UK ISP Giganet has today announced that their gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband service on CityFibre’s network will soon become available nationwide. At present you can only sign-up to CF’s full fibre network via Giganet’s consumer packages in 27 of the operator’s deployed cities and towns, but that will soon change.
Just to recap. Giganet is currently investing £250m with Fern Trading, which will enable them to build their own full fibre network to 300,000 premises across poorly served parts of Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire and West Sussex (here). But at the same time, the operator will also continue to expand the availability of FTTP via Openreach and CityFibre’s wholesale networks in different parts of the country, to maximise coverage.
So far, the CityFibre based side of Giganet’s service has already been announced for Portsmouth, Swindon, Reading, Plymouth, Crawley & Horsham, Bath, Bournemouth, Bracknell, Brighton & Hove, Bury St Edmunds, Cambridge, Chatham & Gillingham, Cheltenham & Charlton Kings, Chichester & Arun, Eastbourne, Gloucester, Ipswich, Lowestoft, Maidenhead, Norwich, Peterborough, Poole & Christchurch, Slough, Southend, Weston-super-Mare, Worcester and Worthing.
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However, much like Zen Internet, Vodafone and TalkTalk before it, we’ve long expected that Giganet would ultimately be the next ISP partner to grow their CityFibre reach nationwide (i.e. available anywhere that CF has deployed). At present CF’s network covers 1.5 million premises (1.3m are ready for service), but they aim to have 8 million premises “substantially completed” – across around 285 cities, towns and villages (c.30% of the UK) – by the end of 2025 (here).
Jarlath Finnegan, CEO of Giganet, said:
“We’re delighted to be partnering with CityFibre in order to connect even more towns, cities and villages to our award-winning brand of full fibre. Following a fantastic customer uptake from our initial CityFibre locations, the UK has made no secret of how much they appreciate reliable connectivity and excellent customer service from an ISP. We’re offering a chance to not only upgrade to a better home broadband connection, but to a better level of service all round.”
Greg Mesch, CEO of CityFibre, said:
“Giganet is an exciting and innovative Full Fibre ISP that’s making real headway as it brings market-leading Full Fibre broadband to consumers. They understand the unique opportunity that a carrier-neutral provider like CityFibre can offer, as well as the technical and commercial advantages of our network. That’s why we’re delighted to be their network provider of choice wherever we build.”
However, Giganet won’t achieve nationwide availability overnight. The ISP said they would gradually increase the locations they serve throughout 2022. The expectation is that they’ll be able to reach all homes across CityFibre’s entire footprint within the “next 12 months” (i.e. by the end of April 2023).
Vodafone is in a similar boat, but if they’ve held to their original plan (here) then they should have achieved nationwide coverage at the end of last month. Meanwhile, Zen Internet are targeting “late 2022” for the same outcome (here), while TalkTalk has yet to say when they’ll get to this level.
Any differences in availability between ISPs on CityFibre’s network can significantly add to consumer confusion, so the more provider’s that go nationwide on their network, the better.
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“Vodafone is in a similar boat, but if they’ve held to their original plan (here) then they should have achieved nationwide coverage at the end of last month.”…Like I posted on the forums yesterday. They haven’t. It would be nice to know when they are actually going to do this as a relative is waiting to sign up with them.
I understand that these kinds of things are insanely complex and that it takes time to sort through the logistics, but you have to wonder what kind of issues are going on behind the scenes for these promises to keep on falling short.
My bet – systems integration. The location of more dragons than anyone who hasn’t been near it would believe.
The Brave New World of APIs has made it both easier and harder at the same time.
Currently rolling out in storrington.
They always say nationwide but what they really mean is London as it’s 50% of the population right there then they cut funding and rest of Britian goes without if pressured they add Birmingham and Manchester for an extra 20% then they definitely cut funding after all 70%of the population covered with minimal invested ain’t bad
Odd comment… You have named 3 cities that are not covered by CityFibre. Also, London represents nowhere near 50% of the population.
As M says above, CityFibre tends to concentrate on “second tier” cities and towns, not the big ones of London, Manchester and Birmingham.
https://cityfibre.com/about-us/rollout
Some UK settlement hierarchy for you @Stephen
Isolated Dwelling, Hamlet, Village, Market Town, Town, City, Conurbation
CityFibre should be laying cable in Waterlooville soon, just north of Portsmouth!
Do you have a source for that Paul? Rollout map does not show that
https://one.network/?tm=GB128370804
This shows the route. There has been roadworks on the Hulbert Road that do not show up on the tool so I can only assume it’s for a fibre route
Funny. I just registered interest with Giganet yesterday, as I discovered my post code (Southbourne, east of Bournemouth) is on the “soon to be connecting” list. Looks like some time this year then! Happy days, as VM currently have an issue with their core network (https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Networking-and-WiFi/VM-CORE-NETWORK-FAILURE-URGANT/td-p/4986440 – are you aware Mark?), plus i’d save money. Giganets 900Mbps symmetric plus VM TV looks cheaper than VM 360/36 + TV!
Giganet is currently laying cabinets the other side of the new forest so definitely coming your way.
Giganet “Currently” offer the 500mbps package, which is great news! BT/Zen/IDNet can all offer 900mbps package, VM 1Gbps. I just hope one day CityFibre and their multi-gig network will come to my part of SW.Wales. Finally! Things are moving in the right direction. Half decent speeds now available! Its going to be a welcomed jump from my current 47mbps FTTC > FTTP ~700mbps to finally put my CAT6A to good use 🙂
Anyone with giganet?, are they any good or no?.Anyone have any speedtests?.
Been with Giganet on cityfibre in Bracknell for 4 months now never missed a beat. Always fast no pack loss excellent price too.
@Jamie here you go: https://www.speedtest.net/result/13113322537