Hyperoptic broadband review: A great all-rounder

Hyperoptic is one of the (relatively) new breed of full-fibre providers, challenging the big-name broadband providers with superfast connections. Many of its tariffs are symmetrical, delivering upload speeds that are just as fast as the downloads. That’s something most of the big names simply can’t match.

What’s also clear from our survey is that the well-known brands can’t match Hyperoptic’s level of performance and customer satisfaction. The company narrowly pushes ahead of Zen Internet to claim this year’s speed award, with almost two-thirds of the Hyperoptic customers we surveyed declaring themselves very satisfied with the speeds on offer.

Even when things go wrong, Hyperoptic is strong at putting them right. An award-winning 86% of customers in our survey, conducted together with YouGov, were left satisfied after reaching out to the contact centre, pushing Hyperoptic ahead of rivals Plusnet and Zen Internet. 

In fact, there’s no category in which Hyperoptic doesn’t score well, earning the company a Highly Commended award in this year’s Expert Reviews Broadband Awards. 

The only real weakness in Hyperoptic’s offering is how few customers the network reaches. Read on to find out whether you can benefit from this high-performing service.

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Hyperoptic review: 150Mb Superfast, 500Mb Ultrafast, 1Gb Hyperfast

All three of these tariffs are symmetrical – the upload speed is the same as the download speed. Upload speeds are often neglected in broadband reviews and on comparison sites, but if you’re regularly uploading large files for work then this kind of symmetrical connection can make a huge difference to your internet experience.

It’s certainly curious that Hyperoptic charges the exact same amount for 500Mbits/sec Ultrafast and 1Gbit/sec Hyperfast. We can only think that the company is trying to hook you on the fastest connection so that you’ll be more reluctant to drop back down later when prices might rise. That said, our survey found that 72% of Hyperoptic customers said their broadband price hadn’t increased in the past year, which was the highest score of any provider on test, so it might not be a bait-and-hook at all.

That said, very few households will see a tangible difference between a 500Mbits/sec and a 1Gbit/sec connection. So, even if you do have to drop down later to save money, it likely won’t make much difference to your broadband experience. 

Hyperoptic has offered a range of different routers in the past, but the company tells us that all new customers will now receive a Nokia HA-140W-B model. That’s a little disappointing, given that this router is based on the now ageing Wi-Fi 5 standard; the very latest routers are Wi-Fi 7. It will mean that customers won’t benefit from the speed and lack of congestion available on the 6GHz Wi-Fi band, unless they decide to upgrade the router by investing of their own accord.

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Hyperoptic review: Coverage

There’s no doubt that a lack of coverage is Hyperoptic’s biggest weakness. It’s been operating for well over a decade now, but only 1.4 million homes across 64 towns and cities in the UK fall within its footprint. Put simply, the vast majority of the population won’t be in an Hyperoptic area. 

You can check whether you’re one of the lucky ones using the postcode checker on Hyperoptic’s homepage. If you’re not covered currently, you can register your interest. However, given the cost of rolling out a full-fibre network, you’ll need plenty of your neighbours to be equally enthusiastic for that to have any impact. 

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Hyperoptic review: Performance and customer satisfaction

Hyperoptic came very close to claiming the top prize in 2024’s Expert Reviews Broadband Awards, with a strong all-round performance.

Not surprisingly for a provider devoted to full-fibre connections, speed was its core strength. A healthy 87% of customers were satisfied with the speed on offer, though 7% said they were dissatisfied with the performance. That might partly be a reflection of the older Wi-Fi equipment we mentioned earlier.

One of the big advantages of full-fibre connections is that they tend to be more reliable than older, copper-line-based products, and that certainly appears to be the case here. A whopping 89% of Hyperoptic customers were pleased with the service’s reliability, earning the company a Highly Commended award in this category.

If there’s one area for improvement in Hyperoptic’s scores, it’s customer service. Though around two-thirds of customers have been satisfied with customer service, it’s a score that leaves the company in third place, well behind Zen Internet. That said, it does win the award for best contact centre, with 86% of customers happy with the outcome when they got in touch with Hyperoptic’s support team.

Hyperoptic review: Verdict

A superb all-round performance places Hyperoptic a very strong second in this year’s Expert Reviews Broadband Awards. The sheer performance and reliability advantage offered by its full-fibre network can’t be ignored, even if that network only reaches a small percentage of the UK population. If you’re lucky enough to live in a Hyperoptic fibre region, however, it should be very high on your shortlist of potential broadband providers, especially if you value upload speeds as much as the downloads.