Openreach will take its 10Gbps fibre to a million more premises
Openreach said on Wednesday morning that it will widen the pilot of its 10Gbps capable fibre technology, XGS-PON, from around 40,000 premises to more than a million by the end of August 2027. As reported by ISPreview, the operator also wants roughly a third of its full fibre network running on the technology inside five years.
Some plain English first. Almost all of Openreach’s existing full fibre runs on an older standard called GPON, where one line into the street is shared between several homes and carries up to 2.5Gbps down and 1.24Gbps up in total, split between everyone on it. That is why the fastest consumer packages on it stop at around 1.8Gbps. XGS-PON lifts the shared ceiling to 10Gbps. Same fibre in the ground, more room on it, so the providers who rent space on the network can sell faster tiers.
What it means for your house today: not much, unless you happen to live in the pilot. That has been confined to Guildford, Woking and a handful of nearby villages, and ISPreview says EE still appears to be the only retail provider able to sell packages on it. EE’s own announcement last month put its top speed at up to 8Gbps. Everyone else has to buy new capacity and build the products first, and the report notes the 100Gbps links that would carry that traffic in bulk are not due to be trialled until 2027.
There is a visit involved too. Openreach says customers taking the service will usually need an engineer to fit a newer ONT, the small optical box on the wall your router plugs into, even where full fibre is already installed. Our guide to the Openreach ONT box covers what that box actually does.
The honest question is whether you would notice. Most homes never get near a gigabit in practice, because the wifi, the age of your devices and the server at the other end all cap what arrives long before the line does. Our guide to what broadband speed you need is the one to read before paying for a bigger number. The quieter benefit is the one nobody markets: a shared line with 10Gbps behind it has more room left when the whole street is streaming at eight in the evening.
Two things the announcement does not settle: which areas come next, and what any of it will cost. Neither the pilot nor the expansion plan puts a number on either. Coverage is decided street by street whoever is selling it, so the availability checker is the place to start on your own address.