CityFibre raises bar for British broadband with 5.5Gbits/sec lines

CityFibre is laying down the gauntlet to its fibre broadband rivals with the launch of symmetrical 5.5Gbits/sec lines in the UK.

The wholesale fibre provider already offers some of the fastest connections available in the UK, with symmetrical 2.5Gbits/sec lines available through its ISP partners. However, now it’s planning to more than double those speeds after upgrading the majority of its network to 10Gbits/sec XGS-PON technology. The company claims it’s already upgraded 85% of its network, with the remainder due to be completed this summer.

It gives CityFibre a huge speed advantage over rivals, most notably BT’s Openreach. The fastest Openreach connection is currently 1.8Gbits/sec downstream and only 0.12Gbits/sec on the uplink, making CityFibre’s maximum upload speed more than 45 times faster than Openreach’s.

Virgin Media offers 2.2Gbits/sec download speeds in some areas, although the standard upload speed is capped at 0.2Gbits/sec. Customers can pay £6 per month extra for symmetrical upload speeds, although with the 2.2Gbits/sec connections already costing more than £80 per month, that’s an expensive package.

There’s no doubt symmetrical 5.5Gbits/sec broadband lines are overkill for the vast majority of consumers and businesses. However, it could be a huge boon for small businesses or home workers who are dealing with high-definition video or other bandwidth-intensive applications, such as game development.

Assuming similar connection speeds at company offices, it could also make accessing files on company systems as fast as if you were working in the office itself.

Such speeds could also prove a threat to Openreach’s lucrative leased line (Ethernet) business, although it’s not yet clear what SLAs CityFibre will offer with the new connections.

CityFibre doesn’t sell direct to businesses/consumers, but through ISP partners such as Vodafone, Sky and Zen Internet. They have not yet announced availability or prices for the new packages, but CityFibre claims that the 5.5Gbits/sec lines will be available at a “much lower wholesale cost” than Openreach’s fastest connections.

ISPs such as Zen have traditionally offered different prices to customers for equivalent speeds depending on which wholesale network the customer is connected to, with CityFibre lines generally coming in considerably cheaper than those from Openreach.

The launch of the new speeds will pile further pressure on Openreach to accelerate the upgrade of its network to the 10Gbits/sec XGS-PON technology. Speaking to Zen Internet CEO Richard Tang earlier this week, BT Group chief executive Allison Kirkby admitted she was “under pressure from her board and shareholders” to recoup customers lost to competitors such as CityFibre.

She admitted the company is unlikely to get back to the 75% market share Openreach enjoyed previously, but that the ongoing investment in Openreach’s fibre rollout will mean the “retail businesses can start to return to growth on the back of having that next-generation fibre”.

CityFibre CEO Greg Mesch said in a statement that the company “started out to challenge the incumbents and bring choice and competition to the UK market.”

“This is another huge step-forward, giving ISPs more power and flexibility than ever before and bringing affordable Multi-Gig speeds and an unrivalled experience to millions of UK consumers,” he added.

Related articles

• Top 5 networking trends to watch in 2025
• APNs and their impact on businesses
• Network virtualisation: what it is and why it matters