We have already given an overview of fibre to the home (FTTH) providers in the UK in our article covering fibre optic internet in the UK.
In this article though we want to single out Hyperoptic in more detail. Who are they and what they up to at the moment?
Hyperoptic are probably the biggest and most widespread of the independent Fibre to the Home (FTTH) super high speed internet providers in the UK.
They already have a presence in several dozen major UK cities and their coverage is expanding rapidly across the UK, though at present they only tend to install in inner city apartment blocks, and availability elsewhere is limited.
With superfast package speeds starting at 30Mbps and moving up to 1Gbps download and upload, low monthly costs and regular flash deals where installation costs are waived, we consider them overall the best value FTTH provider in the UK if you live in a major city and get them to install.
Let’s look at them in more detail below.
An Brief Overview of Fibre to the Home
Most readers will already know what Fibre to the Home is, but we will briefly summarise it for any readers new to the topic. Fibre to the Home/Premises/Building (FTTH/P/B) is internet which is wired as fibre optic cabling all the way to a consumers house, right up to the router or at least to an access panel on the customer’s wall.
This is in contrast to standard Fibre, which is usually Fibre to the Cabinet or FTTC internet (or some close variant), meaning it is fibre optic up to the nearest street hub or cabinet, and then copper the rest of way to the home, usually up to several hundred meters. If you currently have a fibre optic internet, it is most likely fibre to the cabinet.
FTTC is cheaper to install but has less bandwidth potential as the copper part of the route reduces the amount of traffic that can be handled compared to fibre optics. FTTH is fibre all the way, and fibre optics can transfer far more data than copper can, with gigabit speeds easily achievable with FTTH connections.
The bottom line is that whilst FTTH internet is more difficult and expensive to install than standard fibre, it can deliver far greater bandwidth than standard FTTC connections and so is a great way to future proof against any home networking demands. This is only a brief summary; see our article on FTTH in the UK for more details.
Who are Hyperoptic?
Hyperoptic are a fibre to the home internet provider based in London and Serbia, founded in 2011 by Serbians Boris Ivanovic & Dana Tobak. Their services are currently available in around 30 UK cities, though coverage is growing; see the comparison table below for a full list of cities covered at the time of writing.
They currently mainly focus on installing in large apartment buildings and new build developments, where there is enough combined interest to justify installation. Coverage in more conventional properties is more tricky because of the work involved in wiring fibre optics all the way to a building, but may also grow as they develop a solid customer base.
Their entry level fibre packages start at around 30 mbps download and 1 mbps upload speeds, with a faster symmetrical packages offering 150/150mbps and their top range package offering gigabit (1000mbps) download and upload speeds, not reachable to most internet users on standard fibre. See our table below for a full comparison of the packages.
They are definitely a growing company, having secured several tranches of investment totalling £750 million to expand their coverage into more UK cities (see here and here). They currently serve just under 30 UK cities, with plans to expand to around 50 by the middle of 2019. They currently offer connections to around 500,000 UK properties, with target to reach 2 million properties by 2022 an 5 million by 2025 (see here).
They have also set about installing in social housing properties, with around 160,000 council properties covered as of Autumn 2018 following recent installations particularly around London, but they are working with around 50 councils across the UK in total.
But their main focus in on large scale multiple occupancy residential dwellings (ie. flats and apartment blocks) where they can install a number of subscriptions for the same building, which makes sense in their early stages of growth as it is difficult and costly to wire a fibre optic connection all the way to a building.
Business packages are also available but are more expensive, running at £300 plus VAT alone for installation with monthly prices also higher than residential packages, ranging from between £40-250 per month. Leased lines are also available.
Packages
Hyperoptic offer broadband only packages and broadband and phone combined packages. Their broadband only packages start at £18 a month for the first year for a 30/1 mbps download upload package, which in monthly cost terms is unbeatable value for a FTTH package that few other providers outside London can match.
Their mid range 150/150 package is £26 a month for the first year, with their premium gigabit package £48 a month for the first year. Prices rise after the initial contract period, usually twelve months to £22, £35 and £60 per month for the three packages.
However, whilst their monthly prices are very competitive, their installation and activation costs can be expensive, currently standing at £240 for residential customers to get up and running. A special white Hyperoptic socket has to be installed on your premises to feed their service into your home.
Hyperoptic often have flash deals on though where they reduce or waive these startup costs, in which you can get online with a full FTTH package for just the cost of your first month’s service. Which outside London you will struggle to get from any other FTTH provider.
| 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 are currently available in the following cities – Greater London, Basildon, Birmingham, Bolton, Bradford, Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, Coventry, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Luton, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Preston, Reading, Reigate, Sheffield, Slough, Southamption, Southend-on-Sea, Warrington, Watford, Woking.
Their coverage is rapidly growing though and is set to hit 50 cities by the mid 2019 so it is always worth checking their site for availability in your area.
*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 our Twitter page for more details.
The gigabit package, whilst expensive, will be attractive to heavy downloaders and streamers for lightning fast speeds. As a caveat though you will only get the gigabit speeds when plugged directly into the router through ethernet; you will not get gigabit speeds over wireless and in fairness Hyperoptic point this out on their website.
To expand your gigabit speeds to different parts of the home not reachable directly by ethernet you will need a gigabit powerline adapter – see our page on wired adapters for a selection of the TP Link gigabit products. They may not extract to maximum out of a gigabit package but they will probably give a lot more than wifi, especially at some distance from the router.
Why Hyperoptic?
We have covered some other UK FTTH providers in our expansive article on fibre optic internet in the UK, such as Gigaclear, Cambridge Fibre and others, so why have we decided to focus on Hyperoptic in particular in this article? What do they have over the other providers?
The most obvious advantage they have is breadth of coverage – they are the only independent FTTH provider that we can tell is targeting major cities all across the UK; the other providers tend to focus in on specific niche areas and regions.
The “big two” UK providers, BT and Virgin Media, do also offer some FTTH connections but they are very limited in availability and fibre to the home is not something they are pushing too much in their advertising space at the moment.
Hyperoptic are aggressively expanding having secured significant bank and sovereign wealth fund investment and are making a point of targeting major cities all across the UK and not just in London or other specific areas.
They are also available in northern cities like Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow and Preston and with their plans to expand to 50 cities by Q1 2019, there is a good chance they will be in your area soon if you live in a major UK city.
Here is a summary of the main benefits of Hyperoptic:
- Available in many UK cities not just London and coverage is growing fast
- Superb value – one of the best available for monthly prices
- Fast symmetrical, reliable speeds
- Other services like static IPs and leased lines also available
- Very well reviewed on Trustpilot and other sites – see here and here
- Regular flash deals where installation and activation costs are waived, meaning you can get online very cheaply
- Extremely low latency or ping times also reported in reviews which is perfect for online gamers.
Most of the benefits are self explanatory, but the low ping times for gamers are something that slips under the radar. In theory one could argue that a FTTH connection should not be that much different from a standard Fibre package for latency, as it is normally only copper for the last hundred meters or so, which shouldn’t really make much much difference to latency.
However it appears that when tested people on a full FTTH connection do often have much lower latency as well as much higher bandwidth. Within the UK single digit milliseconds ping, and sub 20 milliseconds ping to Western EU servers have been reported using Hyperoptic’s service, which is very impressive even compared to standard Fibre to the Cabinet internet.
Low ping is exactly what gamers need so Hyperoptic are worth looking into for online gamers; see our article on the subject.
So Hyperoptic has all the bases covered, from high bandwidth to low latency to cheap prices and regular deals to get connected cheaply. The middle package in particular stands out as really impressive with it’s symmetrical 150/150mbps speeds, which is great value for the first year especially at £26 per month. You will not get those speeds for that price from any of the major ISPs, even on standard Fibre to the cabinet packages.
This is why we recommend Hyperoptic as the number one independent fibre to the home internet provider in the UK, as they offer the best value and the widest and fastest growing coverage across the UK. If you are looking for a faster internet package and you live in a major city they are definitely worth considering.
Click here to visit Hyperoptic’s site and check their packages. There is an availability checker where you enter your postcode. If they are not currently available you can still register your interest and if enough people in your area do the same they will install. Our Twitter page will post updates on any flash deals.
