Vodafone bring Gigafast Broadband to three more cities

New connections are part of a collaboration with Openreach that brings broadband speeds of up to 900Mb through full fibre connections.

Prices for their fastest speeds begin from £55 on a 24-month contract, with Apple TV 4K available to add to plans.

Vodafone's partnership with Openreach on these rollouts is in addition to their partnership with CityFibre which has seen their 900Mb broadband expand to 12 other cities.

© Vodafone

Gigafast rollout

The three cities to benefit from this latest switch-on are Birmingham, Bristol and Liverpool, all cities who were the first to receive 5G services from Vodafone when they were switched on in July 2019.

360,000 properties in these areas are now able to sign up to Vodafone's Gigafast packages, with speeds ranging from 100Mb up to 900Mb:

• Vodafone Gigafast 100 for £28 per month
• Vodafone Gigafast 200 for £35 per month
• Vodafone Gigafast 500 for £45 per month
• Vodafone Gigafast 900 for £55 per month

Customers looking to take TV services can take Gigafast 900 with Apple TV for £63 per month, which also includes a 1 year Apple TV+ subscription and Unlimited Anytime calls as well as a commitment to no price rises for the duration of the contract.

Vodafone Gigafast

Vodafone's collaboration with Openreach has allowed them to reach more cities than their existing deal with CityFibre would have.

At time of launch in September 2018, Vodafone's partnership with CityFibre was exclusive on both sides, but this has now opened up to allow CityFibre more flexibility to negotiate with other providers about the use of their networks as interest in full fibre deployment spreads.

The 12 cities where Vodafone Gigafast is available using the CityFibre network are: Aberdeen, Bournemouth, Cambridge, Coventry, Edinburgh, Huddersfield, Leeds, Milton Keynes, Northampton, Peterborough, Southend-on-Sea and Stirling.

Pricing is the same for all customers, whether the underlying network is provided by Openreach or CityFibre.

Vodafone were rebuked by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in April 2019 after the ads regulator concluded customers may mistakenly believe they could access speeds of 1GB for only £23 a month when the advert actually related to lower speeds.

Is Vodafone broadband any good?

Customers looking to take advantage of ultrafast broadband speeds in the newly-added cities of Birmingham, Bristol and Liverpool may want to read our guide to Vodafone broadband to find out what they're like as a provider.

Their 900Mb pricing of £55 for broadband and a home phone line is cheaper than Virgin Media's Gig1 pricing of £67, although Virgin offer faster average speeds of 1140Mb.

Virgin recently switched on their Gig1 service in Glasgow, Leeds and Bradford, bringing their overall footprint to 3.6 million premises. Like Vodafone, they also cover premise in Birmingham, Coventry, Edinburgh and Liverpool.

However, Vodafone have the edge on one measure: all their Gigafast packages offer symmetrical download and upload speeds.

This means customers taking Gigafast Broadband 100 will receive average download and upload speeds of 100Mb, while those on the fastest Gigafast Broadband 900 package will receive download and upload speeds of around 900Mb.

Most providers prioritise download speeds ahead of upload speeds, and Virgin's average upload speeds for their Gig1 package are only 52Mb.

Vodafone join Hyperoptic as one of the few ultrafast and gigabit providers mirroring download and upload speeds, setting them apart from some competitors.