Rural UK ISP Gigaclear Remove 30Mbps Plan and Adds 400Mbps UPDATE
Rural broadband ISP Gigaclear, which has so far built a gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across 155,000 premises in England, appears to have launched a new 400Mbps package to replace their old 300Mbps one and has also removed their slowest 30Mbps package. At the same time a new Spring Sale has begun.
At present Gigaclear’s full fibre network can be found in 300 communities across parts of 22 counties in England and the operator, which last year secured a huge £525m financing deal from Lloyds, Natwest, Santander and ABN Amro (here), now has an ambition to cover more than 500,000 rural UK properties by 2023.
Until this week Gigaclear’s package line-up consisted of four symmetric speed tiers that included 30Mbps, 100Mbps, 300Mbps and 900Mbps. However, the launch of the provider’s latest spring sale for new customers (use this offer code during sign-up: SPRUCE20) has seen the removal of their cheapest 30Mbps plan – 100Mbps is now the new entry-level – and the replacement of their 300Mbps option with 400Mbps.
As usual all of these packages continue to include a wireless router (you also get a mesh system included on the 400Mbps and 900Mbps tiers), as well as an 18-month minimum contract term and unlimited usage. During the sale, which will run until 17th May 2021, both activation and installation are also FREE.
Superfast 100Mbps
PRICE: £24 a month for 18 months (£44 thereafter)Ultrafast 400Mbps with Smart Wi-Fi
PRICE: £34 a month for 18 months (£54 thereafter)Hyperfast 900Mbps with Smart Wi-Fi
PRICE: £59 a month for 18 months (£79 thereafter)
We should add that Gigaclear also promises “no price increase during contract.” Otherwise, the removal of their cheapest entry-level 30Mbps tier (standard price of £39) could be seen as a negative by those who only need a basic connection. It’s unclear whether this is just a temporary removal due to the sale or a permanent decision.
UPDATE 22nd April 2021
Gigaclear has informed us that the 30Mbps and 300Mbps packages will return once the current promotion has ended later next month.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and Linkedin.
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Very odd to remove the equivalent of the social tier.
That being said £24/month for a 100/100 service is not exactly a fortune and a lot of SME’s would have bitten you hand off for 100/100 symmetrical FTTP 10 years ago for 10x the price!
However, I am a tiny bit concerned about the standard (non discounted) rate of £44 being the entry tier and that might be too much for pensioners etc who might then stay with copper?
Hi A_Builder http://www.squirrel.uk.net can offer 50mbps @£39 over the Gigaclear network, if you are thinking of particular person. We can also add our Digital Landline service £5 including a telephone number port from most providers 🙂
@Daniel – How is that better than £24 for 100Mbps, or £34 for 400Mbps. I know technically they are ‘offer’ prices – but gigaclear are literally /always/ running these offers
@-
I believe these offers are only for brand new customers. A_Builder was referring to the out of offer prices which customers move onto. There are also more aspects to service than price – and whilst we cannot compete on price alone I do invite you to try our customer service out.
If Gigaclear can do symmetric, why can’t BT FTTP?
Gigaclear use point to point fibre, Openreach don’t.
One of their previous offers introduced a 200Mbps tier which disappeared when the offer ended, so I expect that the 400Mbps is just a similar temporary offer to test the uptake.
These area’s aren’t exactly filled with people concerned about speed, it must be pretty hard to upsell anything over 100mb/s really.
I’m maybe wrong anyway – from the latest wholesale price-list it looks to be permanent, with 50Mbps the new minimum replacing 30Mbps, and other available speeds being 100, 300, 500, and 1000 for residential customers.
You could say the same around town!
The reality is that the ISP like Community Fibre and Hyperopotic give away their 330/330 at prices they should be selling 100/100 as they realise that other than the odd download burst most households don’t use them that heavily and it gives them a good marketing tool to differentiate from FTTC.
OR’s resellers then cannot leverage customers away from the 330/330 packages as they have nothing close on download unless you are on Gfast or FTTP. So it makes retention sense. Whereas 100/100 doesn’t as people will fall for the spiel that 80 is virtually the same as 100 and save some money unless they know about the upstream.
However, if lockdown taught us one thing it is that 16mb/s upstream is not enough for a family.
In the past Gigaclear have built in areas that have no superfast alternatives, so even 30Mbps was attractive. I wonder whether the new minimum of 50Mbs and the new 400Mbps tier (and the offer pricing) is to make them more attractive in the areas they are now concentrating on which already have FTTC?
I just wish they would get on with the BDUK contracts they have rather than building to nearby villages that already have FTTC first. Apparently the expected availability date in my area has slipped yet again…
O I wish they built the network like they said they would in Furneux Pelham, East Herts back in 2016. Left in the dust.
Gigaclear have built in my area (Winslow, Bucks). I received a brochure through my door saying that my road was ready for connection but on phoning with the intention of potential the sales guy had no idea and said that the brochure must have been sent by mistake and could I send a photo of the brochure to the sales email address which I have done but heard nothing as yet.
If this is an example for their customer service then I won’t be placing an order.