What is Superfast Fibre Broadband?

Superfast Fibre Broadband, or Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC), is the UK’s most common type of broadband. It uses fibre to connect our exchange with your local cabinet, and copper wires to connect the cabinet with your home. With download speeds of up to 80Mbps, it’s great for both binging box sets and working from home.

Lets see what fibre broadband is available to you
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Max download speeds of 80Mbps

Not every Superfast connection is the same – there are things that can affect your speed, like your distance from the cabinet and the wiring and equipment in your home. But, with average download speeds of between 35-65 Mbps, and a top speed of 80 Mbps, Superfast can download a 4K movie in under 24 mins and 100 of your favourite songs in under 80 seconds.

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A big upgrade on Standard broadband

Superfast uses a combination of fibre and copper, so it’s a big upgrade on Standard broadband. You can rely on Superfast to perform, even when you have more than one device connected at once.

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Upload speeds of up to 20Mbps

With these upload speeds you can video call to your heart's content - without a glitch in sight.

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Perfect for streaming, video calling and home working

Superfast can handle streaming, surfing, and video calling, so it’s great for watching your favourite movies and taking a meeting from the kitchen table. If you’re a serious gamer, love plugging into virtual reality, have a big family, or upload lots of videos, then it’s a good idea to see if you can get Ultrafast Full Fibre.

Learn about Ultrafast Fibre
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Your choice of phone line

You can buy a traditional copper (PSTN) phone line with Superfast until September 2023 – after that we’ll only be offering a digital phone line option, ahead of the national switchover to digital phone lines in 2025. We recommend checking with your service provider about the phone line options they offer, as you may also be able to get Superfast without ordering a phone line service.

Learn more about Digital Phone Lines
Superfast service provider logos

The largest selection of service providers in the UK

Our broadband network is ‘open’ - so you’re never tied down to one service provider. Over 650 service providers use our network, including Sky, BT, Vodafone, TalkTalk, Zen, and Plusnet, so you can always choose the broadband package that suits you best.

View our Superfast service providers

What happens next?

Depending on your current broadband and phone line service, you may need an engineer to visit your home for an installation. Once you’ve ordered a package with your chosen service provider, they’ll let you know whether this is necessary. Superfast is installed through your phone line, so if you’re switching service providers, they’ll usually just send you a new router - plug it in and you’re good to go.

Our different broadband types explained

Ultrafast Broadband

Our most reliable connection that's ready for anything.

Perfect for serious gamers, virtual reality, big families, cloud storage, Youtube uploaders, 360 video and much much more.

max

1000 Mbps 

download speed

That'll download a two hour 4K movie in under 2 minutes or your top 100 music tracks in under 7 seconds.

Learn more about Ultrafast Full Fibre broadband

GFast
Broadband

Our best copper broadband connection. 

Perfect for gaming, 4K streaming and small families.

max

330 Mbps 

download speed

That'll download a two hour 4K movie in under 6 minutes or your top 100 music tracks in under 20 seconds.

Learn more about GFast broadband

Superfast Broadband

Our most popular broadband - serving over 90% of the UK.

Perfect for streaming, video calling and home working.

max

80 Mbps

download speed

That'll download a two hour 4K movie in under 24 minutes or your top 100 music tracks in under 80 seconds.

Standard Broadband

Our best broadband for hard to reach areas. 

Perfect for email and basic web browsing.

max

24 Mbps

download speed

That'll download a two hour 4K movie in 78 minutes or your top 100 music tracks in 4.5 minutes.

Learn more about Standard broadband

  • More Ultrafast Full Fibre broadband features

    max 220Mbps upload speed

    You'll be able to send that 2GB file in under 73 seconds.

    A Digital Phone Line as standard

    Get the latest phone line technology that plugs straight into your broadband, or choose no phone line at all.

    Our most reliable connection

    Ultrafast Full fibre runs a fibre optic cable straight from our exchange to your door, meaning it won't let you down - so no more buffering or drop outs.

    You might also hear Ultrafast Full Fibre broadband called Fibre to the Premise (FTTP), or Fibre to the Home (FTTH)

  • More GFast broadband      features

    max 50Mbps upload speed

    You'll be able to send that 2GB file in under 5.5 minutes.

    Digital, Analogue or no phone line

    We'll be switching off the ability to buy a traditional (or PSTN) phone line in September 2023. You can also choose not to order a phone line with this service (called Single order GFast or SoGFast). We recommend taking a digital phone line that plugs straight into your broadband to make calls.

    It's Superfast, but turbo-charged

    GFast uses the same Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) technology as Superfast, but we turbo charge the connection between the cabinet  and your property to give even higher speeds. Because of this, we can usually only offer GFast broadband to homes and businesses that are close to their exchange.

    You might also hear GFast broadband called VDSL2 and sometimes Ultrafast broadband as it offer speeds over 300 Mbps

  • More Superfast broadband features

    max 2Mbps upload speed

    You'll be able to send that 2GB file in 13.5 minutes.

    Digital, Analogue or no phone line

    We'll be switching off the ability to buy a traditional (or PSTN) phone line in September 2023. You can also choose not to order a phone line with this service (called Single order Generic Ethernet Access or SoGEA). We recommend taking a digital phone line that plugs straight into your broadband to make calls.

    Superfast broadband uses Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) technology

    This means that we'll run a Fibre line from your exchange to your nearest cabinet. We then run broadband over the traditional copper wire from the cabinet to your home or business. This means that the further away from you are from your local cabinet, the slower your broadband speed is likely to be.

    You might also hear Superfast broadband called Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC), or VDSL.

  • More Standard broadband features

    max 1.4Mbps upload speed

    You'll be able to send that 2GB file in 3.2 hours.

    Analogue phone line

    As part of our upgrade to phone lines across the UK, in 2022 we'll be launching the ability to take Standard broadband with a digital phone or no phone line at all with our Single Order Transitional Access Product (SoTAP).

    Broadband over your phone line

    We use the phone line from the exchange to your home or business to run broadband. The further you are from the exchange, the longer your phone line, which normally means a slower speed.

    You might also hear Standard broadband called Asymmetric Digital Subscriber line (ADSL)

Still confused about connectivity?

We explain how each different broadband type is delivered, and our build plans for Ultrafast Full Fibre broadband on our Fibre First pages.

  • The small print

    • Download and upload speeds given show maximum values but service providers may offer slower speeds and packages using the same technology.
    • A 2 hour 4K movie has been calculated as 14GB of data.
    • 100 music tracks has been calculated as 8MB per song.
    • Typical deployment of Standard broadband may differ between service providers based on their implementation.
    • Service providers may name their broadband packages differently.