Vodafone UK’s CityFibre Broadband Users Can’t Upgrade to 2Gbps+
Customers of Vodafone’s fixed home broadband packages, specifically those on their 910Mbps (1Gbps) or slower Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) packages with major UK altnet CityFibre, have complained that the ISP is preventing them from taking out the provider’s fastest 2.2Gbps package due to the lack of an upgrade process.
“I have one of their (CityFibre) ONT’s which has a max speed of 1Gb. And as such I can’t upgrade to their 2.2Gb package! I’m told that there is no way of getting my ONT upgraded so I can request a package upgrade to 2.2,” said one of Vodafone’s customers to ISPreview last week.
Just for some context. The Optical Network Terminal (ONT / ONU) or optical modem device is usually installed inside your home or office, near to where the fibre optic cable physically enters your property, and its primary job is simply to take the optical signal and convert it into an electrical one that can be connected to your broadband router via a Local Area Network (Ethernet) port.
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The standard ONT on CityFibre is a very small single port device, and most subscribers on that network will currently have their older 1Gbps (GPON compatible) units. But customers that were added over the past year or so are more likely to have had a faster multi-gigabit capable XGS-PON compatible ONT installed, which can cope with faster speeds than 1Gbps.
CityFibre told ISPreview that they do in fact offer an upgrade process to ISPs, although it appears as if Vodafone has yet to fully implement it.
A spokesperson for CityFibre told ISPreview:
“Yes we do. Our 10Gb XGS-PON network is designed to be future proof, enabling our ISP partners to upgrade their customers to faster speeds and even better services. There are times when an engineer visit is needed, such as if the customer is upgrading to a speed that needs an ONT swap and we’ll take the opportunity to ensure any new ONT meets our 10Gb XGS-PON standard, meaning the premise is ready for the market-leading, Multi-Gig speeds available across CityFibre’s network for years to come.”
Vodafone confirmed to ISPreview that, at present, there’s no direct process for customers on 910Mbps or slower packages with the older ONT to upgrade to their fastest package.
A Vodafone spokesperson said:
“For some Vodafone customers on CityFibre, upgrading to our 2Gbps+ packages requires a different Optical Network Terminal (ONT) in the home, as their existing ONT only supports lower speeds. We’re currently working with CityFibre so those ONTs can be swapped and customers can move up to higher speed tiers.
Until that process is live, a small number of existing customers may be advised that they’re not yet able to upgrade, even where the higher speed service is available on the network.”
We did ask Vodafone whether they could be more specific about the timetable for implementing a proper upgrade process, although for now they could only tell us that they’re “working at pace” to have it ready for some time in “2026“. In addition, it appears as if a similar issue may exist on the Openreach side of their service (i.e. going from 910Mbps to 1.6Gbps), but we haven’t yet had enough feedback to confirm that.
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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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Think we all better off with FTTP 900/110 or less end of.
Anything more than that no need for that for next 5 years.
Speak for yourself, I would benefit from faster upload speeds for backups.
It’s the only reason I’m looking to switch to Giffgaff next year.
Lots of people benefit from higher upload speeds, im currently on VM Gig1 with 100Mb upload and yes it’s a limiting factor because cloud backups, etc still take forever.
I can get 2Gb FTTP now but still under contract, gonna terminate early though early next year.
Said every short sighted person since internet began I remember being told 1Mbit up and down was enough
You are 100% right, the majority of people don’t really need more than 500 down and hundred up. You 3 in the comments whinging you’re the probably in that 5% of the country that does. His comment is still right most people don’t need that much upload
@Wezz
Except that’s not what they said.
I don’t need faster upload speed, but then I don’t really need faster download speed than what I had on FTTC. But, now I have this 500Mbs both ways it is useful, can send stuff to other people quickly send some files of mine to another NAS off site a bit quicker.
If my provider had a slower say 150Mb/s for about a tenner less a month, I would certainly think about going to it, but they don’t, so I can’t
I expect there is a standoff, maybe VF like some customers consider it wrong for CityFibre to charge for an ONT swap, when its CityFibre who decided to rollout GPON as recent as 2023 and own that part of the equipment. It wouldnt surprise me if CF back down and dont charge for ONT swaps, then VF will enable the upgrade path.
or you could just join us at Aquiss, who have supported ONT upgrades (with no charge to the customer) since day one 😉
I just swapped got the new ONT fitted canceled in the 14 day cooling off then went back to Vodafone for the cheaper price
I was going to recommend Aquiss, upgraded me for free while mid contract and no recontract required either. That’s how it’s done. Perfect.
Why would you want to go with a company (Vodafone) that refuses to give you the newest technology for your line when others give you it for free, and refuses to let you do something as basic as a speed switch which others gladly will let you do. Its not like Vodafone is the cheapest too, there are other smaller ISPs that are lower priced than them.
I do wish OpenReach would pull their finger out as I would love faster uploads Short of taking a LL from you I’m just gonna have to hold out as after moving to you I really don’t think I’ll ever be able to move back to another ISP. I’ll certainly not be going back to the VM, the upload speed isn’t worth the lack of reliability and migraines that come from dealing with their customer service.
So you’re the reason most ISPs will sit on your order for 2 weeks before doing anything…
I was with Vodafone CityFibre 1gb. Moved to Aquiss CityFibre 1.2gb nearly a year ago which involved CityFibre coming out to swap ONT. No problems at all. Very happy with Aquiss. Thanks Martin!
@john_r
I hope that comment was not aimed at me?
@Martin No at all, at the commenter abusing the cool off period to get free stuff. A lot of ISPs will not progress your order until the cool off period is over and I guess this is why.
@Anthony., maybe price, I don’t know if Vodafone is cheaper than Aquiss or not and I wonder how many people have heard of Aquiss.
a lot of people, certainly how things are at the moment, prefer a lower price and will not see any point in paying for a higher price, if they are getting the service they want, until they don’t get the service they want.
On the other hand, people updating to 2Gb/s may not be that bothered about price.
Vodafone have the same problem with the openreach 900 & 1600mbps products, I’m on 910mbps and Vodafone say I can’t have 1600mbps, but openreach says I can.
Thats the same for all openreach network. New provides only.
Vodafone upgraded me from Openreach 900Mbps to 1.6Gbps a few weeks ago using their standard automated upgrade process. I already had a 2.5Gbps ONT from the initial install which is presumably why this was possible.
I have the same issue with vodafone not being able to upgrade me from 900 to 1.6 even though my next door neighbour on the same cbt can order 1.6g from voda
BT and EE customers on 900 or lower cannot upgrade to 1.6 package on EE either.
only extremely old connections
Imagine being that guy that needs 2gig plus ! Whatever your doing with that connection must be pretty niche. 1% of people probably would opt for that speed the rest just be miss sold it
Is an ONT swap something a customer could do without engineer visit, or does it need special tools?
No special tools needed, just a bit of common sense required, the problem is getting it registered with the provider! When first installed the engineer scans the barcode on the ONT.
You need to have the ISP digitally tie it to your FTTP line. If you switched out the ONT it wouldn’t work with your FTTP service as the one tied to your line is the one you just removed. Smaller ISPs can and will do that, large ones like Vodafone and TalkTalk, not a single change in hell. They will demand you put the only one back in.
It doesn’t need special tools but its electronic ID number has to be authorised to your address which is why they will insist on it being done by an engineer.
It’s dead easy but it’s not yours to upgrade.
Was just wanting to know if ISP could offer an ONT swap as a self service activity (like a router swap). Which it seems to be technically feasible if the ISP had a way to report the old/new barcodes (web page/SMS) and an instruction video, and it also seems some ISP’s do offer self service.
Read all my forum complaint posts from 2024 about Vodafone and TalkTalk on this, as they wouldn’t let you upgrade from 500mb/s to 1GB/s too. For love no money, complaints all sorts. They said it was impossible to change your speeds on CityFibre. You could on Openreach, but not CityFibre. People need to get out of these major ISPs. They’re useless. I am happy with Yayzi/Nufibre as they fix their problems and actually speak to CityFibre on your behalf.
Can I ask what people would use these kind of speeds for? Some people said backup? Does it really matter if it finishes ten minutes early. Genuinely interested?
I have a site to site VPN setup with my parents to run backups.
Even just going from 100 to 500mbps could potentially mean saving several hours if not days depending on the backup in question e.g. system images.
It also means I can schedule them and expect them to finish over night. In some cases taking the several days has been made more annoying by e.g. internet going down temporarily.
“Does it really matter if it finishes ten minutes early.”
Funnily enough the other night I quickly ran a backup on my server because a HDD was failing.
I had parity but I still wanted that more recent backup just in case the rebuild failed.
As such every second did count.
Yes it does Some people work from home thus they need to download and upload TBs Of Data Back And forth quickly
In terms of upload, yeah, work from home. When you’re frequently uploading larger files it’s a game changer. Even smaller files, say, 300 MB, takes about 25 seconds on a 100 Mbit/s upload but only about 1 second on 2.3 Gbit/s. Doesn’t sound like a lot but when you’re waiting for it, trust me, it’s a lot. It does need your work servers to have decent connectivity of course.
Download speed same as above plus downloading video games. My new gaming laptop with WiFi7 is able to get the full 2.3 Gbit/s on the download from Steam – which I was impressed by! Only gets to about 1.2 Gbit/s on the upload but I don’t need upload for gaming. To be fair if gaming was my only use case I probably would just save money and stick to a 1 Gbit/s connection but patience levels vary!
@tech
If speed of backup is your priority – and you are unconcerned that the act of a full backup rather than simply updating your incremental one will hasten the failure you seek to avoid – why on earth are you doing it over a WAN? Thats why RAID and JBOD exist, it’s why we have NAS devices on the LAN, it’s why people plug drives into USB caddies.
Urgent backup via WAN is by some measure the weirdest use case anyone has ever suggested.
Tried to get this sorted when on Vodafone 18/12 contract.
Truly truly hair pullingly terrible VF customer service online. Literally hours trying to get speed upgraded for my newish build terrace home when neighbours had 2.2gbs available.
Only required ONT exchange in the end – good grief VF – I could have done that.
Vodafone complaints let me leave contract early without fee and left.
Moved to Aquiss – brilliant service. Gave me recent Black Friday deal even though I’d ordered before.
Straightforward, simple and fast.
Terrible Vodafone – never again.
Thank you Aquiss
They will never let you do it. I fought them for months, same with TalkTalk. Complaints escalated right to the very top, was given compensation from them free unlimited sim cards and free mifi device so I could use a Mifi for internet and disconnect my entire cityfibre line to see if that would get around it. In the end they said it was impossible to change speeds. Went to Yayzi and they did it in a weekend. And nothing special about them all smaller ISPs will be like that.
There is nothing “niche” about wanting a symmetric fast connection. They could be content creators or like myself, upload – download large video files from family and friends. Then gamers whose patches can be pretty large need a good faster connection.
It’s not niche but it is certainly a minority sport. Most residential customers just want browse social media, get emails, do a bit of online shopping & stream the likes of Netflix etc. Since a 4K stream is about 30Mb/s you could have a family of 4 watching 4 different things in 4K & a 150/30 connection would be adequate. That’s not to say we will never need faster but the laws of diminishing returns will start to kick in with fewer & fewer customers seeing any benefit as speeds go up & therefore the networks will have to balance the costs of deploying faster speeds against return on investment.
That is pretty niche. What ‘large video files’ are you regularly uploading? If I share video snippets from a holiday or similar they’re already in the cloud because I recorded them on my phone. I only need to share the link. My camcorder is at the back of the dustiest cupboard in the house and it’s 15 years and 3 PCs ago that I last did any kind of video editing on my computer.
One of my kids struggled with seizures when they were younger and we would video this activity and send it to a consultant in London. Even then, on FTTC, sending the files only took a few minutes. We uploaded them to a dropbox account so that we only had to do it once.
My neighbour works with video for websites and advertising – everything they work on is already in the cloud. They’re not downloading or uploading huge files. It’s not really a thing any more to manipulate huge files on your own machine and then have to transmit vast amounts of data – people work in VMs, in the cloud, with tools that are also in the cloud. Working collaboratively demands it.
My friend streams live video from the bird boxes in his garden. Less than 100Mbps.
I’m really struggling to think of a non-niche case where a non-commercial user is regularly sending enough video that asymmetrical uplink becomes a significant limiting factor. I’m open to hearing what they are, but much like the benefits of Brexit they tend to evaporate when you ask people to be specific.
Why not move to a provider that will provision it, get installed and use one touch switch, to switch back? Or is the lead time, put of the cooling off period? Or stay with the new provider?
You could do that, but it just feels very disrespectful to the company willing to give you basic levels of customer service. Vodafone are not cheaper than other providers offering 2.5GB/s. Many offer it for £50 per month
If they can’t manage a simple ONT swap, they aren’t worth the monthly rental, end of!
Im currently trying to switch from Vodafone to another isp on the cityfibre network but cityfibre keep blocking my switch theyre not helpful at all they hide from the truth and keep saying contact my isp which I have done and cityfibre are still not helping
That’s interesting! I have Openreach coming next week to give me full FTTP. I’ve been with Vodafone home for seven years and wouldn’t move anywhere else. Clearly something to check with the engineer when he’s here.
I’m currently on FTTC [Fibre to the cabinet] in the next street over. There’s fibre to the outside post but not currently in use for me.
Let’s see what speed capable ONT I get!
Would a formal complaint -> ask for deadlock letter -> take to ombudsman process work eventually? (Maybe shocking VF/CF into action sooner once it is clear you are heading to ombusdman)
No, I went that route threatening to take them to the ombudman, I was given a free MIFI device and free unlimited sim card with instructions to completely cancel Cityfibre completely to thus free up my line so I could reconnect at the increased speeds. All that happened when I did that was I could only reconnect at the same speed. Vodfone doing this would show to the ombudsman they were going above and beyond trying to fix your problem. The problem is Cityfibre, but the problem is Cityfibre expect the ISP to fix their problems and large ISPs don’t know how to.
Lots of people mentioning 100mbps upload, but CityFibre services are all symmetric.
Maybe VF throttle that to 110mb to match openreach. In which case, just move ISP if it’s that critical! Plenty of them out there and if it’s that important, you will pay the premium.
They don’t match openreach on the upload speeds. When I upgraded a friend a while ago, we were shown both the openreach and cityfibre options. Vodafone even shows this if you check online. People are just getting mixed up here.
first world problems….
I know people in Norwich suburb (several hundred homes), less than 3 miles away from the city centre, on 20-24mbs FTTC, and still no sign of OR FTTP (CF did dig some holes, but that was 2 years ago).