Openreach reveals 1.8Gbps full fibre plans will be available from April 1st

Broadband users who live within Openreach’s full fibre network will soon be able to enjoy download speeds of up to 1.8Gbps.

The firm, which operates the UK’s largest phone and broadband network, supplies wholesale services to communications providers such as BT and Sky who in turn sell broadband, phone and combined packages to end users.

From April 1st it’ll be offering two new tiers with download speeds of up to 1.2Gbps and 1.8Gbps and speeds of 120Mbps which will be available to the 13 million homes and businesses within its full fibre network footprint. 

Customers with an existing full fibre service who upgrade to the new tiers will be supplied with a new Optical Network Terminal (ONT) capable of supporting the faster speeds while those signing up for their first full fibre will have the latest ONT model supplied as standard. 

Openreach says a pilot for both new tiers has “performed exceptionally well with early adopter EE’s test results showing consistently solid performance”.

Product manager Matthew Sledge said: “Demand for high-definition streaming, online gaming, video conferencing, and other bandwidth-intensive applications has spurred a huge increase in how much broadband data we all use – and consumption is rising every single year.

 “Our new turbo-charged speed tiers demonstrate how our Full Fibre network is future proofed to meet these ever growing demands. 

“And with the largest Full Fibre footprint in the UK – we’ve made sure these new speeds can provide the biggest benefit and are available to all 13 million homes and businesses that can access our Full Fibre network – whether people are living in a city, town or small remote village.”

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