Openreach finally offers ‘true’ 1 Gbps service

The stated download speeds of the two new offerings are 1.2 Gbps and 1.8 Gbps, with both offering upload speeds of 120 Mbps. On the surface these still compare poorly to the 2 Gbps service VMO2 launched last week, to which this announcement feels like a response, especially when you consider VMO2’s offer has a ‘symmetric’ (i.e. equal download and upload speeds) option.

But one major thing Openreach gets credit for in this announcement, which was missing from the VMO2 one, is the admission that there’s a significant difference between headline speeds and ‘real-world’ ones. In other words, while the service has the potential to hit the headline speed, subscribers are unlikely to ever experience that.

‘Available to order from April 1st, both new speed tiers will give Openreach’s communication provider customers the opportunity to sell ‘true’ 1G and 1.5G products – offering end users speeds up to more than 20 times the current UK median average. That average is listed as 73 Mbps. It goes on to admit that Openreach’s current top tier, advertised as 1 Gbps, typically delivers real-world average download speeds of 900 Mbps.

The other major advantage this announcement has over VMO2’s one is that these new tiers are available across its whole full fibre network, which currently covers 13 million premises. “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,” said Openreach product manager Matthew Sledge.

“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.”

Perhaps, in his otherwise exhaustive quote, Sledge avoided the usual temptation to illustrate the faster speeds by saying how quickly you can download Gone with the Wind because he didn’t want this announcement to be about speed alone. VMO2 still has the advantage when it comes to headline speed claims, which is bound to persuade many people who qualify for its ‘Gig2’ service. So Openreach is clever to switch the focus to real-world speeds and it will be interesting to know what those are for Gig2.