Are GFast speeds artificially lowered?

[JoeEmp]

I've had a GFast contract with Sky since March this year. We usually achieve the minimum 100mb/s down consistently and haven't had any issues,

However, GFast has a theoretical max speed of 300mb/s down and other providers like Talk talk offer a 200mb/s down minimum service.

My question is twofold, firstly, should we be expecting higher than the 100mb/s down and close to the advertised average of 145mb/s down? Secondly could Sky be artificially reducing our connection speed since it's been so consistent, with the proof of this being a seemingly arbitrary offer of the slower GFast speeds, nowhere close to what the technology is capable of.

I'm not sure where to go with this, or if I even have a case, so just reaching out to see if anyone else has faced anything similar?

[cookiemonsteruk]

@JoeEmp 

G,fast itself has a max speed of 300 but sky only resell 150Mbps with a guarantee of 100Mbps

Could you post your stats

https://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Broadband/How-to-find-your-Sky-Broadband-router-stats/m-p/2855717#M1014...

[TimmyBGood]

@JoeEmp 

Sky has only ever offered Ultrafast 1 ('up to' 150Mbs with a 100Mbs minimum) over G.fast: they never resold the 300Mbs wholesale band which was historically available through some other ISPs.  Neither version is now listed for new customers of the vast majority of service providers: Sky is one of very few left.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2023/10/the-misery-of-diminishing-choice-in-g-fast-uk-broadban... 

[TimmyBGood]

@JoeEmp 

Also worth noting that G.fast is now very much an end of life technology and will end up being replaced by FTTP overbuild: Openreach suspended (and later ceased) the creation of new G.fast areas back in 2019.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2019/09/openreach-put-the-brakes-on-future-uk-g-fast-broadband... 

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2024/06/openreach-update-on-closure-of-g-fast-cabinets-in-uk-f... 

[peter-marlow+1966]

When you  say Gfast I am confused  because  I have  gigafast  broadband  with  sky fttp, full fibre  to the property, had it since  January  this year  and it's  900mps  to the router not sure what Gfast is 

[Highlinder]

@peter-marlow+1966  A simple Google search finds the information on what g.fast is

https://www.bttcomms.com/g-fast-is-on-a-roll/ 

[cookiemonsteruk]

@peter-marlow+1966 

G.fast uses the same copper to the home but run from a pod near the fttc cabinet at a much higher frequency to acheive higher speeds

[peter-marlow+1966]

I have looked  on sky's broadband  packages  and they  don't  have  one called  Gfast on their  packages 

 

 

 

[peter-marlow+1966]

 

 

 

[TimmyBGood]

@peter-marlow+1966 

G.fast is/was essentially a version of FTTC where fibre extended to 'pods' at individual street level rather than only as far as a cabinet.  This means it can be faster than FTTC because copper line length is much shorter, but still has that as a fundamental limit.

It's entirely different to 'Gigafast'

[Highlinder]

@peter-marlow+1966  if it has not been deployed into your area then you are unlikely to see it.

[peter-marlow+1966]

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@JoeEmp wrote:

I've had a GFast contract with Sky since March this year. We usually achieve the minimum 100mb/s down consistently and haven't had any issues,

However, GFast has a theoretical max speed of 300mb/s down and other providers like Talk talk offer a 200mb/s down minimum service.

My question is twofold, firstly, should we be expecting higher than the 100mb/s down and close to the advertised average of 145mb/s down? Secondly could Sky be artificially reducing our connection speed since it's been so consistent, with the proof of this being a seemingly arbitrary offer of the slower GFast speeds, nowhere close to what the technology is capable of.

I'm not sure where to go with this, or if I even have a case, so just reaching out to see if anyone else has faced anything similar?

---

 

[TimmyBGood]

@peter-marlow+1966 

G.fast street-level infrastructure was only ever rolled out to be in reach of less than three million properties (well under 10% of the UK) : as I noted above that project was ceased by Openreach in 2019 because FTTP is easily capable of gigabit speeds which copper can never get near.

[cookiemonsteruk]

@peter-marlow+1966 

Believe us it exists

[peter-marlow+1966]

They were advertising  fttp gigafast  on the sky home page last year but I could not get  it installed  until  January  this year