The predominantly London-focused UK broadband ISP CommunityFibre, which has covered 307,000 homes (and 12,000 businesses) with their 3Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network, has launched an early Black Friday sale that offers up to 6 months of free service to new customers.
The new deals will be available to order from now until 2nd December 2021 on their 24-month contract term packages, but you’ll only get the first 3 months free on their 12-month terms. The savings this would deliver on their top 3Gbps tier are particularly significant, given that it normally costs £99 per month for the first 24-months of service.
New CommunityFibre customers can also expect to receive a free installation, a Dual-band MESH WiFi router, symmetric speeds, unlimited usage and there’s also a pledge of “no mid-contract price rises.” The 1Gbps package also gives you two Linksys “routers” for a mesh WiFi system, while their top 3Gbps tier comes with a high-end WiFi 6 router from Zyxel.
Normal Package Prices (excluding free service period)
75Mbps Fibre Broadband
PRICE: £22.50 per month for 24 months (£27.50 thereafter)200Mbps Fibre Broadband
PRICE: £27.50 per month for 24 months (£32.50 thereafter)500Mbps Fibre Broadband
PRICE: £37.50 per month for 24 months (£42.50 thereafter)1 Gig Fibre Broadband
PRICE: £49 per month for 24 months (£54 thereafter)3 Gig Fibre Broadband
PRICE: £99 per month for 24 months (£109 thereafter)
3 Gbps is a curious speed, no?
My guess is it’s strategic marketing, since there are a couple of other providers with 2Gbps packages today or plans for 2Gbps next year, which enables CF to retain an edge in bragging rights.
It’s actually quite a clever tac, as it enables them to have daylight (and then some!) between their competitors offering 1 or even 2 Gbps, as Mark points out, furthermore:
– it can redelivered on up to 5 Gbps Ethernet 802.3 bz-compliant chipset NICs and switches (often cheaper than full blown 10 Gbps)
– 3 Gbps (on 5 Gbps Ethernet link) can still be delivered at up to 100 metres channel on Cat6 structured cabling rather than requiring much heavier stock Cat6a (actually its still fine to run 5 Gbps ether on Cat5e between 50 and 75m).
– from an optics perspective the ‘full’ 3 Gbps speed can be delivered, without any penalties for framing / overhead (i.e. the old chestnut of ‘only getting 942 Mbps on a ‘Gigabit’ connection. so no BS complaints that you’re only able to theoretically get 2.82 Gbps or any malarkey like that
– Everyone knows that the number 3 is has magical significance (especially when it has 9 zeros behind it) 😉
Community Fibre is joke they are not better than average broadband providers the likes of Vodafone and Virgin, don’t believe the hype.