Sky Broadband UK’s Position on Openreach Speeds Beyond 900Mbps
A couple of Sky Broadband’s customers have recently notified us that their 900Mbps full fibre (FTTP) package on Openreach’s national network suddenly started delivering speeds of up to nearly 1.8Gbps, which is despite such a tier being unavailable to Sky’s subscribers. But those hoping for the launch of faster packages via the same network may be left disappointed, at least for now.
The download speed of 1.8Gbps is the fastest currently available to consumers via Openreach’s national network, although Sky only sell speeds up to an average of 900Mbps (1Gbps). Customers can get faster speeds on the CityFibre side of Sky’s network (up to 5Gbps), but that’s different.
Still, the fact that a tiny number of customers suddenly appear to see much faster speeds did initially seem to suggest that Sky Broadband might be preparing new packages for launch in the near future. Sadly, a spokesperson for Sky informed ISPreview that they weren’t currently running any trials that would explain it, although they did say this: “From time to time, there can be small anomalies in what we’re able to offer“.
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ISPreview queried whether Sky had any plans to launch Openreach-based packages at speeds beyond the current 900Mbps (average) maximum within the next few months, but Sky told us they had “nothing further to share on this at the moment.” However, it’s perhaps not unrealistic to expect that this might change in 2027, particularly as Openreach may conclude their current pilot of speeds up to 8.5Gbps in that same year (here and here).
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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Aquiss now selling Openreach 1.2Gbps and 1.8Gbps at half price for six months
We’ve long since moved past the point of our internet speeds being the bottleneck. The new bottleneck is server-side speeds. You can have a 1.8Gbps line, but if your file is 20 GB and the server-side speed averages around 14 Mbps, it’s still going to take a long time to download.
Most households don’t need more than 900Mbps.
I thought most households don’t need more than 80Mbps?
You’re presuming there’s a single user though, add multiple users and there may still be a benefit to faster WAN speeds.
For example, a single download might reach 500Mbps but add two other users and you may benefit from a 1.8Gbps connection.
I wonder though how much the LAN speeds will be an issue? For example, if someone has an 2.5Gb ISP router by the front door but only uses a single Ethernet port to a 1Gb Switch which everything plugs into.
I agree with James that most users don’t need higher download bandwidth even in a multi user household. Maybe a bit more than 80mbps but still far less than 900mbps. This is where I think 4 or 5g will start to take more of the market as it doesn’t need a physical connection to the house and they just have to invest in the towers and sending out kit. Of course upload is typically more limited but once again do people notice? Of course it depends on signal.
The issue here is the marketing from the ISPs and media referring to bandwidth as speed. Everyone seems to think a bigger number means everything will be instantly faster for them when in reality, it will just give them more network capacity for doing more things at the same time. Those non technical people among us get caught up in this and just chase the speed and nothing else. When you try to explain that the higher number just means more people in their homes can do things online at the same time without slowing each other down, they just look really confused before going back to moaning they’re only getting 950 Mbps on one device when they’re on a 1.6 Gbps product.
Sorry but ‘Many of us’haven’t moved past
Adsl as the only fixed line offering. About 1.2M for my area.
So while I agree headline speeds mean nothing when server side and network bandwidth is restricted,plenty are on 4g or if they have the cash starlink.
Give it another year or so and I expect MoneySavingExpert and While will come up with calculation tools to suggest how much bandwidth you really need to avoid overspending.
I downgraded from 1G to 500Mbps at the beginning of the year, I realised that I could comfortably use much less because it’s less than 1% of the time that I actually touch the sides on my broadband. I might have gone down lower but the price difference in the offers was enough to keep me.
This is despite me having a well equipped home network, wired connections and both my wife and myself working from home.
What is the process of enabling a faster speed through your line.
I know you needed an engineer in the past with older specifications.
I assume it’s software based now?
If you already have an ONT (“modem”) with a 2.5G LAN port then it can all be done remotely just like any other speed upgrade. If you don’t, Openreach would have to come out and swap it. You’d also need to make sure your router is capable. Larger ISPs would supply a new router that can do it, since Aquiss don’t supply hardware I’d presume its up to you as the customer.
At some point Openreach will launch even faster speeds. These will need a new XGSPON capable ONT so everyone who wants those speeds will need a swap out.
Download is all fine and well but the upload speed is what let’s openreach down.
Those who want faster speeds won’t be looking at Sky anyway, stick to serving the masses who don’t want/need beyond 1Gbps.
I’ve been fortunate enough to have access to BT Full Fibre, Virgin Full Fibre, and CityFibre. After running connections through BT, Sky, Vodafone, and currently IDNet at 2.5 Gbps, I can tell you firsthand: those headline top speeds are largely meaningless.
The biggest UK providers (EE, BT, Sky, Vodafone, Virgin, etc.) are heavily oversubscribed. They simply do not have the external transit capacity to deliver anywhere near their advertised speeds to the greater web.
Instead, they sell you on internal speeds. Here is how the illusion works:
1. The Physical Hardware Caches
The majority of heavy consumer traffic—Netflix, YouTube, Apple, Meta—doesn’t come from the wider internet at all. It downloads directly from your own internet provider.
Netflix gives major ISPs Open Connect Appliances (OCAs): massive storage servers sitting inside the ISP’s network that host the entire UK Netflix library.
Google, Meta, Akamai, and Apple do the exact same thing. When you watch a YouTube video on a major provider, 99% of the time, it’s being served locally.
2. The Software Caches
Then there are the software-based caching schemes. Companies like Microsoft (Xbox/Windows) and Valve (Steam) provide software that connects their infrastructure to your ISP, while the ISP pays for the local server hardware.
When a user requests a multi-gigabyte game download, the system checks your internet provider’s local cache.
If it’s there, you get crazy fast speeds directly from your ISP. If it’s not, the next person will.
This is a massive step up from the old days of proxies caching jQuery libraries; they are caching terabytes of live game data.
3. The Speedtest Illusion
Major ISPs are betting on you staying inside their localized network. The moment you step outside of it, your speeds drop dramatically. But wait, Speedtest.net maxes out your connection, right?
That’s because Speedtest works directly with internet providers. ISPs (like Vodafone) literally host Speedtest servers inside their own networks. By default, the app connects to the closest internal server and multithreads the download to force the maximum speed. If an ISP has to rely on heavily multithreaded connections to hit their advertised speeds, it is a massive red flag that their external network is congested and oversubscribed.
Want top speeds, best pings, avoid the major ISPs, do peer research and look for companies dedicated, and proudly tell you they are not over subscribed.
When picking an internet provider, the single most important metric isn’t the advertised speed—it’s reputation and peering capacity.
If you just scroll social media, browse the web, and watch Netflix, any of the big ISPs will do fine. But if you are a power user who wants actual top speeds across the entire internet, none of the major mainstream providers will give you what you are paying for.
You are somewhat correct but I can tell you’ve never worked in the isp industry,
Netflix does do that but the likes of “Google, Meta, Akamai, and Apple” they don’t really provide servers what they do provide is a PNI just means a dedicated physical connection to their infrastructure rather than going via an internet exchange/transit provider
Software cache isn’t a thing, although I’m sure you’ve seen this on LTT. Steam have their own hardware and would likely use PNI connection to connect.
Aside from the overwhelming feeling that it is written by AI, it’s also not accurate.
There isn’t an ISP on this planet that guarantees performance outside of their network boundary. That is an impossible task. Virtually any prebuilt access network will be contended too (unless it’s practically uncontended through a lack of customers)
There aren’t going to be many consumer or small business services that offer a guarantee or SLA within the network either. Those that do will cost a lot more than you’re used to paying, and it would be a leased line where contention in the access network is not a factor
Very little of what you typed is true.
Which ISP is it you believe provides guaranteed, uncontended bandwidth all the way to a parting point for the price of a consumer broadband service?
I think at least in the case of Apple and Google some cache servers do exist. For Apple that’s Apple Edge Cache, and for Google it’s Google Global Cache. I have no idea how many ISP’s actually use them though. I have seen PNI’s (dedicated connections) used a lot though, so I don’t know in the case of Apple/Google how much content is served from those caches.
With speedtest.net I have sometimes seen a speedtest server in the same network used, although with quite a few of the big providers that’s not a given. For example even though BT do run at least one speedtest server, it isn’t always selected for BT connections.
A lot of inaccurate statements here.
I have a combined 2.6Gbps of WAN here and can certainly use it all with the right applications. I was with VM on Gig2 and had no problem bursting to 2Gbps at anytime of day.
It is true that there are some servers out there that are going to only have 1Gbps uplinks and yes, it’s certainly possible that your access to the internet is faster than what is on the other end – but – take SIMON’s comments with some huge pinches of salt
EE 1.8gbit customer here, just tried some single threaded speed tests….
BT: 1700ish
London outside BT: 1500ish
Amsterdam: 1250ish
Doesn’t seem that oversubscribed.