Openreach Prep 100Gbps Cablelinks to Support 8.5Gbps UK Broadband

Network access provider Openreach (BT) are understood to be preparing a new 100Gbps capable Cablelink (Ethernet) solution to support their future 8.5Gbps speed full fibre (FTTP / XGS-PON) broadband products for UK homes. But initially any retail providers taking part in the XGS-PON pilot will need to use multiple 10G Cablelinks for capacity.

Just for a little context. The Cablelink products are how Openreach provide data capacity for their full fibre and other connections (i.e. the connection between their fibre headend and an ISP’s own equipment). But at present the fastest links available only go up to 10Gbps, which will become a bit tedious once their 8.5Gbps FTTP products start becoming available (commercially) to homes and businesses in the future.

ISPreview now understands that Openreach are developing a new 100G Cablelink Service Connect (GEA-CSC) product to help cater for the capacity demands of their future broadband products. At present this is still a bit of a work-in-progress solution, which means we’re not expecting it to even enter the trial phase until around this time next year.

The fact that this is lagging behind Openreach’s FTTP (XGS-PON) pilot of broadband speeds up to 8.5Gbps, which are due to get underway from 23rd March 2026 (here and here), does seem odd. But Openreach’s pilot is currently only set to be available across a few tens of thousands of premises in the Guildford, Woking, Brookwood, Puttenham, Clandon, Shere and Worplesdon areas – out of those they only anticipate in the hundreds of customers.

Suffice to say that any ISPs taking part in the pilot (we currently only know of EE) will, for now, need to use multiple 10Gbps Cablelinks to support XGS-PON’s significantly faster top speeds. We don’t currently have any details on the pricing for the new 100G Cablelink products, but that should become known later this year and is likely to be more affordable than the equivalent of 10 x 10G links.