G.FAST FIBRE BROADBAND

G.FAST is the next generation of FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet) and uses existing copper cabling from your house to the street cab, and fibre beyond, just like FTTC. The difference, and the reason it’s up to 4 times faster than regular fibre broadband delivered over the same wires is that it uses different data transfer methods which require very short copper parts of the line – usually less than 300metres, but the best speeds are delivered when you’re less than 150m from the street cabinet.

No, only a small proportion, less than 5%, of UK properties can currently receive G.Fast based fibre broadband. And of the street cabinets and exchanges that are enabled, only properties within 300m of the street cabinet will see any advantage. Properties within 150m see the best speeds (the further away from the street cabinet, the longer the copper line and the lower the speeds).

Yes, and moving providers is completely FREE with WebMate too. The process normally takes 5-10 working days and only requires a quick password change or new router to be plugged in on “changeover” day. We’ll ensure everything’s ready to minimise downtime, most often less than 1 hour.

Yes, you’ll need to have a phone line as G.Fast uses the same copper-based phone line that voice uses, just like ADSL and FTTC. It is an engineer-installed product so you will get a shiny new G.Fast faceplate on your wall and an Openreach modem that does the G.Fast bits.

If this is a new G.Fast connection (even if you current have ADSL or FTTC Fibre) then an engineer appointment will be made, who’ll visit the property and install a new faceplate and modem – as well as connect the WiFi modem we supply (or your own). The process is quick and straight forward normally, generally about an hour slot morning or afternoon. For G.Fast migrations from another ISP, the process does not require an engineer, just a username change on the router (sometimes though, an engineer is required)

The speeds of our packages are based on the maximum speeds the technology handles, but real-world maximum speeds are often 5-10% lower than these anyway. The distance you are from your street cabinet (the length of your copper cable) and the quality of the copper cable are the main factors affecting speed. It’s because the electrical signal which carries your data degrades over distance on copper cabling (it was never designed to take data really). Copper cabling is also very prone to interference from other electrical devices and magnetic fields. Typically within 50m of the cabinet, you’ll get near to full speeds. 100m, 75% of speed, 200m will be about 50% speeds and beyond that a rapid decline to about 25% of speed at 300m.

Whilst G.Fast provides great speeds on it’s own, and WebMate optimise that wherever possible – the cabinet on your street has a limit on how much internet traffic it can send back the exchange. Then your exchange also has a limit of sending internet traffic on to the internet. At peak times, everyone might not be able to get their full speeds. 100 people on your street, all with 330Mbps download would require 330,000Mbps. Simply put, it doesn’t have that much bandwidth available. The good news is that everyone on your street won’t have 330Mbps connections and they won’t necessarily all want to download data all at the same time, so it works out generally okay. Being on a much faster connection than everyone else on your street also means you won’t feel this congestion as much. Bottom line is, you’ll get consistently higher speeds with WebMate G.Fast than ADSL and FTTC neighbours!

If you do need to cancel before the end of the 12 month initial contract, you’ll be charged the remaining time left, as if you’d stayed the whole contract. If the connection ceases, rather than migrates to another provider, you’ll also be charged our standard cease fee. This is standard (and imposed by Openreach) for all ISP’s offering G.Fast connections.