Gigaclear

Markee

A local community group is offering fast fibre broadband (proper fibre to premises) via a partnership with Gigaclear (http://www.gigaclear.com).

The village where I live has very limited and slow (<3Mb) broadband where BT is the only real choice and we have no chance at all of BT Infinity anytime soon.

Gigaclear are offering a range of synchronous speeds from 50Mb to 1Gb (£37 - £69 per month).

Has anyone had experience of Gigaclear, I would be especially interested to hear from anyone who's already signed up to and connected to Gigaclear and what they think of the service?

Otherwise, looks like I might have to be the Guinea Pig!

Thanks guys.

Uxb

There are now an increasing number of villages in S.W Oxfordshire with or about to have the service.
If you are lucky one resident will post here.

Villages are to the best of my recollection
Frilford
Appleton
Eaton
Cothill
Farmoor
Fyfield
Tubney
Dry Sandford
Part of Cumnor

They work on the basis of the local community forming an action group to promote the possibility of a FTTP service in the village to their fellow residents.
They require at least 30% of the village to commit and formally sign up to them before they will commit to building the network....sounds sensible.

Obviously the choose their villages carefully and importantly need access to the internet backhaul locally to enable them to offer up to to 1Gbps to a house. So not all villages are suitable due to their location, If a place is 20miles from backhaul access point then its a non starter.

Frankly I'd grab it with both hands!
If you have no hope of any FTTC via BT/BDUK this is your only chance to get a superfast service - and ironically you are now being offered the opportunity of getting the gold standard of a symmetrical 50up/50 down service though pure FTTP point to point.
So that is no speed degrading effects of distance, a symmetrical service unlike BT's FTTC/infinity, pure fibre and no copper, a brand new network...what more could one want.
So from no option to the best option possible!

Most residents will be too silly to realise they are being offered one of the best upgrades in the UK- or don't 'see the need' for superfast broadband - their 2Mbps is fine thank you very much......

I wish you luck in getting the 30% required to sign up.

MBuckingham_2

I'm in Stanton Harcourt and Gigaclear are currently installing a network here. I should be connected in the week or so and will then be in a position to answer your question.

In the meantime why don't you come along to the village hall this Saturday and see for yourself. You can bring along your laptop or tablet and try it out with the Gigabit connection that has just been installed.

The details are on the Gigaclear website in the Stanton Harcourt and Sutton section.



Malcolm

Markee

Thanks for your replies, guys.

There is a demo day at my local school (Dry Sandford school) on the 26th April, so I'm going along to that.

If you could keep us updated on this thread with progress, it would be very much appreciated!

CornwallBob

I am connected to Gigaclear (for about 6 months now) and I LOVE it. For less money than I was paying BT, I now have an ultra-fast connection - speeds are typically around 30-40 Mbps using wi-fi (remember speeds will depend on the device you're using). It's not unusual to have 2 PCs, a tablet and a couple of phones connected. Streaming films now is amazing - no problem with full HD downloads.

Go along to the Demo day at the school (it's just down the road from me - I'll certainly be there - probably drooling over the TVs from Ricer Sounds to see how I can make use of the speed!).

CornwallBob

Markee

Thanks Bob, whereabouts do you live?

CornwallBob

Cornwall of course! ;-)

Or Dry Sandford....

Seriously, sign up and get everyone you know in the area to sign up also. This really is a *major* chance to get fibre installed. You won't regret it. The only problem is getting enough people in the area to sign up.

Markee

Cheers Bob,

I have signed up and the local fibre broadband Facebook page have linked to this thread!

Might see you at the school on Saturday!

MBuckingham_2

MBuckingham wrote: »

I'm in Stanton Harcourt and Gigaclear are currently installing a network here. I should be connected in the week or so and will then be in a position to answer your question.


Malcolm

Just to say that I'm now connected to the Gigaclear network. It's only been a couple of days but all seems to work well. Last night I tested the speed and it was 200Mb for both downloads and uploads.

I've ordered the Vonage phone package so I hope to be using that in a week or so.

Malcolm

Uxb

I take it then that you are on their higher Home200 package (200Mbps up/down)

from the Vonage site I see that if you swap to the Vonage VOIP voice phone package over the fibre network you can then dump your BT line totally saving you the BT line rental.

By my approx calcs this makes Gigaclear base 50Mbps up/down package FTTP + Vonage's VOIP package just CHEAPER than BT's inferior infinity2 FTTC service plus BT line rental plus BT voice calls.

So even if you DID have the option of FTTC with BT it would still make sense to go with Gigaclear/Vonage just on price. If you then factor in that BT's FTTC service is both over old copper and detiorates with distance from the cab unlike pure fibre it really is as they say a 'no brainer' to go Gigaclear.

I'm beginning to see why those villages to date have signed up to it
Though armed with this knowledge is does seem extraordinary that they are offering the best FTTP service in the entire UK........and yet they seem to have to go out begging and pleading for individuals in the villages to sign up.

MBuckingham_2

The Vonage phone system went live yesterday and seems to be working perfectly. Time will tell how much cheaper it all works out to be but my estimate is about £25 per month less when including both phone and broadband.

The Gigaclear plan I am on is not available anymore. It's up to 1Gbps with a guaranteed minimum of 10Mbps. The actual speed does vary a bit but yesterday I used the Thinkbroadband speed test and got an average download speed of 773.6 Mbps

Malcolm