Leveraging its XGS-PON network the altnet has launched a symmetric 5.5 Gbps service. The service extends the maximum speeds consumers could order from 2.5 Gbps to 5.5 Gbps and there is still headroom for even faster speeds as XGS-PON can deliver 10 Gbps.
The UK’s full fibre future is here, thanks to CityFibre’s powerful, 10Gb XGS-PON network. Our ISP partners are already connecting customers with speeds over 2Gb and exceeding expectations when it comes to quality and reliability, but our next generation of full fibre will set a new standard for what’s possible.
CityFibre 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.
Greg Mesch, CEO of CityFibre
The service is available on 85% of the CityFibre footprint which we are currently tracking at just over 4.12 million premises Ready for Service.
With Sky due to be widely available on the CityFibre network it is will be interesting to see what actual products Sky launch with i.e. will they play it safe or push a Gigabit future where you have so much bandwidth to your home you can stream to as many televisions as you like.
This is the wholesale launch, so at present we don’t know of any retail ISP pricing. Current pricing for a 2.2 Gbps service from Vodafone is £70/month so we doubt that any retailer will offer a 5.5 Gbps service for less than £70/month.
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It’s not the speed, it’s the fact it’s symmetric that is important. I have spent a long time this morning uploading files on my very slow London connection (unbelievable that less than 5 miles from the Houses of Parliament I am getting max 7Mbps download on FTTC) . OpenReach will lose further customers unless they address this – to me they always seem to be one step behind their competitors.
I guess symmetric becomes less of an issue at faster speeds (as do most things) but agreed entirely that up to 1Gbps there’s a massive issue when upload speeds are far lower.
I thought London had its own provider Community Fibre? I take it they are don’t operate where you are. But yeah as customer through one of CityFibre’s ISP’s it would be nice if my area even got XGS-PON so I could benefit from 2.5G symmetrical first. Though according to that post it could be by the end of summer, I’ll just have to wait and see if that is the case.