Do any Openreach ISP's actually offer 220Mbps Up?

Im sure this has been asked before but wanted to revisit it incase the information has changed.

Openreach offer up to 1000/220....but the maximum product it seems possible to order is 900/110, actually this is the product I am on and its great.

I am curious however as to if indeed its possible to get that 220 up as ive not seen an ISP offering it to a residential customer which I am?

EDIT -

Just found Cerberus

They offer 900/220 but with an installation cost of 600 quid and 200 pounds a month....thats crazy, I wonder why its so much more expensive for an additional 100Mbps up...and the installation fee as well...

It still using Openreach so I assume all the equipment remains the same, the Nokia ONT can do 2.5Gbit, the Fibre can do plenty and I assume the equipment can also, seems a bit steep to me.

Oh well guess that answers that.

Edited by naylor2006 (Thu 22-Feb-24 10:03:00)

I'm with an altnet and have 1Gb up/down.

I think Openreach use GPON which can operate at 2.5Gb/s down and 1.25Gb/s up. This then has to be shared with however many customers that splits out to. (I think, and I'm happy to be corrected).

I believe most altnets are rolling out XGS-PON, which operate at 10Gb/s up and 10Gb/s down. So, much more bandwidth to share out to subscribers.

As to how Openreach can justify those prices is beyond me. I pay £30 a month for my connection!

Truespeed are in my area and have fibre'd up everyone apart from 8 houses in my street, I am one of those 8 houses. The underground passive pathways are blocked between the main road and the telegraph pole that serves the group of houses at the bottom of my close. Its kinda frustrating because Truespeed offer 150/150, 300/300, 600/600 and 900/900 are are cheaper than Openreach at every single price point.

Upload is important for me because I run a VPN server for various things and 110Mbps I have now is adequate where as the Virgin I had before at 35Mbps wasnt, but I'd have loved 600/600 from Truespeed. I live in a Semi Detached as well and literally the house im connected to can get Truespeed because the are served by the other pole on the junction with the main road.

What Openreach did to get around the blockage was the run Fibre above ground between the poles skipping over block, which I am grateful for, Truespeed I doubt have an agreement with Openreach that they can do this where as they are allowed to use the underground pathways. So my road needs digging up I think which they said they arent doing. Its frustrating because in some areas where there isnt overhead cabling in my town Truespeed dug up all the paths anyway to put fibre down.....even new manhole covers.

Slight digression, point is, Truespeed charge £75 a month after the initial year offer for 900Mbps Upload so the Openreach infra is way more expensive, I get they have to provide for alot more customers generally but even so.

Have you spoken to Truespeed to see if they can run their fibre overhead to your pole?

I haven't dealt with them so I don't know how amenable they would be to this. I can't imagine that Openreach could/would be able to block them. If OR can do it, then Alnets should be able to do it too.

The 1000/220 package is intended for business customers. You will find many business ISP's selling it.

Cerberus is 1 of many who sell it

https://www.cerberusnetworks.co.uk/connectivity-broa...

The 220Mb upload package comes with a £500+vat install fee from Openreach and a much higher monthly rental compared to the 115Mb upload package.

Yes Cerberus are one such company that offers it. I suspect due to the increased costs the demand is so low its just not worth most ISPs having it as an option.

The story used to be that the £600 upfront cost was a deposit for any potential upgrade to Openreach's kit. As the bandwidth is shared between 30 or so properties, and offering one person this faster upload speed might cause others to slow down, it was said they may need to move the customer to something called XGS-PON which can run separately over the top leaving everyone else as they were before. I don't think this has ever happened and I'm not sure was actually ever the case or true.

The £600 and higher monthly costs charged by Openreach and passed on by the ISP are more to avoid business users moving from more expensive leased lines to cheaper FTTP, so it has deliberately been made unattractive.

Now we have many Altnets that offer higher upload speeds Openreach may need to change its stance of course. Altnets generally don't need to protect more lucrative leased line connections, they just want as many customers on their books as they can get, and just hope to balance the books at some future date.

Edited by E300 (Thu 22-Feb-24 10:40:46)

In reply to a post by AndyPandy:

Have you spoken to Truespeed to see if they can run their fibre overhead to your pole?

I haven't dealt with them so I don't know how amenable they would be to this. I can't imagine that Openreach could/would be able to block them. If OR can do it, then Alnets should be able to do it too.

I wont bore you with the entire saga, it started back in Feb 2023 when Truespeed said the work with be finished to hook us up....but here are some things I gathered.

Truespeed customer services never seem to be able to give me any decent info with regards to what the build team were doing, in fact alot of the time I was telling them information because I could see the vans outside from time to time investigating the issue along with fitting CBT's on the pole at the end of my road. All they ever did was tell me that there is a blockage the the build completion date is delayed a few months, each time I called for an update the delay went on further till eventually they said its not planned until 2025 now.

I asked them if they could hook me to a spare port on the other telegraph pole, given that the distance from the pole to my property is not longer than some others already served by it, my attached neighbour is connected to it and doesnt even want Truespeed. They said there are no spare ports on that CBT and they are already allocated to addresses anyway even if they havent ordered.

They never said about going above ground however when Openreach came to install their fibre last summer I spoke with them, slightly tongue in cheek they said we are going above ground because there is a blockage and we wont be running Truespeed fibre also because they are a competitor. From what I gather Truespeed do rely on Openreach for some things. I told Truespeed OR were going above ground cant you do the same but they never gave me an answer.

Basically, it was a hard no to any suggestions I had and I guess they dont care about 8 houses when they rest of the town is mostly done.

Openreach came through though and got there stuff installed by September going above ground so I went with BT for my ISP and I am happy ultimately as the TV package I have is very good with them, also 110Mbps is decent enough.

But no, Truespeed offered no compromise or alternative way of gettiing fibre to our pole.

Edited by naylor2006 (Thu 22-Feb-24 10:47:43)

In reply to a post by AndyPandy:

I think Openreach use GPON which can operate at 2.5Gb/s down and 1.25Gb/s up. This then has to be shared with however many customers that splits out to. (I think, and I'm happy to be corrected).
I believe most altnets are rolling out XGS-PON, which operate at 10Gb/s up and 10Gb/s down. So, much more bandwidth to share out to subscribers.

I thought XGS-PON as deployed by AltNet's was also asymetric, so 10 Gb/s down, and 2.5 Gb/s up, shared as with GPON, typically upto 32way split. This improves the ratio, making it much easier to support 1 Gb/s symmetric services to the home, and enables ISPs such as YouFibre to offer their 8 Gb/s service.

There is apparently a modified XGS-PON that can support higher uploads, but this would require much more expensive ONT at the home, and probably changes to the network, it is unclear if this is used anywhere in the world yet. I'm sure others will know.

Truespeed indeed reply on Openreach for their infrastructure - after all their using their ducts and poles. That said there's nothing to stop them running overhead fibre to get a service to your pole.

Unfortunately it seems that nobody is actually willing to apply some common sense and put the effort in to address your issue.

Easier pickings elsewhere etc.

In reply to a post by E300:

Yes Cerberus are one such company that offers it. I suspect due to the increased costs the demand is so low its just not worth most ISPs having it as an option.

The story used to be that the £600 upfront cost was a deposit for any potential upgrade to Openreach's kit. As the bandwidth is shared between 30 or so properties, and offering one person this faster upload speed might cause others to slow down, it was said they may need to move the customer to something called XGS-PON which can run separately over the top leaving everyone else as they were before. I don't think this has ever happened and I'm not sure was actually ever the case or true.

The £600 and higher monthly costs charged by Openreach and passed on by the ISP are more to avoid business users moving from more expensive leased lines to cheaper FTTP, so it has deliberately been made unattractive.

Now we have many Altnets that offer higher upload speeds Openreach may need to change its stance of course. Altnets generally don't need to protect more lucrative leased line connections, they just want as many customers on their books as they can get, and just hope to balance the books at some future date.

This all makes alot of sense, I hope the altnets do trigger OR to allow better upload speeds, or at least allow some customer to pay a little more for it if you want to.

At my business we pay £650 a month for a 1Gbit Leased Line, so yeah it is very unattractive for a residential customer to pay £200 for 220Mbps.