Openreach plans to make its next-generation Full Fibre network available to more than one million premises over the next 12 months. The upgraded network can support connections approaching 10Gbps, with consumer packages expected to reach around 8.5Gbps. That is roughly 28 times the download speed of a typical UK household.
Despite the headlines, this doesn’t mean existing BT or Sky customers will wake up with enough speed to comfortably run a war. Openreach owns the cables, but providers decide which packages to sell over them. Your current speed and price stay the same unless your provider launches a compatible package and you actively order it.
The work expands an earlier pilot covering 40,000 premises in Guildford and the surrounding area. Openreach eventually wants the newer technology to cover around a third of its Full Fibre network within five years, although the rollout will depend partly on demand from broadband providers and the packages they want to sell.
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This further move follows the 40,000-home experiment in Guildford
8.5Gbps is, frankly, absurd overkill
In perfect conditions, an 8.5Gbps connection could download a 100GB game in under two minutes. A single 4K stream uses around 25Mbps at most, leaving enough capacity for more than 300 of them at once. That tells you how excessive this is for an ordinary home rather more clearly than the headline speed.
Your equipment also has to keep up. Reaching anything close to 8Gbps on one computer requires compatible high-speed network ports, cables and storage. Most laptops, televisions, phones and games consoles can’t use it. Even Wi-Fi 7 devices will commonly fall well short, particularly once you move away from the router.
EE is currently selling compatible 2.3Gbps and 8Gbps packages in Guildford, Woking and nearby areas. They cost from £54.99 and £74.99 per month respectively on 24-month contracts, with scheduled annual increases. BT and Sky haven’t announced equivalent packages for Openreach’s wider rollout, so their customers aren’t being handed an upgrade yet.
