CityFibre, the UK’s largest independent full fibre infrastructure network, is set to revolutionize consumer broadband with the launch of the UK’s first wholesale 2.5Gbps symmetrical consumer broadband product. This move signals a new era of affordable, multi-gigabit broadband services for millions of UK households.
The groundbreaking 2.5Gbps product will be made available to Internet Service Provider (ISP) customers in phases, initially rolling out in CityFibre’s most mature XGS-PON deployment areas. It will progressively extend to all homes served by CityFibre’s rapidly expanding XGS-PON platform in the coming months. The platform has the capability to support symmetrical speeds of up to 10Gbps and can be easily upgraded to 50G PON, making it future-proof.
CityFibre anticipates deploying XGS-PON equipment into over 90% of its fibre exchanges by the end of 2023. The new 2.5Gbps product is expected to become accessible to approximately 20% of CityFibre’s ready-for-service footprint, which currently spans 2.5 million homes.
One of the significant advantages of XGS-PON is its environmental impact. All services provided over XGS-PON offer substantial carbon savings compared to GPON, thanks to the equipment’s superior power efficiency and ability to support more ONT connections per port.
Multi-gig speeds will also be available in areas where CityFibre’s network has not yet transitioned to XGS-PON. This will be achieved through a 2Gbps/1Gbps asymmetric GPON product slated for launch in the coming months. Eventually, these services will be migrated to the XGS-PON platform when it becomes accessible.
CityFibre’s new multi-gig products are poised to lead the wholesale market in terms of price, minimum speed guarantees, and installation times. Their symmetrical 2.5Gbps service is 2.5 times faster than BT Openreach’s asymmetric 1Gbps product, at half the rental cost per megabit. Furthermore, it delivers more than 20 times the upload speeds of BT Openreach’s piloted 1.8Gbps GPON services.
Greg Mesch, CEO of CityFibre, emphasized the significance of this launch, stating that it demonstrates the advantages of infrastructure competition while setting a new industry standard for wholesale networks. He highlighted the importance of ubiquitous, high-quality, and low-carbon connectivity for future applications and communities. By collaborating with ISP partners to introduce symmetrical multi-gigabit broadband services for consumers now, with plans for business services in the pipeline, CityFibre aims to empower the UK with a network and services that propel it into the future rather than hinder its progress.
