GTA 6 Download Size: About 210GB, Preload From 12 Nov

The biggest thing to hit home broadband this autumn is not a new plan but a video game. This week also brought a rare kind of full fibre fault that a neighbour’s box can cause, Ofcom’s latest complaints figures, Virgin Media’s 2Gbps plan arriving officially on its cable network, and a new EE router with a 10Gbps port.

GTA 6 looks like a 210GB download: start early

ISPreview reported on 28 October that Grand Theft Auto VI, due on 19 November for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, is expected to need about a 210GB download on PS5, based on a leak, and possibly about 240GB on Xbox, by ISPreview’s own estimate. Players who pre-order digitally can start preloading from 12 November, a week before release, which also spreads the load on broadband networks.

At 210GB, ISPreview works out that an otherwise idle 100Mbps line takes nearly five hours (about 280 minutes), and a 1Gbps line about 28 minutes at best. By the same sum, 500Mbps takes about 56 minutes and 2Gbps about 14. Real speeds will be lower if the house is busy or your console is on Wi-Fi two rooms away. Three things help: start the preload on 12 November rather than on launch night, leave the console in rest mode overnight so it keeps downloading, and plug it in with a cable if you can. Our guides to running Ethernet cable through a house and powerline adapters cover the options, and if downloads crawl every evening, see broadband slow in the evening. Reported by ISPreview.

One faulty fibre box cut off four homes for a month

ISPreview reported on 26 October that a Sky Broadband customer in Thornbury, north of Bristol, was without his Openreach full fibre service for a month. Sky put it down to a fault at the local exchange. Openreach’s investigation found the cause was a single faulty ONT, the small fibre box inside a home, in someone else’s house: it was disrupting four customers on the same shared fibre. Its owner had never reported that their own connection did not work, even though it had not worked since it was installed. Openreach isolated the line, replaced the box and reconnected the customer.

ISPreview’s explanation is that on a shared fibre network each ONT may only send light during its own time slot, and a faulty one can transmit all the time and drown out its neighbours. It calls these faults rare and says this is the first it has been able to confirm. Two lessons: report a fibre connection that never works, because it may be affecting the street, and if several neighbours on full fibre lose service at once, say so when you report the fault. Our guides to Ethernet connected but no internet and BT router flashing lights cover the checks to do first. Reported by ISPreview.

Ofcom: TalkTalk, Vodafone, EE and BT drew the most broadband complaints

Ofcom’s complaints figures for April to June 2026, reported by ISPreview on 26 October, put TalkTalk, Vodafone, EE and BT level for the most broadband complaints, at 7 per 100,000 customers each. More than a third were about faults, service and provisioning. Virgin Media had the fewest broadband complaints of the providers listed. Plusnet drew the most landline complaints and EE the most for pay TV. The figures only count complaints made to Ofcom itself, and only cover providers with at least 1.5% of the market.

The numbers are small for every provider, so they are a weak reason to switch on their own. They are more useful as a reminder of how complaints work: Ofcom does not handle individual cases, so if your provider has not fixed a problem after eight weeks, or says it cannot, take it to the ombudsman scheme it belongs to. Our reviews of BT and Vodafone broadband cover service records. See Ofcom’s complaints page and ISPreview’s report.

Virgin Media makes 2Gbps on cable official

Two weeks ago we reported Virgin Media’s 2Gbps plan turning up on its older coaxial cable network while the company called it a trial. On 27 October it confirmed the rollout, with upgrades complete in 18 locations, including Newcastle, Bournemouth, Ipswich, York, Cambridge, Manchester, Oxford and Portsmouth, and most of its network due in 2027. It costs from £49.99 a month, rising to £53.99 from April 2027 and £57.99 from April 2028.

On cable the upload stays far below the download, unlike Virgin’s full fibre version. As with any multi-gigabit plan, no single Wi-Fi device will see 2Gbps, so the gain shows up across a busy house or on wired kit. Our guide to what broadband speed you need works through whether it is worth paying for. Reported by ISPreview.

EE’s Smart Hub 7 Max adds a 10Gbps port

ISPreview reported on 28 October that EE has begun listing a new Smart Hub 7 Max router (SH4XJ), which will ship with its 8Gbps full fibre package; early customers on that plan had been given a temporary router from another maker. It looks almost the same as the Smart Hub 7 Pro, but one LAN port and the WAN port run at 10Gbps, and the other three LAN ports at 2.5Gbps. The 8Gbps service is still part of an Openreach pilot with limited coverage.

The single 10Gbps LAN port is the detail to plan around: to share more than 2.5Gbps across several wired devices you will need a multi-gig network switch plugged into it. Reported by ISPreview.

Also this week

Following the BT takeover of TalkTalk, the Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy told MPs on 26 October that she wants to add continuity of telecoms services to the public interest grounds in the Enterprise Act 2002, a step towards a statutory “supplier of last resort” process for broadband and mobile, like the one energy has. She said she is still weighing the CMA’s report on the deal before deciding whether it needs a deeper investigation. TalkTalk customers still need do nothing. Reported by ISPreview.