Openreach Publish UK Pilot Pricing for FTTP Broadband Speeds to 8500Mbps
National network operator Openreach (BT) has this afternoon published pricing details for their forthcoming pilot of XGS-PON based Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) home broadband ISP lines, which now includes the 5.5Gbps (550Mbps upload) and 8.5Gbps (850Mbps upload) tiers. The launch date for the pilot has also been put back slightly from 1st to 23rd March 2026.
As previously reported (here, here, here, here and here), Openreach are currently in the final stages of preparing to launch their first customer pilot of faster 10Gbps capable XGS-PON based full fibre technology with UK broadband ISPs (Passive Optical Network – the ‘X’ stands for 10, the ‘G’ for Gigabits’ and the ‘S’ for Symmetric speed). EE (BT) are currently the only retail ISP to have confirmed their involvement.
The new technology, which many of Openreach’s rivals are already using, will go beyond today’s top download speeds of 1.8Gbps on their GPON full fibre network and push up to 8.5Gbps. But until today the initial pilot announcement had so far only provided pricing details for symmetric speeds of up to 3.3Gbps.
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The latest briefing adds pricing details for their two fastest consumer focused download tiers – 5.5Gbps (550Mbps upload) and 8.5Gbps (850Mbps upload). Take note that they will also offer a symmetric speed variety of these tiers, although that’s likely to cost extra and be targeted at premium (business) connections. The briefing also confirms changes to pilot connection charges applicable from 1st April 2026.
Openreach XGS-PON Pilot Pricing
| Connection charges, excl. VAT (All bandwidths) | Pilot Charge Operative: 23/03/2026 – 31/03/2026 |
Pilot Charge Operative: 01/04/2026 |
| Standard Connection | £122.84 | £127.26 |
| Premium Connection | £152.84 | £158.34 |
| Advanced Connection | £297.84 | £308.56 |
| Standard Connection – XGS Box Swap | £0.00 | £0.00 |
| Proactive FTTP Upgrades – Standard Connection | £0.00 | £0.00 |
| Proactive FTTP Upgrades – Premium Connection | £30.00 | £31.08 |
| Proactive FTTP Upgrades – Advanced Connection | £175.00 | £181.30 |
Rental Charges
| XGS-PON Pilot (annual rental) | Pilot Charge Operative: 23/03/2026 – 31/03/2026 |
Pilot Charge Operative: 01/04/2026 |
| Up to 3300/330 Mbit/s | £324.00 | £324.00 |
| Up to 3300/3300 Mbit/s | £360.00 | £360.00 |
| Up to 5500/550 Mbit/s | £420.00 | £420.00 |
| Up to 8500/850 Mbit/s | £480.00 | £480.00 |
Readers should remember that Openreach’s pricing only reflects the wholesale cost of the line, while retail ISPs still have to add all sorts of extra costs on top before getting to the price you pay (e.g. 20% VAT, network/service features, general costs/support, profit margin etc.). Existing FTTP customers taking one of these new tiers will also require another engineer visit to install a 10Gbps capable Optical Network Terminal (ONT).
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Openreach has previously informed ISPreview that their pilot would initially begin across an area of 40,000 premises in Guildford, although this could still be expanded. The classic catch with packages this fast is that most consumers would struggle to fully harness those top speeds, usually due to various Wi-Fi/device limits and any limitations of the online servers you’re connecting to (Why Buying Gigabit Broadband Doesn’t Always Deliver).
One other issue to consider is that it often takes time for retail broadband providers and their suppliers to upgrade their network capacity in order to support such tiers, so even once launched (commercially) it may be a while before adoption improves. Finally, pilot pricing and product details should always be considered tentative (subject to change).
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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Still up to their old tricks of cake slicing tiers, making upload speeds expensive. The sweet smelling FTTP ALTNETS however, are mostly symmetric by default and considerably cheaper. I mean 5.5gbps with 500mbps upload is laughable.
Hoping for ALTNET consolidation into one or two ALTNETS, that BT and Vermin Media don’t get their hands on, as these other milking machines need customer loss once their new roll-out come to a natural end and then stops hiding churn.
Yeah but how many of these fabled AltNets will be around in a couple of years time??
Could ask the same for BT and Vermin. BT pensions and debt mean they have had to dump/sell other parts of the business, and predatory investors have circled before, then Vermin has a huge debt pile, which, as reported on here caused a strategic rethink of Nexfibre deliverables, along with outsourcing of their staff.
The two well established telecoms are not immune as they still have their own issues. Once there is a big national ALTNET, with good footprint and likes of Sky taking up their network, as well as word of mouth that speeds are faster and cheaper, often with no in-contract price increases, then things may start to look very different.
One of the reasons i’d avoid a smaller Altnet is after storm damage it can take weeks to get reconnected, whereas Openreach are far bigger and can recover quickly. During the storms last year some Fibrus customers were still not reconnected for several weeks as they didnt have the staff. My fibre cables were dug up accidentally during roadworks, so BT sent me a 4g backup solution and had Openreach to replace the cables within a couple of days (and it was over the weekend when it happened). So Altnets are not for me.
Symmetrical 3300 is £360 annual divide that into 12 months £30 add £10 or £20
There’s the real price in pilot pricing not bad if the real prices are this way
One difference with Altnets is they only serve a handful of people. So they’re utterly irrelevant.
@fanny adams
one national altnet is not the way to go. you need balance.
you don’t want it swamped with altnets like you have now, nor saturated to just 1 network.
if you had just one network, innovation would stifle, and prices would be high.
At those prices and shocking upload speeds, how do they expect to be able to compete with competitors.
Openreach are making the same mistakes that got them is a huge mess to begin with, trying to please shareholders in this way damages the business.
Just want to point out that nobody on a domestic package needs those speeds to be symmetrical. Nobody.