Shell Energy Broadband Review: Superfast & Ultrafast Fibre Broadband Deals

Shell Energy offers Superfast and Ultrafast fibre broadband deals with an inclusive router and Shell Go+ rewards.

In the UK, Shell Energy is a provider of low-cost home broadband with a choice of copper broadband, superfast fibre and ultrafast fibre plans. With prices starting from £17.99 per month, you’ll get unlimited downloads and an inclusive router on all Shell Energy plans. You’ll also benefit from the Shell Go+ rewards programme which gives you a 3% saving when you fill up your car at Shell.

In this article, we’ll review and compare the broadband plans available from Shell Energy in the UK. We’ll start by looking at the price plans they offer and what you’ll get included on each one. We’ll then look at the download speeds available and at the Technicolor router you’ll get included with the service. We’ll also look at how you can change broadband providers from another company to Shell.

Shell Energy Broadband Plans

In the UK, Shell Energy Broadband currently provides a home broadband service to about half a million consumers. This includes the 112,000 customers already using Shell Energy Broadband and the 450,000 customers which have acquired from the Post Office Broadband.

If you’re joining Shell Energy Broadband, you’ll currently have a choice of five different plans. They include Fast Broadband (with average download speeds of 11Mbps), Superfast Fibre (with average download speeds of 35Mbps) and Superfast Fibre Plus (with average download speeds of 63Mbps). There’s also a choice of two Ultrafast Broadband plans for customers living in a home with access to Gfast technology.

As a Shell Energy Broadband customer, you’ll get unlimited downloads along with a Technicolor router included on your plan. You’ll also benefit from Shell Go+ rewards with a 3% discount on fuel when you fill up at a Shell petrol station. This is capped at a maximum of 60 litres per month (therefore giving you a maximum saving of around £2 per month).

The following table shows a side-by-side comparison of Fast Broadband, Superfast Fibre and Superfast Fibre Plus from Shell Energy:

Around 10% of UK homes also have access to Shell’s Ultrafast Broadband plans. Starting from £41.99 per month, these ultrafast plans use G.fast technology to deliver average download speeds of up to 290Mbps.

Fast Broadband

Shell Energy’s cheapest home broadband plan is known as Fast Broadband. With average download speeds of 11Mbps, it’s suitable for everyday browsing and for HD-quality streaming on up to two devices at the same time.

Fast Broadband has an average upload speed of 1Mbps. Although this is suitable for most basic daily usage, the slow upload speed may cause a slowdown when you’re using cloud storage or online backup services.

At present, you’ll pay £17.99 per month for Fast Broadband on a 18-month contract. You’ll also get a home phone line included with Pay As You Go calls.

Service	Average Speed	Contract Length	Upfront Price	Monthly Price
Fast Broadband	11Mbps download	18 month contract	£9.95	£17.99/month

See all Shell Fast Broadband Deals →

According to Shell, one of the key benefits of their service is that fact you won’t see any end-of-contract price rises. However, this doesn’t mean that prices won’t change during your contract. For instance, Shell Energy increased their prices in January 2021 by £2/month for Fast Broadband customers. From April 2022 onwards, there’s also an annual price rise at the rate of CPI inflation.

On Fast Broadband, the speeds you’ll be able to get will depend on the distance between your home and the nearest telephone exchange. For this reason, you should enter your postcode on the Shell Energy website to get a personalised estimate of the download speeds available.

Superfast Fibre

If you’re looking for a fibre-based service, Superfast Fibre is Shell’s cheapest fibre broadband plan. Making use of fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) technology, the Superfast Fibre plan gives you an average download speeds of 35Mbps. This is around 3 times faster than the copper Fast Broadband service. The extra speeds will allow you to stream on more devices at the same time or to stream 4K ultra-HD video.

You’ll currently pay £22.99 per month for Superfast Fibre broadband on Shell Energy:

Service	Average Speed	Contract Length	Upfront Price	Monthly Price
Superfast Fibre	35Mbps download	18 month contract	£9.95	£22.99/month

See all Shell Superfast Fibre Deals →

On Superfast Fibre, you’ll get a home phone line included with Pay As You Go calls.

Around 91% of UK homes should be able to get Shell Energy’s Superfast Fibre service. The exact speeds available where you live depend on the distance between your home and the nearest street cabinet. You can check the download speeds available on the Shell Energy website.

Superfast Fibre Plus

In most UK homes, Superfast Fibre Plus will be the fastest home broadband plan available from Shell Energy (unless you’re in the 10% of UK homes that are able to get Ultrafast Fibre).

On Shell’s Superfast Fibre Plus plan, you’ll get an average download speed of 63Mbps. This is about six times faster than copper broadband and nearly twice as fast as Superfast Fibre. It should allow you to stream in HD quality on up to 15 devices at the same time. Alternatively, you can watch ultra-HD video (4K) on two devices at the same time.

You’ll currently pay £24.99 per month for Superfast Fibre Plus:

Service	Average Speed	Contract Length	Upfront Price	Monthly Price
Superfast Fibre Plus	63Mbps download	18 month contract	£9.95	£24.99/month

See all Shell Superfast Fibre Plus Deals →

This also includes a home phone line with Pay As You Go calls. You can check the exact speeds available where you live by entering your postcode on the Shell Energy website.

Ultrafast Fibre

In around 10% of UK homes, it’s now possible to get Shell Energy’s ultrafast fibre broadband service. This makes use of Gfast fibre broadband technology to deliver an average download speed of up to 290Mbps. An engineer visit is required to set up Ultrafast Fibre, but this will enable faster speeds that are almost six times faster than Superfast Fibre Plus.

At present, you can choose between the Ultrafast Fibre and Ultrafast Fibre Plus broadband plans. The following table shows a side-by-side comparison of the two plans:

You can get Ultrafast Fibre broadband from £41.99 per month on Shell Energy:

Service	Average Speed	Contract Length	Upfront Price	Monthly Price
Ultrafast Fibre	140Mbps download	18 month contract	£9.95	£41.99/month
Ultrafast Fibre Plus	290Mbps download	18 month contract	£9.95	£46.99/month

See all Shell Ultrafast Fibre Deals →

At present, Shell Energy only offers their ultrafast plans using Gfast technology. This is available in around 2.8 million UK homes. It isn’t currently possible to get Shell Energy on a FTTP (full fibre) connection. Shell is also yet to announce the launch date for their FTTP service.

Shell Energy Broadband Speeds

In the UK, Shell Energy provides average download speeds of up to 290Mbps and average upload speeds of up to 45Mbps.

The following table shows the average download and upload speeds you can get on Shell Energy Broadband, along with the maximum possible download speed and the maximum possible upload speed:

The average speeds advertised by Shell Energy are based on what at least 50% of customers are able to get during peak usage hours (8pm to 10pm). Meanwhile, the maximum download speed and maximum upload speed is based on a theoretical limit of what is possible with the technology.

In practice, the speeds you’ll actually get will depend on multiple factors relating to your phone line. It depends on the distance to your nearest telephone exchange for copper broadband and the distance to the nearest street cabinet for fibre broadband. Because the speeds you can get will depend on your location, you should get a personalised estimate of the speeds available on the Shell Energy website.

Check Shell Energy Broadband Speed →

Shell Energy Broadband Router

On Shell Energy Broadband, you’ll be provided with a wi-fi router to use with the service. This will produce a wi-fi network for your other devices to connect to. It will also provide you with four Ethernet ports, allowing you to connect wired devices to your home network.

Depending on the broadband plan you choose, you’ll get one of the following two routers:

• The Technicolor TG588v2 router is provided on Fast Broadband. It’s a fairly basic router with single-band Wi-Fi 4 connectivity, but it should do the job for most basic daily usage.
• The Technicolor DWA0120 router is provided on all Superfast Fibre and Ultrafast Fibre plans. It supports dual-band Wi-Fi 5 connectivity with support for features like beamforming to improve the performance.

The following table shows a side-by-side comparison of the two routers, including detailed technical specifications:

	Technicolor TG588v2	Technicolor DWA0120
Availability
Shell Energy Plans:	Fast Broadband	Superfast Fibre Superfast Fibre Plus Ultrafast Fibre Ultrafast Fibre Plus
Connectivity
Dual-Band Wi-Fi:	No	Yes
Wi-Fi Connectivity:	802.11b/g/n	802.11a/b/g/n/ac
Wi-Fi Speed:	Up to 300Mbps	Up to 1,600Mbps total
2.4GHz Wi-Fi:	2×2 MIMO (up to 300Mbps)	2×2 MIMO (up to 300Mbps)
5GHz Wi-Fi	No	3×3 MIMO (up to 1300Mbps)
Ethernet:	4 Fast Ethernet ports (100Mbps)	4 Gigabit Ethernet ports (1,000Mbps)
USB ports:	1 USB 2.0 port	1 USB 2.0 port
Other:	WPA2 / WPA security Built-in firewall Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) enabled	WPA2 / WPA / WEP security Built-in firewall Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) enabled
Other
Model:	Technicolor TG588 v2	Technicolor DWA0120
Colour:	Black	Black
Dimensions:	13.7 x 12.5 x 3.5 cm	21.3 x 3.4 x 18.5 cm
More Information:	Shell Energy Website	Shell Energy Website

On Ultrafast Fibre and Ultrafast Fibre Plus, you’ll also be provided with a separate Openreach G.fast modem. You’ll need to use this in conjunction with your Technicolor DWA0120 to get access to Ultrafast Broadband. As part of the installation service for this product, your Openreach engineer will set this up for you.

When you cancel your Shell Energy Broadband service, you’ll need to return your router to Shell. If you don’t, an charge of £35 will be added to your final bill.

Coverage & Availability

In the UK, Shell Energy Broadband is available at most addresses. However, the exact broadband plans available where you live may differ depending on the technologies available:

• Fast Broadband uses ADSL (copper broadband technology). Shell says the average download speed is 11Mbps. However, this varies substantially depending on the distance between your home and the nearest telephone exchange.
• Superfast Fibre and Superfast Fibre Plus use fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) technology. A fibre optic cable runs to a cabinet near your home. The final part of the connection is then provided using a copper phone line. The download speeds available will therefore depend on the distance between your home and the nearest street cabinet.
• Ultrafast Fibre and Ultrafast Fibre Plus use G.fast technology. This works in a very similar way to fibre-to-the-cabinet broadband but it allows for faster download speeds as long as you live within 500 meters of the nearest cabinet.

To see which broadband plans are available at your address, enter your postcode on the Shell Energy Broadband website. You’ll also be shown an estimate of the speeds available where you live.

Check Shell Energy Broadband Availability →

Behind the scenes, Shell Energy Broadband is powered by TalkTalk’s wholesale product. It’s delivered through an Openreach phone line, like the broadband services from BT, EE, Plusnet, Sky, TalkTalk and others.

Switching to Shell Energy Broadband

If you’re switching from another broadband provider to Shell Energy Broadband, it’s easy to do this. You can also keep your current phone number if you’d like.

Start by ordering your new Shell Energy Broadband plan online. During the online order process, you’ll be given a switchover date for your new broadband service (typically for around two weeks time). Whilst you’re waiting for the switchover to happen, you’ll continue receiving a service from your old provider.

On the go-live date for your new Shell Energy home broadband service, you’ll need to plug in the router from Shell Energy. This will complete the switchover of your service. Normally, your old broadband service will be cancelled for you automatically. However, if you’re a Virgin Media customer, you’ll need to contact them directly to cancel your old service.

For step-by-step instructions on how to switch your broadband provider to Shell Energy, please select your current provider from the drop-down menu below:

For more information, see our full guide to switching broadband providers in the UK.

Frequently Asked Questions

More Information

For more information about Shell Energy Broadband, please see the official Shell Energy website.