Openreach and Nokia have offered a glimpse of potential broadband speeds that could be achieved in the distant future.

Openreach announced it has successfully tested the UK’s first live 50 Gigabits per second (Gbps) broadband connection. “This revolutionary technology promises to deliver speeds twenty times faster than the fastest broadband services available today in UK,” both parties said.

It comes after a TalkTalk Business survey last August had revealed that among the biggest tech stress points, 33 percent of small to medium enterprise (SME) owners are worried by slow internet or connectivity issues.

Nokia 50G PON

But now according to Openreach, a field test was conducted from a residential property in Ipswich of the new Nokia ’50G PON’ (passive optical network) technology.

The field test achieved download speeds of 41.9Gbps and upload speeds of 20.6Gbps.

The test was apparently run over a section of Openreach’s existing Full Fibre network, which so far is available to approximately 17 million premises across the UK.

However the UK has approximately 32.5 million premises, and Openreach hopes to reach “up to” 30 million premises by 2030.

To understand how truly fast a 50 Gbps connection is, it would take less than a second to download a high-definition 5GB movie.

Currently a 5GB high def movie over a 100Mbps connection would take around 7 minutes to download, while a 1Gbps connection would take about 40 seconds to download the movie.

Openreach also noted that the Nokia 50G PON service also excelled in simultaneous tests over a trial XGS-PON network – a faster version of Openreach’s current network that supports higher symmetric speeds.

Last August, Openreach had said that in April 2025, it would launch a symmetric 1Gbps broadband product in certain locations, potentially offering the same upload speeds as download.

Possible applications

Openreach noted that as online consumption increases, so the demand for greater broadband speeds increases.

50Gbps connections could satisfy bandwidth-intensive services including virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and 8K video streaming.

Other areas that could benefit from faster speeds is gaming, as well as healthcare, especially for telemedicine and AI-driven diagnostics.

Other applications for higher speeds are remote working and learning; cloud computing; and smart cities.

“As the country’s largest full fibre provider, it’s crucial that we continue to research, innovate and evolve our network to meet our customers’ demands for decades to come,” said Trevor Linney, Director, Network Technology at Openreach.

“The Full Fibre network we’re building today is a platform for the UK’s economic, social and environmental prosperity, and this test proves we can keep upgrading the speeds and services our customers experience over that network long into the future,” said Linney.

“Today we’re deploying XGS-PON ready equipment, and this trial proves we’re ready for the next generational leap, as and when it’s needed,” said Linney.

“This trial shows the incredible power of fibre to increase network capacity in an efficient way,” added Sandy Motley, President Nokia Fixed Networks. “Our platform provides them (Openreach) with a full range of PON technologies and services that can be delivered over their existing fibre network. From 10G and 25G today to eventually 50Gbps or even 100G, our unique toolkit of fibre solutions allows Openreach to future-proof their network and flexibly address their evolving network demand.”