Sky Broadband Superfast 80?

[John+B]

I have just renewed my contract until October 2026 because I upgraded my WiFi to Sky Max hub. Sky say that I have Superfast 80 and that this is the fastest available in our local area (postcode GL7). We are getting an average speed of 57Mbps which is OK for our needs.

My question is - what does Superfast 80 really mean? Is the 80 a reference to broadband speed? In other area of our town, my daughter has a Gigaclear connection and has broadband speed in excess of 30Mbps - maybe because they have CAT cable infrastructure which not available in our locality. Any comment on the meaning of Superfast 80 would be helpful😁

[TimmyBGood]

@John+B 

FTTC technology (broadband over copper phone pairs) has a maximum potential speed of 80Mbs, reduced by copper line distance.  It's offered wholesale to ISPs in two versions: 80/20Mbs and 40/10Mbs (the latter being half the potential bandwidth inherent to a perfect circuit of under 100 metres from the cabinet)

Sky therefore markets its FTTC offerings as 'Superfast 80' and 'Superfast 35'.

Gigaclear is optical-only over its private network and so offers 300, 400 and 900Mbs connections.

[TimmyBGood]

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@John+B wrote:

We are getting an average speed of 57Mbps which is OK for our needs.

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FTTC speed delivered to a particular address is almost entirely a product of copper line length from the local fibre cabinet.

[John+B]

In my original post I should have said that the Gigaclear connection is 300Mbps not 30😩. Thanks for the advice - our green Open Reach cabinet is about 1km away, so your graph makes it clear about the drop in speed relative to distance. Thanks for your excellent advice👏