City Fibre 5Gb

I've just noticed that Sky are offering 5Gb connections on City Fibre in my area, which led me to
https://cityfibre.com/news/cityfibre-unveils-new-5-5...
At £80 per month for the Sky service I won't be rushing to sign up.

Edited by ParksidePeter (Fri 22-Aug-25 17:44:17)

Part of the ever increasing gap between the Openreach (OR) offerings and the others, including YouFibre's 8 Gigabit at £99.99/month. OR are so far likely ignoring as all of these have very limited national coverage, although if CityFibre complete their network upgrade to offer this in all places, that will be notable. Nexfibre (half owned by VM) are talking similar speeds, but today only offering 2 Gigabit, but they charge extra for symmetric.

I assume takeup of these services over 1 Gigabit are quite low, so whilst easier to offer on XGS-PON, these are more a marketing attempt to get customers over OR. OR have a much bigger reach, that it will take some more consolidation for them to be worried by any of this.

It is a shame OR are not offering symmetric options, even for additional money... but most obviously they feel they don't have to.

5Gb/s for £80, a bargain

In reply to a post by jchamier:

OR are so far likely ignoring as all of these have very limited national coverage

... and because almost nobody apart from a tiny minority of broadband nerds have any interest in such speeds. OR is interested in the 99%, not the 1%.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

... and because almost nobody apart from a tiny minority of broadband nerds have any interest in such speeds. OR is interested in the 99%, not the 1%.

Agreed, I'm more interested in reliability than speed; I will move to the first provider that can solve the various MDU issues, and get me away from VM's coax network with its falling apart street cabinets, but I don't need more than 300 to 500 Mbps, I would prefer faster upload than 20 Mbps, symmetric 300 would be ideal for me.

That is amazing, considering it was not that many years ago we were using dial up

But, it is a niche product, more niche than 2Gb, a lot of people don't even need 1Gb, never mid those speeds. If someone has a large house and a lot of people living then, then maybe, or a HOMO, ideal.
Most peoples devices would not cope with the speed, even a lot of PCs still have 1Gb Ethernet.

As been said, reliability is the thing and I prefer reliability against speed, saying that with fibre it should be reliable, after all we are told time and time again about how reliable it is.

It does show one thing, that other network providers are knocking the spots of Openreach technology wise and if it takes some customers off Openreach, it makes me happy.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

That is amazing, considering it was not that many years ago we were using dial up

But, it is a niche product, more niche than 2Gb, a lot of people don't even need 1Gb, never mid those speeds. If someone has a large house and a lot of people living then, then maybe, or a HOMO, ideal.

QoS would allow you manage many people on 80 to 100mbit connection. Except most people don't use QoS.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

Most peoples devices would not cope with the speed, even a lot of PCs still have 1Gb Ethernet.

Its beyond 5gbits connections you start to run into expense. Plus windows isn't really designed for 10gbit plus connections. Linux is fine, it will run at 10gbits plus all day long, put a windows to linux connection in, enjoy the fun and games.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

As been said, reliability is the thing and I prefer reliability against speed, saying that with fibre it should be reliable, after all we are told time and time again about how reliable it is.

fibre is better in that theres no crosstalk, your connection speed doesn't change with new people on your pon* its weather resistant etc. It can still break in many ways but its more unlikely compared to copper. Overhead and wind is its greatest Nemesis

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

It does show one thing, that other network providers are knocking the spots of Openreach technology wise and if it takes some customers off Openreach, it makes me happy.

OR is reluctant to do symmetrical speeds because its their belief that it will hurt their "business offerings".

But how many fall for te hype and sign up for connections way faster than they need? They believe they are getting a faster product that will enhance their "experience" whereas in reaity all they are getting is a product beyond their needs that will decrease their bank balance.

In reply to a post by Taras:

QoS would allow you manage many people on 80 to 100mbit connection. Except most people don't use QoS.

I know plenty of large businesses that have 1000+ staff on a 200/200 symmetric connection. Using a "leased line" circuit because of the repair and support benefits.

Its beyond 5gbits connections you start to run into expense. Plus windows isn't really designed for 10gbit plus connections. Linux is fine, it will run at 10gbits plus all day long, put a windows to linux connection in, enjoy the fun and games.

We have a lot of Windows servers on 10GbE and even 25GbE... I think you may want to check.

We used to say it was the video makers (e.g. YouTube) that needed the high data rates, now it is the game players, e.g. Stream users, that drive the massive download volumes. They are the ones buying the 500 and 1 Gb connections.

fibre is better in that theres no crosstalk, your connection speed doesn't change with new people on your pon* its weather resistant etc. It can still break in many ways but its more unlikely compared to copper. Overhead and wind is its greatest Nemesis

The benefits of OTDR in finding a break accurately is useful to speed fault fixing.

OR is reluctant to do symmetrical speeds because its their belief that it will hurt their "business offerings".

Almost every other business that did this, lost the other business in the end. Look at IBM and their inability to deliver the 80386 chip as it was "too powerful compared to our mid range" in the 1980s, and so Compaq created the first "clone" and then IBM eventually exited the PC market. There are other examples.

I think BT Group CEO Alison Roberts is aware of this in the interview she gave; they're not expecting to be the physical network everywhere anymore... and of course maybe that would be good for BT Group as they could have less regulation. I don't see it happening!

Not directed at you but I a reply needs to be a reply to a post so...

Please can people stop indulging Adrian's thread derails about how the only sensible broadband related decision is the exact one he's happened to make?