NOW Broadband now offers 300Mbps: Full Fibre 300 first look

Dan Howdle • August 10th, 2024

Several months back, NOW Broadband made its first foray into Full Fibre. Now it is offering a new tier of Full Fibre: Full Fibre 300, which as you may have guessed offers 300Mbps Full Fibre broadband. Does it use the same mid-tier router? Is it still cheap? What can you do with 300Mbps? Let's take a look.

NOW Broadband Full Fibre 300

Annoyingly for Full Fibre, fibre broadband and terms around fibre broadband like 'superfast' have been around for over a decade. So when we say 'well, this isn't fibre, it's Full Fibre' what does that mean exactly? How is it different? It's faster, sure. Old-school 'superfast' fibre maxes out at about 65Mbps on average because it partly uses the old copper phone lines which come with a speed limit.

Full Fibre on the other hand is fibre optic throughout the entire network, meaning the speeds it can reach are much, much higher. 10Gbps (10,000Mbps) is not unusual on enterprise lines using the same technology. For now, though, let's focus on the 300Mbps offered by NOW Broadband's Full Fibre 300.

What can you do with 300Mbps?

More to the point, is there anything you can't do? Because the answer's 'not really'. Once you go beyond 100Mbps in most households it becomes a matter of how long you're going to spend waiting for something to download, more than it is about whether Netflix is going to buffer in 4K on that second or third TV (it won't). Full Fibre 100 will be enough for most, while Full Fibre 300 is better suited to gamers and downloaders, or households that have particularly busy times of day when it comes to internet use.

Why are there only two NOW Broadband Full Fibre packages?

Our immediate thought was that this had something to do with the router: NOW Broadband might need an upgraded router to provide anything faster, but no. It turns out it has to do with the fact that NOW Full Fibre 100, and Full Fibre 300 are now being offered directly through Sky. NOW is owned by Sky, so this isn't exactly nonsensical. However, we do find the way this works to be a little confusing. So let's go through it.

Full Fibre 300

New customers only £5 Advance Fee is taken off your first month's bill

More Info

• 300Mb average speed
• Unlimited monthly downloads
• £5 one-off cost
• 24 month contract
• No phone line

£30.00 per month (prices may change during contract)

Get Deal

Saved

£30.00 per month (prices may change during contract)

Get Deal

NOW Broadband Full Fibre is 'powered by Sky'

What does "powered by Sky" mean? When you pick NOW Full Fibre 300, first you'll visit the NOW website. There, you'll click a button labeled 'check coverage', and this will send you over to the Sky website to finish buying your broadband. There are some important things to know about this:

You'll get a Sky router

Choosing NOW Full Fibre 300 means Sky will let you use a Sky Hub router for as long as you're with them. The cost is very similar between NOW Broadband's 'Super Fibre' package (63Mbps) and Full Fibre 100 — usually just £1 difference. But, the Sky Hub router you get with Full Fibre 100 is a lot better, which makes it a great deal. But remember, only 57% of UK homes can get Full Fibre.

You cannot get NOW Full Fibre if you're a Sky customer

NOW Full Fibre 300 is only for new customers. If you're already with Sky, you can't get this deal. Sky thinks of 'new customer' as someone who hasn't had Sky for at least 12 months. So, if it's been over a year since you were last with Sky, you're all set to go ahead with NOW Full Fibre.

A phone line means a separate contract

Usually, getting a Full Fibre package doesn't come with a home phone line. But if you want one with NOW Full Fibre 300, you'll need to set it up as a separate Sky phone line contract. This means you'll have two contracts: one for NOW and another for Sky.

If you can get NOW Full Fibre, you can get Sky Full Fibre

Since getting NOW Full Fibre 300 involves checking out through the Sky website, they'll also show you other Sky deals available in your area. You might find some Sky options interesting, which offer even faster speeds than 300Mbps, but they might cost more. It's good to know what's available!

Full Fibre 300

New customers only £5 Advance Fee is taken off your first month's bill

More Info

• 300Mb average speed
• Unlimited monthly downloads
• £5 one-off cost
• 24 month contract
• No phone line

£30.00 per month (prices may change during contract)

Get Deal

Saved

£30.00 per month (prices may change during contract)

Get Deal

NOW Full Fibre 300: The Sky Hub router

When you choose NOW Full Fibre 300, you get the Sky Broadband Hub as your router. Let's explore some of its features. It's important to note that the Sky Hub isn't compatible with Wi-Fi 6, which is the newest and fastest Wi-Fi technology. While most people might not notice this, it's something interesting about the Sky Hub that comes with NOW Full Fibre 300.

There's an upgrade option with Sky called Sky Wi-Fi Max, which for an extra fee each month, gives you Sky's best Wi-Fi 6 router. But as a NOW Broadband customer, you can't use the Sky Wi-Fi Max, so you'll use the regular Sky Hub instead. This isn't really a problem because the 300Mbps speed of NOW Full Fibre 300 doesn't require the capabilities of Wi-Fi 6, but it's still worth knowing.

Sky Hub router specs

Here's a quick overview of the tech specs you'll get with the Sky Hub (supplied with NOW Full Fibre 100):

• VDSL2/ADSL 2+ – VDSL2 means the hub can be connected by super-fast fibre optic cable to your home (once it becomes available), while ADSL2+ means you can also connect via a phone line
• Smart channel selection – The Smart Hub automatically connects your devices to the fastest wifi channel and frequency available
• Smart scan – The router continually checks your network connection as well as its own performance and automatically reboots if there's a problem
• Dual band – Like many modern routers, the Smart Hub uses both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands
• Four gigabit ethernet ports – Four gigabit ethernet ports, so you can use a wired connection for up to four devices
• Eight antennae – The hub has eight aerials, providing a better wifi signal than previous Sky hubs. Your wifi signal should provide a good connection throughout your home
• Internet calls – Sky Broadband Hub has a VOIP handset socket to allow the connection of an internet phone handset
• Number of Devices – Up to 64 devices can be connected

Full Fibre 300

New customers only £5 Advance Fee is taken off your first month's bill

More Info

• 300Mb average speed
• Unlimited monthly downloads
• £5 one-off cost
• 24 month contract
• No phone line

£30.00 per month (prices may change during contract)

Get Deal

Saved

£30.00 per month (prices may change during contract)

Get Deal

NOW Broadband's speed guarantee

300Mbps is a very easy target for a Full Fibre connection. That's why we're not surprised to see NOW Broadband guaranteeing your speed. The guarantee itself is a little non-specific however. You'll need to experience a drop in speed down to the bottom 10% of people receiving your speed, and then NOW/Sky promises some 'money back'. Well, it's something we guess.

What we think

300Mbps for £30 per month (at the time of writing) is cheap. No two ways about it. On the other hand, not everyone can get Full Fibre, so lots of potential customers are likely to be disappointed when they check their postcode. On the other, other hand, there are no credit checks meaning anyone who can get it geographically, can get it financially. NOW Broadband is good like that, and with the addition of the Sky Hub as the main router, in place of the old, low-spec NOW Broadband option, there's little to complain about.

NOW Broadband also allows you an easy in for NOW TV and related services. However, Sky Broadband doesn't cost much more and that creates an easy in for all of Sky's TV services, but at the cost of undergoing a credit check. Our advice is this: If you don't want to be credit checked, this is the best option, if you don't care either way, Sky is probably a better option.