ISP Gigaclear Cuts and Refreshes UK FTTP Rural Broadband Prices

Rural fibre optic ISP Gigaclear has today refreshed their line-up of packages, not least by scrapping their old 50Mbps, 100Mbps and 200Mbps tiers in favour of an entry-level 30Mbps service and generally cheaper prices all the way of up their top 900Mbps FTTP home broadband plan. The installation fee is also now free.

Until now Gigaclear, which is aiming to cover 350,000 rural premises across the United Kingdom with their Gigabit capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network by the end of 2021 (currently 65,000 premises passed), has generally been one of the more pricey “full fibre” providers (depending upon your perspective).

However the higher cost of their service, particularly in terms of one-off installation charges, was never a huge surprise because it’s notoriously expensive for a commercial operator to deploy FTTP into rural areas (i.e. smaller and sparser communities make it difficult to gain a viable return on the investment).

According to Gigaclear, connecting rural properties requires them to dig “six times more land compared to connecting urban properties” (urban average is 12m of dig per property compared to a rural average of 75m), meaning the cost of delivering ultrafast broadband to these communities is significantly more.

Suffice to say that we weren’t expecting any price cuts from Gigaclear, even in the face of growing competition on the FTTP side of the market. Nevertheless their latest package refresh has not only delivered a cheaper rental but they’ve also removed the standard installation fee for most subscribers (95% of orders are standard installs), although the one-off activation fee still applies but it’s currently just £30 on the fastest tiers.

Mike Surrey, CEO of Gigaclear, said:

“When compared to urban areas, we need to deal with additional costs to build new infrastructure in an environment that makes it difficult to lay the fibre optic cables. However, as we expand we can create economies of scale and through these price changes, we are ensuring that any savings we encounter are shared with both new and existing customers.

We are constantly reviewing our products and services to make sure we are delivering value for customers. We recognise that having fast, reliable broadband is essential in most modern homes, and ensuring the communities we serve are better connected is a key priority for us. In the pursuit of making high quality connectivity accessible to more people, we are delighted to launch our new broadband packages – offering more speed for less money.”

Previously the ISP offered quite a large selection of different unlimited symmetric speed packages, but these have all now been replaced by three simple options: 30Mbps, 300Mbps and 900Mbps on an 18 month contract term (previously it was 15 months). The jump in speed between each tier is significant but the jump in price is not, which is an important consideration.

Go 30
“Ideal for smaller households”
30Mbps upload/download

PRICE: £35 per month

Free Standard Install & One-time £120 Activation

Go 300
“Ideal for multi-user and multiple-device home”
300Mbps upload/download

PRICE: £45 per month

Free Standard Install & One-time £30 Activation

Go 900
“Ideal for multi-users, homeworkers and gamers”
900Mbps upload/download

PRICE: £75 per month

Free Standard Install & One-time £30 Activation

Apparently the £30 activation fee is an introductory offer and will come to an end on 28th February 2019. In order to benefit from this discount you have to enter the promotion code GO during the online checkout process or when ordering over the phone.

UPDATE 11:37am

We’ve been told that Gigaclear is also inviting existing customers to take advantage of increased speed for a reduced price available with its new products.