First UK Users Go Live on Giffgaff’s 500Mbps Full Fibre Broadband Trial
Mobile network provider giffgaff, which is owned by Telefónica and uses O2’s associated virtual operator (MVNO) platform, has recently started connecting the first customers to their new trial of a 500Mbps home broadband product – using nexfibre and Virgin Media’s 10Gbps capable full fibre (FTTP / XGS-PON) networks.
Just to recap. The trial was first confirmed back in mid-April 2025 (here), which meant that giffgaff would become the first retail provider after Virgin Media to fully harness nexfibre’s new wholesale FTTP network – currently available to over 2 million UK premises. Admittedly, this wasn’t all that surprising, not least because Telefónica is also one of the co-parents behind Virgin Media and nexfibre.
Since then, there have of course been some big developments that impacted nexfibre’s FTTP build strategy (here and here), but this has not stopped giffgaff’s trial. The trial itself is now in the process of connecting “up to 500 trialists” to the new service (not counting the tiny number of closed trialists that came before), which will run for 12-months at a temporarily discounted (heavily) price of £10 per month for a speed of 500Mbps.
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According to feedback from the first customers to be connected to this wider open access trial (ISPr forum examples), the package they’ve received appears to assign a proper IP (not CGNAT address sharing), delivers symmetric speeds and some of the exterior kit (pictured – top) appears to retain Virgin Media’s branding. But there’s no IPv6 yet (no big surprise for Virgin) and the peering/routing arrangements seem to follow Virgin Media’s existing approach.
In terms of the internal kit, most customers seem to be receiving an Optical Network Terminal (ONT / ONU) from Arcadyan Technology (PB6802B-LG) and one of Amazon’s Eero 6+ routers (UI features giffgaff’s branding). But there have been some mixed messages on whether giffgaff will allow customers to use a third-party router, although it looks like it may be possible.
Finally, the initial service speeds appear to be delivering better than the headline rate of 500Mbps, but that’s hardly surprising for an early trial and Virgin Media has a long history of setting faster profile than advertised rates. Naturally, faster packages and different pricing will surface for the commercial launch, but we don’t yet know when that will occur or what those packages will look like.
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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What is the downside? Thin customer service?
Can’t be any thinner than Virgin Media or O2’s existing customer service, can it?
@Far2329Light: The user has no contract with nexfibre or Virgin Media. The provider is Giffgaff, so it’s Giffgaff that does the marketing, customer support and billing.
@Roger_Gooner: Yes, I understand that, but GiffGaff will be operating at a much lower cost base compared to the primary providers so by comparison, there will be a reduced offering.
My backup mobile runs on Giffgaff and I’m familiar with the workings of this company. Giffgaff heavily relies on its community forums where members help each other with queries. There isn’t a call centre as you’d expect but Giffgaff has a small number of employees known as agents who deal with customer queries submitted via their website. This is why Giffgaff is cheap and I’m expecting this business model to be used for broadband as well.
@Roger_Gooner: Thanks.
If they can offer a decent gigabit symmetrical connection, allow third party routers and it’s not too expensive, I might be interested.
That said, if network monitoring was the supposed reason for blocking modem mode on VM FTTP and Giffgaff allows it, I wonder if this could mean a change for VM in the near future?
@tech3475: Virgin Media provides 2Gbps symmetrical over the same network and the trial features a third-party router.
Modem-mode is too difficult to do with the hub 5X but is now irrelevant for Giffgaff (and future ISPs) as there is an ONT into which any router can be plugged.
@Roger_Gooner
I know theoretically these are possible, however there’s no guarrantees until they go live with full service.
They could for example, intentionally limit their speeds to try and coax people to use VM (note that the trial itself only uses 500mbps) and the article says the routers are rebranded, so always potential for additional changes.
Who installed that telephone cable crossing over the capping? Not very professional at all.
Probably legacy cable and they installed behind it.
Aren’t the ports on the LAN side of that ONT only 1Gbps? If so, that is kind of going to restrict them if they want to offer higher speeds.
the pictures on the forum thread show a 10G ethernet port.
Not that it would necessarily matter – Giffgaff are the cheaper brand and they might not be rushing to do multi gig (anyone who wants that can go with Virgin)
Yes, by the looks of what I see on Amazon the eero 6+ is indeed 1Gbps only. The question is whether they are only supplying this router for the lower tier speed packages. Because as we all know many ISPs offer different routers depending on the package you select.
My prediction is that for the higher speed packages like 2Gbps they’ll probably offer eero 7 or Max 7 routers.
They have selected a relatively cheap router because the package is only £10 for the trial. My biggest complaint with this is that the router has only 2 Ethernet LAN ports rather than 3-4. For me this is disappointing.
However, it would indeed be a relief that the package is not under CGNAT! CGNAT would be a bigger disappointment than the router having only 1Gbps support or 2 LAN ports. I can at least buy a new router or a network switch but I can’t easily overcome CGNAT if the ISP chooses this as a policy.
In terms of speed you get, virgin will provide you with your package speed +10% so with my 1gig package I actually get 1150mbps (sometimes more)
my 2gig is only 2100/2100ish
The key thing for me is the Arcadyan Technology ONT plus the Giffgaff-branded Amazon’s Eero 6+ router instead of VM’s combined ONT/router hub 5X. This shows that nexfibre believes its future ISP customers will want to use their routers and not to be locked into a rebranded hub 5X. It also means that VM customers who want to use their own routers will be able to get a separate ONT.
No, it doesn’t. VM customers will get what VM want to provide them. If that’s not a separate ONT they aren’t getting it unless they clone the details from their Hub.
VM are bizarrely fixated with controlling and monitoring everything to the same level they did the cable CPE when they controlled everything end to end. Until they get over that they’ll continue forcing the Hub5x down their customers’ throats with no modem mode so that they can log into it, pull telemetry and push configuration. This is the same ISP telling customers that Ofcom require they degrade their customers’ service every 30-60 minutes running automated speed tests that, bizarrely given it’s apparently a regulatory requirement, no-one else seems to force their customers to tolerate.
Incidentally it also shows nothing as far as Nexfibre go. They couldn’t care less whether it’s a combined router/ONT or standalone ONT as long as it works with their kit. They also only really operate the OLTs. Do a little research on how much of Nexfibre is operated by VMO2: there’s a reason the CSP on the wall is VM and that level of ownership doesn’t change when it comes to the ONT given GiffGaff broadband is a white label VMO2 service.
@Polish Poler: I think you’re missing the point here. The hub 5X is perfectly suitable for the vast majority of VM customers, and just because a vocal minority is demanding modem mode does not change this fact. What we do now have, however, is a separate ONT for Giffgaff users and it’s quite realistic that VM will deploy it for its customers who want to use their own router.
What was stopping them from offering this before besides their own insistence on managing CPE via TR-069? This isn’t some magical new thing having CPE that can’t be managed via TR-069: the only reason VM customers can neither have modem mode or separate ONTs is VM don’t want to provide them.
Nothing has changed, no technical or procedural barrier has been overcome here.
If I’m brutally honest that you thought this was related to Nexfibre shows you’ve no idea what you’re talking about. The following post confirms it. You learn bits of information then try to be authoritative when you really don’t know. You did it all the time with VM cable and here we go again.
“the package they’ve received appears to assign a proper IP (not CGNAT address sharing)”
Is it couldgofaster? says they are on CGNAT on your forums.
The ‘support’ team advised the customer of that and are totally wrong. The mobile customers are on CGNAT, these broadband customers aren’t.
Side note, but is it just me or does that wall box look almost like a toilet seat?
As for customer service comments, I thought the whole idea of GiffGaff was the customers would self serve through their online forums rather than other means? It’s more of a value offering after all.
Customer would need to have it for 57 years to break even.