Network operator and ISP Giganet, which offers gigabit broadband to UK homes and businesses via its own full fibre infrastructure (as well as via third-parties including Openreach and CityFibre), has today announced the acquisition of upcoming internet provider Cuckoo as part of efforts to grow its reach into the wider market.
Giganet is currently best-known for investing £250m via Fern Trading to deploy their own Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network to 300,000 premises across poorly served parts of Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire and West Sussex (here). On top of that, the operator is continuing to expand the availability of FTTP via Openreach and CityFibre’s wholesale platforms in other parts of the country, to maximise availability.
On the flip side, Cuckoo is a fairly recent (2020) addition to the UK ISP market and has already made its mark by supplying a simplified selection of affordable broadband packages with short 1-month (30 day) and optional 12-month minimum contract terms. The provider, which takes a light-hearted approach to being “unashamedly ambitious“, has a bold aspiration of reaching “1 meeeeeeellion members (by 2025)“.
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Now, Giganet and Cuckoo will “work together to disrupt the UK broadband market by prioritising service and customer experience” as the rollout of full fibre accelerates over the next few years. Both providers have been vocal against “loyalty taxes and price hikes“, pledging to charge loyal customers the same as new customers, and opting not to increase charges mid-contract, with prices currently frozen until 2023.
As part of the acquisition, Cuckoo will become the lead consumer brand for Giganet’s core residential customers, with Giganet itself continuing to be the brand serving its growing enterprise base. Both brands will continue to benefit from the growing full fibre network partnerships that have given Giganet its national reach.
Jarlath Finnegan, CEO of Giganet, said:
“Today’s acquisition marks a meeting of minds at a time when consumers deserve more from a utility as critical as the internet. Our vision to be the best ISP in the UK aligns perfectly with Cuckoo’s goal to be the fastest and fairest, and of course, the most trusted, bringing to the market a fresh challenger that puts customers first.
What’s more, by combining the best standards in customer services with network systems excellence, both business and consumers will experience the holy grail in connectivity – high speed and incredible reliability. We’re really excited for the future of this partnership.”
Alexander Fitzgerald, CEO of Cuckoo, added:
“This is great news for customers. Cuckoo’s expertise lies in building brilliant customer experiences thanks to our supremely talented team of developers, designers, marketers, and customer service experts. Giganet are experts in building and running networks.
Together we will deliver faster, cheaper, and better broadband for millions. And we’re only just getting started.”
At the time of writing, no details about the transaction sum or customer figures involved have been revealed, but this looks to be a reasonably sensible pairing. However, Giganet’s brand is arguably becoming much more familiar in the domestic connectivity market, thus splitting Giganet back to its original focus on business connectivity may create a small degree of initial confusion.
Giganet has also had a much more diverse, and arguably more confusing, selection of packages than Cuckoo due to its association with several different network operators (as well as its own fibre). It will be interesting to see how that balances out with Cuckoo’s traditional selling point of package simplicity.
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Looking at Cuckoo’s shockingly inconsistent Trustpilot reviews I’d be very wary of getting involved in them as there’s far too many call outs of their poor service to my liking!!
Really? A 4.1 Star rating on Trustpilot compared to BT’s 1.6 Stars.
Trustpilot is a terrible measure of service where there’s so many moving parts like there are with an ISP (or in BTs case one review page covers pay TV as well, which seems to be responsible for a lot of the complaints). People will give poor reviews because of the speed regardless of whether it meets estimates, or the Wi-Fi speeds they get in their house.
I was with them for FTTC for about 4 months – no problems paid £60 upfront and had to return the router – which did it’s job.
Never used the customer support – never had to
Cuckoo have consistently rated highly on the MSE Broadband Customer Service poll. If you go to their website, they have in fact topped the poll two years in a row, followed by Zen.
Their customer service sounds like it is extremely helpful and knowledgable versus the various passing between departments of the likes of BT, Sky, TalkTalk etc. Their “Glassdoor” rating also appears to be high at 4.9 out of 5.
Generally speaking, if the underlying infrastructure is the same in a FTTP broadband scenario (e.g. Openreach), then you are paying for Customer Service and Billing as the differentiating factor. And in that respect, then Cuckoo, Zen and Giganet appear to be lightyears ahead of BT, Vodafone, TalkTalk etc.
@angry man
We havent missed you.
This should be an interesting development. I wonder if this will change the offering that Giganet give to consumers or will they just place the new branding on top of their existing service? At least Cuckoo seem to be happy for you to use your own router, and offer static IPs. If they had been like Trooli, we would have been doomed.
Also, there are those of us who are waiting for the service to arrive who have been promised 12 months free. Will this change?
I remember when cuckoo launched. I was involved in some initial discussions with the CEO, I believe about their launch plans as it seemed to suit my requirements but to keep things simple they decided to only offer the top speed FTTC packages which meant it was too expensive for me (I’m 35Mb max). With Giganet building in my area maybe I will finally be using them!
I think this is a good idea from a customer perspective (lets face it BT handles BT, plusnet and EE providers fine – those who want to know, know those who don’t just don’t care) but they will need to work hard to keep the branding clear (Cuckoo by Giganet?)
Is there any obvious maps of giganet’s uk network infrastructure or availability?
Looked on thinkbroadbands maps but only shows as FTTP for an isolated area.
Try City Fibres website. Giganet are a wholesale provider of theirs don’t have their own build as of yet….
Worse than the Cuckoo Oak!
Cuckoo have consistently rated highly on the MSE Broadband Customer Service poll and their “Glassdoor” rating also appears to be high at 4.9 out of 5. Interesting that Giganet has come in.
Generally speaking, if the underlying infrastructure is the same in a FTTP broadband scenario (e.g. Openreach), then you are paying for Customer Service and Billing as the differentiating factor. And in that respect, then Cuckoo, Zen and Giganet appear to be lightyears ahead of BT, Vodafone, TalkTalk etc.
The FIXED pricing is a big winner in my view and kudos to Cuckoo and the others for that.
Does this takeover mean that overall prices for the customer our time will come down? Overall the Openreach wholesale cost has gone down. So I’d have thought that wholesale aspect of the price from next year would actually be less in any case.
Reading the blog from this Alex!!!. He’s clearly one of those self entitled ****. These two companies are a match made in heaven if you plan on burning through VC money.
One has a base of no value customers and sold quickly to stop going under and the other is a useless wanna ISP who have less than 500 customers despite all the waffle.
Neither offer anything special. I’l be sticking with Virgin who offer 2gb in my area.
What a mixed bag, proof of puddings aren’t often in the blogs or reviews, sour grapes and keyboard warriors are.
Disappointed I’ve wasted 20 minutes reading kiddies squabble.
If your equipment is sh1t your speeds will be sh1t, that’s the fact’s, Good luck to both CEOs and companies, choice is refreshing.