Mobile Operator GiffGaff Launch UK Full Fibre Broadband Packages UPDATE2
Mobile network provider giffgaff, which is owned by Telefónica and uses O2’s associated virtual operator (MVNO) platform, has today officially taken their home broadband products – powered by nexfibre and Virgin Media’s full fibre networks – out of trial and made them available as commercial products for consumers to order.
Just to recap. The trial of this service was first unveiled 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 2.3 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.
In terms of the final launch packages and prices, giffgaff are offering three unlimited plans on a monthly rolling (30-day) term, which are naturally much more expensive than their trial prices. The 200Mbps (symmetric) service costs £34 per month, while 500Mbps is £36 and their top 900Mbps tier is £39 – plus installation is currently free. But those prices are still pretty good for a monthly term.
Advertisement
Customers in nexfibre areas who sign-up to this service can expect to receive an Amazon eero 6+ router (inc. giffgaff branded User Interface) and engineers will also install an Optical Network Terminal (ONT) from Arcadyan Technology (PB6802B-LG) inside your home.
However, at the time of writing, we struggled to get any positive results from their new broadband availability checker for nexfibre addresses, which instead returned this: “We’ve checked your address, and sadly, we can’t do your broadband just yet..” But this is due to their roll-out being somewhat regional (more on that later).
Rajiv Datta, CEO of nexfibre, said:
“We’re delighted to see giffgaff’s broadband rolling out across our network. Our investment in an all XGS-PON network provides symmetrical high bandwidth connectivity, and also offers the agility to support the member co-created products that differentiate giffgaff in the marketplace.”
Ash Schofield, CEO of giffgaff, said:
“We’re rewriting the rules of broadband by bringing what we’re already well known for in mobile – a fair value, simple and flexible product – to the category.”
ISPreview also spotted that giffgaff have updated some of their support pages for the launch (here), which reveals a couple of interesting details. Firstly, the provider states that they’re still intending to make their packages available via Virgin Media’s fixed broadband network (“Later we’ll also leverage full fibre on Virgin Media O2’s network“), which suggests that at least some aspect of VMO2’s plan to open up their existing consumer broadband network to wholesale (c.16m premises) is still on the cards, despite recent events.
Secondly, giffgaff state that at present you can only take their home broadband and mobile services as “separate” products, but unsurprisingly they are also planning to launch a bundle of the two in the future as part of a “long term” plan – not doubt with some extra incentives attached (price reductions etc.).
Advertisement
UPDATE 1:13pm
We’ve added a comment from giffgaff’s CEO above. The problem with postcodes not returning positive results has also been addressed, with giffgaff confirming that they’re conducting a phased regional roll-out over the next few months. The service is initially available across North West England, Yorkshire and the Humber and East Midlands, rolling out in the North East from October and then across more locations before the end of the year and into 2026.
We think it would have been better to wait until full availability was achieved in order to avoid confusion.
UPDATE 18th Sept 2025
Advertisement
As a small aside to this announcement. Zentive have confirmed that giffgaff has selected SureSwitch, Zentive’s One Touch Switch (OTS) platform, to power their seamless broadband switching process for customers.
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.
« TalkTalk Survey Claims Wi-Fi is Most Popular UK Name for Broadband UPDATE
Advertisement
Leave a Reply
Privacy Notice: Please note that news comments are anonymous, which means that we do NOT require you to enter any real personal details to post a message and display names can be almost anything you like (provided they do not contain offensive language or impersonate a real person’s legal name). By clicking to submit a post you agree to storing your entries for comment content, display name, IP and email in our database, for as long as the post remains live.
Only the submitted name and comment will be displayed in public, while the rest will be kept private (we will never share this outside of ISPreview, regardless of whether the data is real or fake). This comment system uses submitted IP, email and website address data to spot abuse and spammers. All data is transferred via an encrypted (https secure) session.
It’s a regional rollout. Try postcode YO104BR for a positive giffgaff result
Any idea if they will support IPv6?
Its probably a rebranded VM product so unlikely
And do you have to use the Eero? Can you use your own CPE?
You can use your own equipment, yes.
The address checker will work in York area.
How are they offering symmetrical connections? As far as I know, only Openreach and Virgin are in my area, and neither offer symmetrical upload / download.
Or am I mistaken?
The network is XGS-PON which is designed for symmetrical speeds. Openreach’s network is GPON and Virgin Media is yet to migrate its customers onto its own XGS-PON.
Vermin do offer symmetric on the nexfibre xgspon network.
It’s on the Nexfibre network.
I’m looking forward to hearing peoples experiences when GiffGaff is used to play off against VM at renewals time.
VM knows this will happen, same as Giffgaff competes with its owner O2. They are all comfortable about it as Giffgaff is a budget brand and customers gained are mostly not the ones its owners would have got.
“and customers gained are mostly not the ones its owners would have got.”
or customers who want an ONT so they can use their own (better) router and not be enforced to use a Hub5x which has issues on VM, like no modem mode and basic functionality missing/not working.
Seems you cannot order when you have had a Virgin Media Nexfibre connection, even when it’s no longer active. All my neighbours can get this but my address is locked out.
That’s the way the trial period worked, so you would think that should change now through time.
Same here. Current active VM connection at my address but only my neighbours get offered packages on GiffGaffs address checker. Not available for my address apparently. Very disappointing as my contract is up shortly and I would prefer to get away from VM now if possible.
I’ve spoken to them today as I no longer have an active VM connection, they are not sure why I am unable to order and have raised it with their internal team. I was selected as part of the trial but wasn’t able to order through the trial period either. Very frustrating!
It’s due to 1 box (Hub 5x) to 2 box (ONT+Hub) moves not being supported yet
I can’t see VM willing to roll out symmetrical connections – more unlikely before the end of the year and into 2026.
they have already done this on XGS you just need to pay an extra £6/month
I’m curious how the VM sales agent who was really pushy last time will react when I tell them I’m looking at Giffgaff.
Just check, available in bn17 6AE,
West Sussex
Also available in RH16 1LU (not my postcode, but a random address in Haywards Heath, West Sussex)
“We’re rewriting the rules of broadband by bringing what we’re already well known for in mobile – a fair value, simple and flexible product – to the category.”
So CGNAT, no IPv6, rather poor transfer speed, EU roaming included 😉
im on the trial and im not on CGNAT and the speeds are been spot on with constantly getting above 530 on the download and upload
@Daniel
I was joking.
I wonder why its monthly renewal rather than longer contract. As a trialist I can only say the 500Mbps speed is consistent and service after an initial week-long outage has been good.
Nothing ground breaking about this, still needs a long commit, and prices between tiers are tiny, only £2 from 200mbps to 500 and a further £3 to 900mbps.
Coverage also tiny, even when its all Nexfibre, there is no reason this cant be on the existing VM footprint. Docsis areas 2nd class again.
The Nexfibre footprint was built from day 1 to support wholesale, the docsis network wasn’t. The investment to get the docsis network to support wholesale isn’t worth it, when it’s being overbuilt with XGSPON anyway, and even if they lash it to work before the XGSPON overbuild is done, the majority of those properties will also have OR FTTP, so if you are an ISP will you be looking to sign up wholesale to OR or VM docsis?
Yeah I am talking about XGS in the docsis areas. Its getting a different treatment to Nexfibre.
@Lee – except it isn’t. Areas on DOCSIS are simply left to rot while XGSPON has only been rolled out to mostly areas that already have full fibre from other suppliers. Their strategy is baffling to say the least. And now existing DOCSIS areas are getting full fibre from other suppliers which will inevitably make customers move away for a better service.
So in short, they are abandoning their existing customer base to chase new customers in areas they don’t stand a chance! If their new strategy is to make themselves irrelevant, it is working.
Sonic, they have already overbuilt millions of HFC premises with XGSPON, some waiting on switch on, and will overbuild it all by 2028.
Near you they’ve done work on it in Chichester, Basingstoke and Reading at least. The people that would be doing it are probably working in Guildford right now, they blitz towns and small cities in a big wave.
When it’s Winchester’s turn they’ll start off with a few permits to install powered equipment then blitz with new passive cabinets.
It probably won’t change the economics of reaching you personally though. If the dig was prohibitively expensive before due to needing to be done in the road it’s likely still that way.
> still needs a long commit
Monthly rolling contracts aren’t exactly “long commit”?
Landline not available with GiffGaff Broadband, nothing special about the first tier pricing if you exclude the symmetric speed, only available in certain regional NexFibre areas as checked today. How’s that for negativity! On the plus side, Monthly Contracts without the usual yearly price increase, as mentioned on their website.
Who gives a damn about landlines in 2025?
Tempted to move when my vermin contract expires, monthly rolling contract is very appealing.
@Rich
If people didn’t then the digital switchover wouldn’t be controversial.
Yes, there’s people out there who want a landline, even if it’s just the illusion of one (VOIP) as long as it works like the old POTS phones.
From my experience it’s usually the older generations.
@Rich: ‘Who gives a damn about landlines in 2025’
Plenty of people still want a landline in 2025, that’s why their is a Digital Switchover process taking place. The older generation are more likely to want to keep their landline, as @tech3457 alluded too.
Those people can get a landline from another provider and pay more I guess, entirely possible to run voip over fibre.
The market giffgaff are going after are those that don’t care about landlines, and I would hazard a guess that is the majority now. Not every service has to be aimed at every person.
@Rich
Except that’s not what your post said, you basically said ‘nobody cares about landlines’ when this isn’t true, hence our responses.
Working in Wrexham Nexfibre area’s!
Seems there’s an issue if you’re already on Virgin Media via Nexfibre infrastructure
My postcode only allows signup if you’re not already connected to VM, if you are it says the service isn’t available , hopefully they’ll update so you can switch
I suspect this is by design. giffgaff is wholly owned by VMO2 — so they’re not going to want to steal existing VMO2 broadband customers.
Prices actually looks good considering it’s rolling, sure £34 for 200mbps still is a bit high but it’s not too far off what we’re paying now for boosted M250 on Virgin Media (granted this is HFC and Openreach offers ADSL maximum) in a contract.