Can you switch from Superfast to Ultrafast without any additional infrastructure

[YorkshireBard]

Looking for a bit of advice in regards to my current broadband situation; at present I am on Sky's Superfast package as up until recently it was the fastest available in my area. Once full fibre infrastructure came to the area I intended to upgrade to a full fibre package, however after a couple of Openreach engineer visits due to the location of my property it would not be possible to run a fibre cable from the street to the property due to several factors (install of a new openreach pole required, landlord approval, etc.)

Upon reviewing Sky's offered packages, I came across the FAQ for full fibre. Of the offered packages Gigafast and Ultrafast Plus definitely require FTTP infrastructure, however it also states that Superfast, Superfast 35 and regular Ultrafast use this if available, but will use other technologies if this is unavailable.

With this in mind, due to me currently being on Superfast would I potentially be able to switch from that to regular Ultrafast without any additional infrastructure needing to be laid between the cabinet and property? I realise that potential speeds may be impacted due to the copper lines being used, but I imagine that would still result in an overall improvement.

[Chrisee]

@YorkshireBard only a few cabinets offer G.Fast support and you have to be very close to the cabinet to get a usable service. You can check if your line can offer a G.Fast service by entering your full address into this checker https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL/AddressHome if you cannot understand the results post them after removing any reference to your address. Alternatively you can ask Sky what options if any they can offer you.

Frankly to get G.Fast reliably your Superfast service woulld have to be delivering 80Mb/s so an increase to say 130Mb/s is not going to make a lot of difference. The other snag once on G.Fast Sky currently will not allow you to switch to FTTP if that becomes available so you havecto switch ISPs.. 

[TimmyBGood]

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@YorkshireBard wrote:

 it also states that Superfast, Superfast 35 and regular Ultrafast use this if available, but will use other technologies if this is unavailable.

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Sounds like typically clumsy wording from Sky.  Superfast can certainly run over FTTP, but as @Chrisee indicates, the only flavour of Ultrafast running over copper is an 'up to' 150Mbs using G.fast, which is an extension technology to FTTC where fibre 'pods' are located closer to customer addresses than fibre cabinets.  G.fast currently has the potential to serve around three million addresses in the UK but is now regarded as a technological dead-end which will not be extended in scope by Openreach: if your address does not already have a local (within 300 metres) 'pod' it's not going to get one.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/06/openreach-confirm-g-fast-broadband-rollout-paused-unti...