Openreach has quietly refreshed the technical rulebook for its full fibre network, adding a spread of XGS-PON FTTP products with peak bandwidth up to 5.5Gbps and 8.5Gbps. A pilot in Guildford from March 2026 will concentrate on a 3.3Gbps service, yet the new product table hints at much faster options further down the road.
Why Openreach is upgrading to XGS-PON
Today’s Openreach full fibre network mostly relies on GPON technology. GPON shares 2.4Gbps download and 1.2Gbps upload capacity between several premises on each fibre. That has been enough to support current FTTP products up to 1.2Gbps and 1.8Gbps download, but it does not leave much extra capacity to push speeds higher and keep performance consistent at busy times.
At the same time, Openreach is still expanding its fibre build. The company has invested about £15bn to reach roughly 21 million premises so far, with commitments to reach 25 million by the end of 2026 and potentially 30 million by 2030. As more users migrate from copper to fibre, each section of the network has to cope with more traffic.
XGS-PON solves both issues. It is a newer standard that offers 10Gbps capacity in each direction on the shared fibre. That gives Openreach more bandwidth to play with and allows the introduction of faster packages for both home and business users, while keeping enough spare capacity in reserve so that performance stays consistent during peak time.
Inside the new GEA-FTTP product table
The technical detail comes in an updated document called STIN 1007 v1.1, which sets out how XGS-PON FTTP works on Openreach. The key part is “Table 1 – GEA-FTTP product rates”, a long list of wholesale products showing four numbers for each profile:
- Peak download bandwidth
- Prioritised download bandwidth
- Peak upload bandwidth
- Prioritised upload bandwidth
Peak figures show the maximum speed the line can reach. The prioritised figures show the chunk of bandwidth that the network will protect for that line when the fibre is busy, so that critical traffic is not squeezed out by other users on the same segment.
Earlier entries in the table cover familiar products. Examples include 40/10 with 40Mbps peak download and 10Mbps peak upload, 80/20, 100/30, 160/30 and 220/30. There are also entries such as 500/165, 550/75 and a spread of 1Gbps profiles like 1000/115 and 1000/220. Higher up the table, Openreach lists 1200/120 and 1800/120, which underpin the fastest products on today’s GPON network.
The same structure applies across the board: each product has one set of peak figures and a lower set of prioritised figures. For instance, the 500/165 line shows 500Mbps peak download with 220Mbps prioritised, and 165Mbps peak upload with 110Mbps prioritised. That pattern continues into the multi-gigabit entries at the end of the table.
Future profiles up to 5.5Gbps and 8.5Gbps
The most eye-catching part of the table is the new group of multi-gigabit profiles. First come several 3.3Gbps products:
- 3300/330
- 3300/660
- 3300/3300
All three show 3300Mbps peak download. The prioritised download value rises from 110Mbps up to 330Mbps as you move through the set, and the upload side scales from a modest 55Mbps prioritised upload up to a fully symmetric 3300/3300 option.
Beyond that, Openreach lists three 5.5Gbps profiles:
- 5500/550
- 5500/1100
- 5500/5500
Again, all three have 5500Mbps peak download. The prioritised download figure stays at 110Mbps, while peak upload bandwidth climbs from 550Mbps through 1100Mbps to 5500Mbps, with prioritised upload bandwidth set at 55Mbps or 110Mbps depending on the product.
Finally, there is a trio of 8.5Gbps products:
- 8500/850
- 8500/1700
- 8500/8500
The table shows 850Mbps or 1700Mbps upload on the first two, both with 55Mbps prioritised upload bandwidth, and a symmetric 8500/8500 entry with higher prioritised values. The last row appears to contain a typo, labelling the peak download as 5500Mbps instead of 8500Mbps, but the upload figures and the pattern of the table make it clear that the intention is a fully symmetric 8.5Gbps profile.
These entries do not mean that ISPs will be selling 5.5Gbps or 8.5Gbps home broadband next year. They simply confirm that the Openreach network will have wholesale profiles ready to support those kinds of services once there is commercial demand and once routers, home wiring and pricing strategies have caught up.
Guildford 3.3Gbps pilot in 2026
Alongside the technical spec, Openreach has already set out plans for a customer pilot. The trial is due to start in March 2026 and will use XGS-PON to deliver faster FTTP services in Guildford. About 40,000 premises are expected to be in scope, although the company has indicated that the trial footprint may grow.
For the pilot, Openreach is focusing on a symmetric 3.3Gbps product. That will allow ISPs to test real-world demand and see how users behave with a connection that is more than three times faster than a standard gigabit plan, both on download and upload. The trial will also explore asymmetric options that go as far as 8.5Gbps download, using some of the new profiles in the table, but these are more of a technical network test than a first wave of retail products.
Wholesale prices have only been published for the symmetric 3.3Gbps product so far. There is no public price information for 5.5Gbps or 8.5Gbps profiles yet, which suggests that any commercial launch for those speeds is still some way off.
How rivals compare on multi-gigabit full fibre
Openreach is far from the only network looking at multi-gigabit full fibre. CityFibre already uses XGS-PON and has a wholesale product at 2.5Gbps symmetric in some areas, with a roadmap towards higher speeds such as 5.5Gbps and potentially up to 10Gbps on the same platform. Several smaller ISPs offer 2.5Gbps retail services over CityFibre in selected cities.
Virgin Media O2 has moved in a similar direction on its own network. It now offers a Gig2 product at 2Gbps download and has introduced optional symmetric upgrades for customers on its full fibre packages, using its own 10Gbps-ready technology. That combination means some Virgin users can already order upload speeds equal to their download speeds.
What makes Openreach different is scale. Once Openreach makes a multi-gigabit profile commercially available, it can appear through a long list of well-known ISPs such as BT, Sky, TalkTalk, Plusnet, EE and many others. The updated spec is therefore less about catching up on raw speed and more about preparing a broad platform so that those providers can compete on equal terms with altnets and cable.
What faster Openreach FTTP could mean for users
For day-to-day browsing and streaming, even a 1Gbps connection can feel almost instant. Multi-gigabit speeds mainly benefit users who are constantly moving large files or running several heavy tasks at once.
Examples include small businesses and home workers who push big video files to the cloud, gamers downloading huge game updates, creative professionals syncing large project folders, and multi-device homes where several people want 4K or future 8K streaming while backups and smart home devices are active in the background. Symmetric options such as 3300/3300 or 8500/8500 will be particularly attractive to users who upload as much as they download.
That said, many homes will hit other bottlenecks first. Existing Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 6 routers often top out near or below gigabit on wireless in real-world use, and plenty of laptops and consoles still have 1Gbps Ethernet ports. To take full advantage of 3.3Gbps, 5.5Gbps or 8.5Gbps, users will need routers and switches with 2.5Gbps or 10Gbps ports and Wi-Fi equipment that can deliver multi-gigabit speeds within the home.
Price will also matter. Multi-gigabit packages are likely to cost a clear step up from current gigabit deals, at least initially. ISPs will have to decide whether to pitch these services mainly at business customers and heavy users, or whether to bring them into the mainstream as the cost of equipment and backhaul falls.
Key milestones to watch
For now, the updated GEA-FTTP product table is mainly of interest to network watchers and ISP product teams. It confirms that Openreach is building XGS-PON in a way that supports a full spread of profiles from sub-1Mbps legacy options right through to symmetric 8.5Gbps.
The next big milestones will be finalising the technical details, announcing which retail brands will join the Guildford pilot, and then watching how users respond to 3.3Gbps services once orders go live in 2026. After that, the key questions will be how quickly Openreach extends XGS-PON beyond the initial trial areas, and when ISPs decide there is enough demand to launch 5.5Gbps and 8.5Gbps packages.
For broadband customers on the Openreach network, nothing changes this year. But the spec update is a clear signal: the era where 1Gbps was seen as the “top” home broadband speed is drawing to a close, and a multi-gigabit future is now written into Openreach’s technical playbook.
