Gigaclear

megaginge

JJ_Egan wrote: »

If the WiFI is poor then its the router .
Buy a better router would be a workaround .

Router or interference from other devices... Not really the providers fault ..

ChiefGrasscutter

Disclaimer: I am on a Gigaclear connection:

Yes it is known that the wireless is not good on the Genexis router they provide.
Gigaclear admit that.
You will see it does not have external aerials which is probbaly much of the reason.

Unfortuntely like all FTTP companies in the world you have to use their router/ONT unit. It is essential that the endpoint is under their control. It would be nice if you could use a ONT (optical network termination) unit from them and a router of your choice......sadly not.

The problem seems to be twofold
1 There are not that many suppliers of ONT/Router units for point to point FTTP systems. The commuinity FTTP project B4RN also uses Genexis ONT/Routers.
2. Gigaclear are not in a position to insist on a much better wireless performance as they do not buy enough units to have purchasing power.

I believe even GC suggested solution is to buy an apple ?airport express? for those who want better wifi.

As regards install costs.
This is made very clear to everyone right at the start that the GC connection point is at the front boundary of the property. GC provide an installation partner however the costs of getting the fibre from the front boundary into your property is met by you on a bespoke quote price basis.
It is known that a large cost/time of putting in FTTP is the 'last few yards'. Offloading costs like this on to the customer is what make projects like Gigaclear FTTP viable in the first place.

Gigalcear specialise in places which do not have superfast broadband already available. It would simply not be economically viable for them to install a brand new FTTP network in the area for perhaps £1m if there were not enough people wanting to take it up because they already had it available elsewhere from BT.

Currently their costs are £39 for the 50/50 service where you get a symmetrical upload and download of 50Mbps...n you do indeed get this speed 24/7 each day all day. This sum as already said included any line rental component in it. They do not offer an email service. As regards voice you can ask any VOIP company to provide you with a VOIP voice service over the fibre line and this would enable you to dispense totally with your BT line.
One thing to note is old alarm systems which are constantly monitored over the phone line. These may not be able to be converted to run over a VOIP fibre connection so sadly I know of places having to retain the BT line solely for the alarm system.

Northamptonman

I am currently experiencing considerable frustration with Gigaclear having just paid their £300+ initial invoice (inc installation) only to find that their wifi signal is so poor that the overall performance is worse than BT was previously.Their customer services response to the issue is to suggest a host of expensive options to get their kit working effectively.
I noticed that it was almost 1 year since the posts above so I thought it was worth updating this thread with the information that there has been no improvement in their routers or their customer service.

tastyweat

I'm not too sure how you can blame the quality of hardware on them, I assume it is simply a lack of knowledge around the hardware. Or then link this into meaning their CS is bad.

I'm a Senior Network Engineer (not for Gigaclear).

Consumer FTTP hasn't really been around all that long.

xDSL/Coax cable products have been around for more than a decade, it has taken many years for providers to begin issuing routers with decent wifi capability. It has taken the market a while to catch up with demand. They are only available now because there is that demand.

The demand for consumer FTTP routers with awesome wifi built in is still extremely low. It will increase over time, but I expect it will be a good few years before we see a decent FTTP integrated router on the market.

Up until very recently it has been the norm for anyone wanting decent wifi connection to buy their own router... the BT/plusnet router does have pretty good coverage, but it has it's own flaws and a high failure rate.

Their service is also not as good as other providers.

The important thing to look for with a provider is their core service and I'm sorry, but that does not include the supplied router.

I went with Zen prior to Gigaclear because I knew their service is very good, far exceeding BT/Sky/Plusnet/Virgin/etc. The router it was supplied with is terrible, so I supplied my own.

To get good wifi coverage in my house, even with a good router - I still had to have another access point elsewhere in the house to provide decent speeds... Gigaclear offering advice to do this is not a bad thing - at least they are telling you unlike BT and the likes who will deny you need one even when you do... they will just lie to you, telling you it is your equipment to blame for wifi troubles.

Wifi is still an unstable connection medium, despite how widely used it is. Some routers will advertise high speeds but there is no commercially available wifi router that can actually support 1gbps connection speed - if you want to get the most out of a connection like this, you need a cable... but wifi will suffice for non power users easily.

One thing Gigaclear could do if offer to sell you a better third party router... or they could include one with the package, but then they would have to charge you more for the package. Surely it's better to give people choice rather than tie them in to something they don't want?

I'd be greatful you can get a decent broadband service like FTTP, the vast majority of the country cannot... so what if you have to buy a better router to support it? Most people's computers probably aren't even fast enough to get the most out of 1gbit

A 100mbit leased line still costs in the region of £300 for a cheap service. 1gbit costs £700+... with no wifi router at all... you're getting a good deal

aweaton

I have seen Gigaclear will be coming to my village in the next year or so. I am curious as to how their connection is presented at the house. I have a decent router (DrayTek 2860) for my current BT Infinity VDSL connection (HomeHub 5 is not used and is stored in a box). Ideally I'd like to be able to plug in directly in to their ONT over RJ45 and use something like PPPoE.

freddie1996

We are about to get gigaclear fairly soon as they have been round to our house telling us our pot at the end of our drive will be ready by september. I have become skeptical though about the WiFi Speeds when going just small distances away from the router and also how the number of users affects the speed as well with the Gigaclear router.
Our current speeds with BT are about 2 Megabits per second, (about 220 kilobytes per second) but the range is quite good, the speed seems to stay roughly the same for about 5-8m and through 2 thick cotswold stone walls and then suddenly drops off and gets no signal going any further. We have a booster upstairs and that seems to redistribute the signal fairly well to the rest of the house and it's generally reliable and splits the signal up relatively fairly for the number of users on the network.
I have a couple of questions I'd appreciate you answering though.
I spoke to Gigaclear on the phone asking them to confirm if it's possible to plug a third party router into the gigaclear router and use that for the WiFi signal and they said we can do that.
The next question I asked to Gigaclear was to compare these two scenarios:
"Scenario 1: I have BT Infinity with the BT Home Hub 5 (at location x) as the router on the BT Infinity Unlimited 1 Package which offers 50Mb download speeds
Scenario 2: I have Gigaclear internet access with the 50Mb up and down service and I use the BT Home Hub 5 (at location x) as a third party router plugged into the gigaclear router"
My first question was, if I go to various distances with my laptop away from the BT router and do a speed download test would I get similar results for both scenarios?
My second question was, would the number of users hooked up to the BT home hub 5 affect the speed for each user in the same way for each scenario?

As you can probably guess they couldn't answer these 2 questions for legal reasons but I was hoping you may have an idea or anyone else on this forum?

freddie1996

We are about to get gigaclear fairly soon as they have been round to our house telling us our pot at the end of our drive will be ready by september. I have become skeptical though about the WiFi Speeds when going just small distances away from the router and also how the number of users affects the speed as well with the Gigaclear router. (a lot of complaints state this)
Our current speeds with BT are about 2 Megabits per second, (about 220 kilobytes per second) but the range is quite good, the speed seems to stay roughly the same for about 5m-8m and through 2 thick cotswold stone walls and then suddenly drops off and gets no signal going any further. We have a booster upstairs and that seems to redistribute the signal fairly well to the rest of the house and it's generally reliable and splits the signal up relatively fairly for the number of users on the network.
I have a couple of questions I'd appreciate you answering though.
I spoke to Gigaclear on the phone asking them to confirm if it's possible to plug a third party router into the gigaclear router and use that for the WiFi signal and they said we can do that.
The next question I asked to Gigaclear was to compare these two scenarios:
"Scenario 1: I have BT Infinity with the BT Home Hub 5 (at location x) as the router on the BT Infinity Unlimited 1 Package which offers 50Mb download speeds
Scenario 2: I have Gigaclear internet access with the 50Mb up and down service and I use the BT Home Hub 5 (at location x) as a third party router plugged into the gigaclear router"
My first question was, if I go to various distances with my laptop away from the BT router and do a speed download test would I get similar results for both scenarios?
My second question was, would the number of users hooked up to the BT home hub 5 affect the speed for each user in the same way for each scenario?

As you can probably guess they couldn't answer these 2 questions for legal reasons but I was hoping you may have an idea or anyone else on this forum?

thunderbird6_2

I am a Gigaclear customer and an IT Consultant. I have had the Gigaclear 200Mbps service for two years and many of my clients have the service too. My experience has been one of outstanding performance and reliability. There have been a few service outages, due mainly to fibres being severed by other civils contractors, but these have been repaired in a few hours and overall the service has been much more reliable and consistent than BT. Properly conducted speedtests have never shown less than the contracted speed at the router on any occasion at dozens of clients.

Every complaint I have seen or experienced has related to the wifi performance and their unwillingness or inability to improve it. However it is beyond their remit to do this. Recognise that if your BT broadband was offering 5Mbps and you could acheive this all over the house then all that indicates is that your wireless signal might be good enough to achieve 5Mbps everywhere with Gigaclear. In practice, as already noted by other posters, the wifi signal from the Genexis routers is weaker that some BT routers, so you might not even achieve that. Getting good enough wifi coverage to connect at 50Mbps or more all over a small property is not easy. For a larger property, or one with thick walls, or foil-backed plasterboard, you are likely to need several decent wifi access points. This is most easily achieved by adding wireless access points that are wired back to the router as they will always out-perform wifi repeaters or powerline extenders. If you wanted more TVs in the house you would expect to run some aerial cables for them, and this is just the same. For people to denegrate Gigaclear's customer support because you can't get a 50Mbps wifi connection speed through several thick stone walls is unreasonable!

I have changed my phones over to Vonage and am saving £10-15 per month overall for a vastly improved internet connection and much better phone service. I regard the money I spent on putting in network wiring and decent wifi as a well worthwhile investment and am very happy with the service.

WaltD

Gigaclear are expected to be providing their service in my area some time in the next year or two. At present, we have 11 mbps ADSL+ with no prospect of FTTC - ever.
I have been considering a move to Gigaclear when it eventually is commissioned in this area, but I am very unhappy about a clause in their Service Contract which says it is a requirement that the customer must grant Wayleave to Gigaclear on his/her premises, and this will be IN PERPETUITY! This means the company will retain the right to have equipment on the customer's premises, and unrestricted access to do maintenance work, even after the contract has been terminated by the customer. This right will continue even if the property owner sells the house ... and the existence of the ongoing Wayleave permission must be declared on the deeds of the house when it is put up for sale. Conceivably, this could reduce the value of the property and make it difficult to sell.
Has anyone else noticed this clause, and have they sought legal advice on the subject?
The following document refers to this worrying issue:

https://robbratby.com/uk-telecoms-law/electronic-communications-code-and-telecoms-planning-issues/

DRSReading

This exactly reflects our experience - will be contacting ASA