CityFibre, the UK’s preeminent independent full fibre infrastructure network, has unveiled its latest offering, the ‘True Gig’ 1.2Gbps wholesale broadband product. This product aims to empower its Internet Service Provider (ISP) partners to promote full 1Gbps speed services to a consumer base extending beyond 3 million premises nationwide.
The ‘True Gig’ service has been strategically designed to address the complexities faced by ISPs when advertising ‘Gigabit speed’ broadband services to consumers. Currently, ISPs are restricted from marketing a service as 1Gbps unless they can substantiate that at least 50% of their customers consistently achieve 1Gbps speeds during peak usage hours. This regulation has necessitated that typical 1Gbps wholesale services be marketed to consumers at slightly lower speeds, often around 900Mbps, to account for the bandwidth required for service management and monitoring.
CityFibre’s innovative solution involves elevating the wholesale speed to 1.2Gbps, enabling its ISP partners to confidently promise a full 1Gbps service to their customers, provided their own backhaul arrangements and in-premises equipment can support it. Importantly, this upgrade is offered at the same price point as CityFibre’s existing 1Gbps wholesale product, ensuring widespread accessibility for consumers.
Customers subscribing to the 1.2Gbps product will enjoy symmetrical download and upload speeds when utilizing CityFibre’s XGS-PON network. In areas where the network has not yet transitioned from GPON to XGS-PON, a variant with 1Gbps upload speeds is available as an interim solution. Both variants deliver upload speeds exceeding eight times the fastest FTTP broadband service offered by Openreach.
Dan Ramsay, Chief Marketing Officer at CityFibre, commented on the development, stating, “As the builder of the UK’s largest independent full fibre network, CityFibre helped introduce the UK to the concept of the Gigabit, so it’s a privilege to be able to now launch a ‘True Gig’ service to our partners. This will give them the confidence to advertise their services as Gigabit Speed and will encourage even more people to join the full fibre revolution.”
CityFibre’s ‘True Gig’ offering represents a significant leap forward in addressing the challenges faced by ISPs in advertising ultra-fast broadband services, ultimately benefiting consumers by providing more accurate and robust speed promises.
