Hyperoptic Broadband Review

Hyperoptic were one of the first independent full fibre broadband providers to roll out in the UK, with a focus on connecting flats and apartment buildings.

They've so far passed over 1.4 million premises in 64 towns and cities, and have now moved to connecting individual homes and businesses to their network.

Hyperoptic broadband plans offer low prices and the provider champions fairer contract terms, with no mid-contract price rises.

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At a glance

Latest offers

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Hyperoptic customer reviews

Our independent survey of broadband customers found Hyperoptic was rated 5 out of 5 overall, with excellent ratings for Speed, Reliability, Satisfaction, Service, Value for Money, and the likelihood a customer would recommend them.

Very few of our survey respondents voted Hyperoptic Poor or Bad in any category, with the majority of Hyperoptic's customers rating them either Good or Excellent.

Here are the results of our survey of Hyperoptic's performance:

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Our review of Hyperoptic broadband

Verdict: Is Hyperoptic any good?

Hyperoptic is a competitively priced independent fibre network, with a focus on connecting buildings in urban centres.

They stand out for their commitment to no mid-contract price hikes, offering fixed prices on all broadband plans for the duration of the minimum term.

Customers can also choose from a range of contract lengths, including 12 and 24-month plans, as well as a rolling monthly option for those who need a short-term connection.

While the provider has been known to only install fibre to the building, with individual flats connected using coaxial cable, they're now moving to full fibre to the premise installations. Despite this, all customers can access speeds up to 900Mbps on average, with symmetrical upload speeds on their fastest three tiers, which puts them ahead of rival networks Virgin Media and Openreach FTTP.

The dual-band WiFi 5 routers provided by Hyperoptic will be adequate for most homes, but with the latest WiFi 6 protocol gaining momentum, the Hyperoptic Hyperhub is now due an upgrade.

Overall, while availability is limited, customers who have access to Hyperoptic have a choice of affordable broadband plans with fair contract terms.

Check availability for Hyperoptic broadband in your area.

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Hyperoptic broadband packages

Summary: Hyperoptic offer a wide range of broadband packages, with customers able to choose between different contract lengths and whether to include a home phone.

Hyperoptic offer a wide range of broadband packages, giving customers a choice of contract lengths, as well as whether they want a home phone service or not.

Customers can also choose from five broadband speed tiers, ranging from 30Mbps to 900Mbps on average.

Here are the current prices of their cheapest broadband-only plans:

The broadband-only 24-month contract plans in the table above are the cheapest ways to get Hyperoptic, yet customers can also choose to take 12 or even 1 month rolling plans.

The 12 and 24-month plans are actually priced around the same, with slight variations on some packages due to special offers.

Customers who opt for 12- or 24-month plans should be aware prices increase at the end of the minimum term, so while a 24-month contract has less flexibility, prices will also stay low for longer too.

Hyperoptic's 1-month rolling deals cost more than the contract options, with monthly prices increasing by as much as £15 per month and setup fees also going up by £10 - £20.

The cost of taking a home phone line on any plan with Hyperoptic is marginal, costing only an extra £2 per month. For this, customers also get free calls to UK landlines at the evening and weekend, as well as the option to bundle more calls if they want.

Lastly, Hyperoptic are vocal advocates of fixed pricing, and promise no mid-contract price hikes for the duration of the minimum term.

Call plans

Hyperoptic broadband can be taken with a home phone line for an extra £2 per month.

Evening and weekend calls to UK landlines are included as standard, and customers can upgrade this by adding one or more of the following call plans:

Out of allowance calls are charged at 7p per minute to UK landlines and 17p per minute to UK mobiles, as well as a 10p connection fee.

While Hyperoptic's call plans are cheap it's worth being aware they don't include calls to UK mobiles, which will either be fully chargeable or chargeable at 50% with the mobile add-on.

That means it's not possible to get fully inclusive calls to UK mobiles at all, which seems like a major drawback to the service.

Overall, Hyperoptic's home phone plan is cheap, but isn't ideal for anyone who uses the phone a lot.

Hyperoptic social tariff

Launched in March 2021, Hyperoptic's Fair Fibre broadband package offers an affordable choice for households on lower incomes.

Customers can choose from 50Mbps speeds for £15 per month, or £150Mbps speeds for £20 per month. It's also possible to add a home phone line for an extra £3 with free calls to UK landlines in the evening and at weekends.

Eligibility for the plan is fairly broad, with online applications accepted for anyone in receipt of:

• Universal Credit
• Pension Credit
• Income Support
• Income-based Employment and Support Allowance
• Income-based Jobseeker's Allowance

Hyperoptic say they'll also accept people in receipt of one of the following benefits, but they'll need to apply over the phone:

• Attendance Allowance
• Care Leavers' Support
• Housing Benefit
• Personal Independence Payment

New and existing customers can apply or switch to Hyperoptic Fair Fibre, and there are no setup or early leaving fees to pay.

Read more about Hyperoptic Fair Fibre Broadband.

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How does Hyperoptic broadband compare?

Summary: Hyperoptic broadband is competitively priced, but availability may be the biggest factor for customers.

Hyperoptic have so far passed 1.4 million premises, but they've tended to focus on connecting blocks of flats, new build areas, and social housing developments. This means only around 25% of those who can get Hyperoptic can also choose from Openreach full fibre deals, and only around 30% also have access to Virgin Media.

This means there's a fairly high chance Hyperoptic could be the only full fibre or gigabit-capable provider available to a property. So, for speed alone, Hyperoptic may well be the better choice.

In terms of pricing, Hyperoptic broadband packages are also competitively priced. The Hyperoptic Fast broadband plan offering 57Mbps average download speeds, is priced around the same as part-fibre superfast plans from Vodafone, Plusnet, and Sky.

Virgin Media's cheapest plan M125 Fibre Broadband, is also slightly more expensive than Hyperoptic's Fast 50Mb plan, as it costs £26.50 per month, so is £1.50 more per month.

Looking at slightly faster speeds, the rollout of fibre to the home, such as Openreach's FTTP network, means Hyperoptic has a growing number of challengers.

Here's how their Superfast 158Mbps package compares to equivalent deals on fibre to the home networks:

Hyperoptic Superfast is cheaper than equivalent full fibre plans from BT and TalkTalk, but is more expensive than deals from Plusnet, Sky, and Vodafone.

It's also cheaper to opt for Hyperoptic Superfast on a 12-month contract as listed above, with the 24-month plan costing £32 per month. However, be aware, lower prices will end sooner on shorter contract terms, and customers will either need to re-contract or switch away at the end of the minimum period.

As mentioned, availability may be a bigger deciding factor when comparing Hyperoptic with rival providers rather than simply a matter of cost. So, it's worth seeing what's available in your area first.

People living in London may have more choice available to them, with providers including Virgin Media and Community Fibre potentially overlapping on coverage.

Read more on how Hyperoptic compares to Virgin Media, or up against Community Fibre.

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How fast is Hyperoptic broadband?

Summary: Hyperoptic offer fibre to the building or home connections with symmetrical download and upload speeds up to 900Mbps on average.

Hyperoptic use a mixture of 'FTTB' or Fibre to the Building connections, as well as fibre to the premise/home (FTTP). FTTB means they install a fibre optic cable to a large building, such as a block of flats, and then use coaxial cabling to individual residences, while FTTP installs the fibre optic cable directly into a customer's property.

Both connection types allow Hyperoptic to offer download speeds up to 900Mbps on average, and they also offer symmetrical upload speeds too. This means uploads are much faster with Hyperoptic in comparison to Virgin Media or even Openreach FTTP providers like BT, Sky, and TalkTalk.

Customers can choose from any of the following broadband speeds:

These advertised average speeds must be received by at least 50% of Hyperoptic's existing customers, so they're a relatively good indication of what a new customer can expect.

Upload speeds

As mentioned, Hyperoptic offer symmetrical upload speeds. This means uploads are the same speed as downloads.

Usually, uploads are much slower than download speeds, and is the case with Virgin Media as well as full fibre to the home connections from Openreach, which are resold by providers including BT, Plusnet, Sky, and TalkTalk.

We can illustrate how big the difference is by looking at the upload speeds on comparable packages from Hyperoptic against those offered by Virgin Media:

As you can see, despite these packages offering similar download speeds, there's a big difference in the upload speeds.

However, while Hyperoptic Superfast, Ultrafast, and Hyperfast plans offer symmetrical upload speeds, the slower 'Fast' plans offer asymmetrical upload speeds, and are limited to 5.7Mbps on the 50Mbps plan, and just 1Mbps on the 30Mbps plan.

That could be worth considering because while the Fast plans are cheapest, upload speeds may be noticed more by people who use the Internet for gaming, as well as working from home where people may be taking video calls, uploading shared files or sharing content such as images and videos.

Minimum download speed guarantee

Hyperoptic haven't signed up to Ofcom's code of conduct on broadband speeds, which involves providing customers with personalised speed estimates as well as a minimum guarantee speed at the point of sign up.

However, while Hyperoptic don't provide personalised estimates, they do match Ofcom's voluntary code for minimum speeds.

Each Hyperoptic broadband package comes with a minimum guaranteed download speed, which Hyperoptic say if a customer doesn't receive this speed and they can't solve the issue within 30 days of being notified, the customer is free to leave their contract penalty free.

Here are the minimum guaranteed download speeds for each Hyperoptic package:

These minimum guaranteed speeds are fairly high compared to those offered with Virgin Media or BT FTTP, coming much closer to the advertised averages.

For example, the minimum guaranteed download speed on Virgin Media M500 Fibre Broadband is 258Mbps, despite the advertised average speed being 516Mbps.

Sky Ultrafast Plus is another good example, this offers an average download speed of 500Mbps over the Openreach fibre to the home network, but has a minimum guaranteed download speed of 390Mbps.

Overall then, despite not being signatories to Ofcom's code, Hyperoptic offer much faster minimum speed guarantees than rival providers.

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Hyperoptic Router

Summary: Hyperoptic's Hyperhub is a dual-band WiFi 5 router made by either Nokia or ZTE.

Hyperoptic offer two different routers to their customers following the launch of the Nokia Hyperhub in October 2020.

This hub (also known as the Nokia HA-140W-B) is provided to customers taking the top broadband speed deals, Ultrafast and Hyperfast, and it's optimised to better handle traffic at those kinds of speeds.

It's gigabit-capable on a wired connection like most routers of this type - customers won't achieve top speeds on wireless connections.

The Nokia Hyperhub's specs include:

• Dual band
• Automatic band steering
• Channel optimisation
• 4 wi-fi antennae
• 4 x Gigabit LAN ports
• 1 x Gigabit WAN port
• 2 x USB 2.0 ports
• VoIP support
• Mesh technology support

The Nokia Hyperhub looks to be a very capable router, yet customers taking one of Hyperoptic's slower packages will still receive the basic Hyperhub.

The ZTE Hyperhub is provided to customers taking Fast or Superfast packages from Hyperoptic and offers the following:

• Dual band
• 2 wi-fi antennae
• 4 x LAN ports
• 1 x WAN port
• 2 x phone ports
• VoIP support

It's a decent enough router for slower connections, but it's had its controversies in the past thanks to a root password problem in 2018 that led to customers being exposed to a cyber security threat.

This was patched and the router's now secure, although we'd advise customers with any home broadband router to read this guide on how to protect your wireless router and home network.

Hyperoptic Total Wi-Fi

Hyperoptic introduced a home wi-fi extender system called Hyperoptic Total Wi-Fi in March 2022. It costs £7 per month for new sign-ups.

Like other broadband speed boosters, Total Wi-Fi aims to extend the wi-fi signal inside a home using an extender system. In this case, that's a Hyperoptic Minihub designed by either Nokia or ZTE to go alongside the relevant hyperhub.

Hyperoptic say another Minihub can be added if the first one fails to extend coverage far enough around the home.

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Where is Hyperoptic available?

Summary: Hyperoptic have now passed over 1.4 million premises, but availability is still limited.

Hyperoptic have now passed over 1.4 million premises as of late 2023, and have now started connecting individual homes as well as larger blocks of flats.

While they've expanded steadily since their launch in London back in 2011, they're still a small challenger provider in comparison to larger players such as Openreach and Virgin Media.

Hyperoptic focus on urban areas, particularly cities where they roll out their services to blocks of flats, apartment buildings, and social housing schemes. They're active in 64 towns and cities including:

Here's a map of their current coverage as of early-2024:

Hyperoptic were aiming to connect 500,000 customers and pass two million homes by the end of 2023, although it seems from recent press comments that target has been pushed back. However, they have reached at least 400,000 customers as of Autumn 2023.

Their network has been growing rapidly too, with the provider adding 400,000 homes and businesses to its network in 2022, and reporting milestones of 825,000 premises in April 2022, and 750,000 in February 2022.

Customers can check Hyperoptic availability using the postcode checker below, or on our Hyperoptic deals page.

If you're not already in a Hyperoptic enabled building - unfortunately, Hyperoptic have recently removed the ability to register interest. When it was active, it was similar to Virgin's Cable My Street service.

Instead, customers are encouraged to give their email address to Hyperoptic and they'll let them know if they ever expand in that direction.

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Customer service

Hyperoptic are too small to be covered by Ofcom's annual Customer Service Quality report and its regular complaints and customer service data, but other sources suggest the provider is a good bet for customer service.

As we noted in our line-up of the best and worst providers for customer service, Hyperoptic's Trustpilot profile is full of glowing reviews.

From over 23,700 reviews, they have an average score of 4.5 out of 5, with 86% of customers ranking them as Excellent. This puts them within the top ten of all broadband providers on Trustpilot (some of whom have far fewer reviews making up their score).

In 2019, they won an ISPA award for customer service for the sixth year running, and they followed that up in 2020 by being named as Highly Commended in the Best Consumer ISP category (runner-up to Community Fibre). That winner and runner-up pattern was repeated in the 2021 awards, as well as securing the Best Consumer ISP in 2022.

As companies grow, they often upset more customers, although it's fair to say Hyperoptic seem to be dealing with this phenomenon fairly well so far and there aren't many scathing reviews around just yet.

The provider also performed well in our own independent survey of broadband customers, receiving ratings of 5 out of 5 in all categories, including Customer Service and likelihood to recommend.

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Summary: Is Hyperoptic broadband worth it?

Hyperoptic are among a growing number of independent providers offering their own ultrafast and gigabit-capable fibre broadband network.

However, their focus on connecting blocks of flats and multiple-dwelling properties in urban areas, means they're most likely only available to those in flats or apartments in larger cities and towns.

That said, for those who do have Hyperoptic available to them, prices are highly competitive and symmetrical speeds put the provider among the fastest broadband in the UK.

Hyperoptic are also a good option for students and others in short-term accommodation as they're one of very few providers offering monthly rolling contracts on broadband.

What we like most about Hyperoptic:

• Commitment to fixed prices for the duration of the minimum term
• Fast downloads and symmetrical upload speeds
• Range of social tariffs from Fair Fibre for those on lower incomes
• Steady expansion of their network, including a move to individual properties

The main drawback of the Hyperoptic network is availability. Despite a number of innovative plans and projects, Hyperoptic is a strictly urban affair for the time being.

That said, while their plan to reach two million premises has been pushed back, they're still expanding well, which will greatly increase the number of customers able to access their services, so watch this space.

See the latest Hyperoptic deals and check availability in your area.