interest.
The 4690 is surely a better bet for FTTP services, as it has a 10G WAN and 10G LAN plus three additional 2.5G LAN. The WiFi is still dual band wifi 7.
With the 7690 you get fewer, slower ethenet ports in exchange for DSL support that will never be used.
As File Sanctuary subsidises part of the router cost for our broadband customers, we offer the FRITZ!Box 7690 for just £216, which is a significant saving versus the £329 RRP.
We also offer the 7530 AX as a lower-cost option as well (£108 with us, versus £199 RRP). This is a good fit for customers where a Wi-Fi 6, 1Gbps-capable router is sufficient.
We did look at the 4690 — and it is a great router — but ultimately the 7690 is a better fit for File Sanctuary right now, as both it and the 7530 AX support both copper and fibre technologies, meaning that customers are in a SOGEA or SOGFast area can just buy one router, and won’t need to replace it when FTTP comes to their area. Less e-waste and less cost for customers — a win-win.
As for why we choose the FRITZ! hardware, we find them to provide great reliability, provide consistent speeds, and they also provide excellent management features for ISPs. This allows us to preconfigure routers so customers can just plug in and get going with zero setup, as well as letting us provide remote support to help non-technical customers with things like Wi-Fi configuration, port forwarding, etc, without them having to figure out the admin interface. Of course the admin interface is still available for those that want to use it! 🙂
We’re also open to technically knowledgeable customers bringing their own routers if they prefer, so if you find that a particular model of router is a better fit for your specific needs, you’re welcome to bring it and use it on our network, and we’ll provide the PPPoE details for you to use. We can’t provide remote support for things like Wi-Fi settings, port forwarding, etc, but customers choosing this option tend to know how to handle all that stuff anyway.
Good luck to File Sanctuary.
Nice to hear about BT services and zzoomm again.
Still waiting to see what is happening now that they are part of Full fibre, so far nothing have changed for the consumer.