First UK families receive Vodafone gigabit speed home broadband after trial in Milton Keynes

Vodafone has today begun offering home broadband speeds of 1 gigabit per second (1,000Mbps), about 20 times the current UK average, to families in Milton Keynes.

50 customer homes in Milton Keynes will be the first to test Vodafone Gigafast Broadband, the new full fibre home broadband service, before it is made widely available across the city.

Vodafone Gigafast Broadband runs over fibre optic cables at every stage of the connection to the Internet, instead of using old copper-based wires. This means customers will enjoy a faster and more reliable broadband service.

Vodafone Gigafast Broadband will enable family members in a busy household to go online at the same time, using multiple devices. For example, in a family of four with Vodafone Gigafast Broadband, these activities can be carried out simultaneously:

• One family member can stream a live event on television in Ultra High Definition (Ultra HD)

• In a different room, another family member can stream a favourite movie or TV series in Ultra HD on a separate device

• The rest of the family can play an online virtual reality game

• A host of connected devices in the background keeps the home safe and secure.

With Vodafone Gigafast Broadband, everyday tasks that rely on transferring data can be completed faster than ever before. Uploading a memory card containing 16GB of holiday snaps and videos to the Cloud takes just two minutes, versus the current UK average of five hours and 44 minutes.

And backing up a 200GB hard drive to the Cloud takes less than half an hour, instead of nearly three days.

Micaela Perez Amaro, a dance instructor, mother of two and the first Vodafone Gigafast customer, said: “Before we started using Vodafone Gigafast Broadband, I couldn’t work from home. There’s no reliable broadband where I live in Milton Keynes, so every time I wanted to send a video to a student, I had to drive to a relative’s house in London to use their broadband.”

“Now I can get work done at home if I need to, and everyone in the family can get online at the same time without a problem. I feel like we’ve gone from the Flintstones to the Jetsons. It’s made such a difference.”

Nick Jeffery, Vodafone UK chief executive, said: “Full fibre is vital to our digital economy and to the UK’s future as a digital leader, yet just 3% of UK premises currently have access to it. That’s why we are offering Vodafone Gigafast Broadband and making it available on a mass scale, reaching a million UK homes by 2021.”