We have covered the up and coming Fibre to the Home (FTTH) internet provider Hyperoptic in another article, but how can you quickly find out if they are available in your area?
Hyperoptic are growing very rapidly and are currently available in parts of around 30 major UK cities, including northern and Scottish cities as of early 2019. This coverage is set to expand rapidly during 2019 so any information we provide in this article will likely become out of date very quickly. The best best is to check their site, where they have a coverage map and postcode checker where you can check current availability in your area.
Nevertheless we will provide as much information as possible about Hyperoptic’s growing coverage as of early 2019, though due to their aggressive expansion more cities and locations will come on line very quickly during the year. Even if they are not currently taking orders or installing, it is still well worth registering interest on their site, and if enough people in your immediate area do the same then they will likely install.
Where Are Hyperoptic Currently Available?
We have listed below the main cities in which Hyperoptic is currently available as of January 2019. To clarify, coverage is only available in parts of these cities where there was enough combined interest to justify installation. Again it is best to visit their site and enter your postcode if you live in one of these cities to see if they can deploy the service to your property.
Here are the main cities they are available:
- Greater London
- Basildon
- Birmingham
- Bolton
- Bradford
- Brighton
- Bristol
- Cardiff
- Coventry
- Edinburgh
- Glasgow
- Leeds
- Leicester
- Liverpool
- Luton
- Manchester
- Newcastle
- Nottingham
- Preston
- Reading
- Reigate
- Sheffield
- Slough
- Southampton
- Southend-on-Sea
- Warrington
- Watford
- Woking
Fibre to the Home providers such as Hyperoptic install fibre optic cabling all the way to your residence and not just to the nearest street cabinet as with normal fibre
What Types of Property Do They Tend To Install In?
Hyperoptic are understandably being strategic in how they deploy their services; whilst they have got significant bank backing to fund further expansion, they don’t quite have the money to install cabling to the extent the “big boys” like BT and Virgin Media do.
Therefore for now they are mostly focusing on Multiple Occupancy Dwellings or MODs (basically large blocks of flats or apartments) and new build houses in choosing where they install. This is simply a practical strategy of where it is easiest to install and where they can get enough combined interest in a small area to justify installation.
Installing Fibre to the Home Internet tends to be very expensive compared to standard fibre, since it requires fibre optic cabling to be routed all the way to a customer’s residence and not just to the nearest street cabinet as with standard fibre.
This often means digging up streets and driveways in order to install the required cabling, which is expensive and time consuming work. Hence the hefty installation costs often charged by FTTH providers. Hyperoptic for instance have a standard installation charge of £240, though they often waive this several times a year in flash deals so it is always worth checking out their site and twitter page for the latest offers.
Given how difficult it is to install fibre all the way to a building, Hyperoptic are understandably targeting large blocks of flats where they only have do the heavy work once to get the fibre connection to the building itself, and from there they can pipe the fibre connection through to individual apartments relatively easily.
Similarly, new build houses are often already designed to take FTTH connections in a way that older houses are not, so installation is often easier there as well. If you live in an older house you may struggle to get Hyperoptic to install, since the costs may not quite be worth it at present. This may change though as they continue to grow and it is always worth registering your interest no matter what property or area you live in.
A Summary of Their Packages
Hyperoptic offer several different packages, both with and without phone, and all of them are wired as full fibre to the home with no copper along the way. Similarly, they offer a 100% speed guarantee with no drop outs at peak times as there can be with normal fibre, and unlimited usage as standard on all packages.
Their two fastest packages (the 150mb and 1gb ones) are also also symmetrical, meaning you get the same download and upload speeds at all times, as opposed to conventional fibre packages which tend to be asymmetrical in that they have much lower upload speeds than download speeds. This strong upload speed is exactly what gamers, live streamers and regular YouTube content creators need.
Hyperoptic Packages – Quick Summary
| Service | Package 1 - Speeds 30/1mbps | Package 2 - Speeds 150/150mbps | Package 3 - Speeds 1000/1000mbps | Rising to (After Year 1) | Unfront Costs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Residential - Broadband Only | £19 per month (First Year) | £29 per month (First Year) | £49 per month (First Year) | £22, £35 and £60 per month | £240* |
| Residential - Broadband and Phone | £21 per month (First Year) | £31 per month (FIrst Year) | £51 per month (First Year) | £25, £38 and £63 per month | £240* |
| Business - Broadband Only - 12 month contract | £50 per month plus VAT | £100 per month plus VAT | £300 per month plus VAT | Cheaper prices available on 36 month contract | £300 plus VAT |
| Business - Broadband and Phone - 12 month contract | £60 per month plus VAT | £110 per month plus VAT | £310 per month plus VAT | Cheaper prices available on 36 month contract | £300 plus VAT |
Click here for a full guide to fees and charges for Residential users and click here for the full guide for business users.
*Hyperoptic have flash deals – usually a couple of times a year – where they waive the activation and installation costs, meaning you can get online for your first month’s payment only. We will try to provide updates on these flash deals – see also their twitter page for more details.
Their gigabit package usually delivers around 900 mbps when tested through a LAN cable, which is hugely impressive and will see to everyone’s bandwidth demands, even in a busy house, for many years ahead. At the other end their 30/1 entry level package is superb value for money and a steal if you can install during one of their flash deals with no setup costs.
Their packages are also ideal for gamers, given that users of their service have reported extremely low latency times of less than 5 milliseconds within the UK and less than 20 milliseconds to Western EU servers. This is extremely impressive and difficult or impossible to match on a standard fibre package. The symmetrical upload speeds on their two fastest packages are also great for gamers who like to host lobbies and stream and upload to services like Twitch and Youtube.
How to Get Hyperoptic
Hyperoptic are also expanding very rapidly and aggressively, having secured several large tranches of bank and sovereign wealth fund investment to fund further growth. Their coverage is already past 30 UK cities and is set to hit around 50 cities at some point in 2019.
Given their rapid expansion there has never been a better time to sign up for their services. If you visit their site there is a coverage map and postcode checker where you can enter your postcode and they will let you know the status of their service in your location.
They currently divide their coverage criteria into four main categories – Live, Installing, Taking Orders and Registering Interest. If there is not quite enough interest in your immediate area to justify installation then it is a good idea to register interest and once the numbers add up they will take orders and install the service.
It is therefore a good idea to drum up as much interest as possible among people who live in the same apartment block or housing development if you live in one of their general coverage areas. It is worth asking neighbours whether they would like to have a FTTH connection installed and encourage them to visit Hyperoptic’s site and check out the benefits of their service.
You can also check out our other articles on Hyperoptic and Fibre to the Home internet in general, linked below. In terms of value for money and speeds delivered, for monthly price they compare very favourably to the main providers such as BT, Sky and Virgin Media and if you can catch them on a flash deal where setup costs are waived, we consider it a no brainer to get on one of their great value packages.
