Broadband ISP Cuckoo Retires Giganet Brand and Shifts UK Customers
Internet provider Cuckoo, which is the retail anchor tenant broadband ISP for the newly consolidated AllPoints Fibre network (comprising FTTP networks from Jurassic Fibre, Swish Fibre and Giganet), has today announced that the old Giganet brand is being retired and remaining customers fully migrated to Cuckoo.
Cuckoo originally started life around four years ago as an independent ISP, which changed in 2022 after they were acquired by the Fern Trading backed Giganet (here). But last year’s decision by Fern Trading to consolidate almost all of their full fibre operators into a single wholesale network under APFN changed all that (here and here).
Giganet, which was born out of M12 Solutions some years earlier, was arguably the best known and most reputable of Fern’s ISP brands. But despite this, the writing has been on the wall for Giganet ever since May 2024, when existing customers of the service were notified that their contracts had transferred to Cuckoo Fibre Limited (here), which followed similar moves with Swish Fibre and Jurassic Fibre.
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However, the announcement in May 2024 didn’t include the physical migration of customers or the merging of Giganet’s brand into Cuckoo, which is what today’s update is all about. Cuckoo is starting to migrate a “small number of customers” from today, and that will gradually build until everyone is moved across (this is happening in phases, so most customers won’t have been notified yet). The Giganet brand will then be retired.
Sarah Howells, Managing Director at Cuckoo, told ISPreview:
“Cuckoo’s sole focus is on selling the fastest, most reliable full fibre to customers across the country. We are also welcoming new customers to the Cuckoo family.
This migration, which has just begun, will help us to deliver fast, fair and feel-good broadband.
We’re confident that the migration won’t cause customers any disruption, and they certainly won’t see any change in contract price. In some instances, customers may even receive better speeds as a result of the switch.
We’re pleased to be welcoming the first batch of customers under Cuckoo’s wing, and to be delivering the exceptional customer service which Cuckoo has been built on to even more people.
If customers have a query on the migration, they can get in contact with us directly or visit our support page.”
Cuckoo states that the new service will include some “updated T&Cs“, but they add that the “important bits” of the service will stay the same (i.e. price, contract period and end date, speeds, reliability and UK based customer service – managed by the same people). Hopefully those with Static IP addresses will also continue to receive them.
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, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Giganet went downhill for me. Customer service got unresponsive, then CGNAT introduced, removal of fixed ip (offered to reinstate, but they never delivered on that) such that I eventually gave up and moved to EE at the end of last month.
Not that giganet noticed. they totally failed to send any notice of changes/contract ending to me, so who knows when they will notice or ask for eero back. Probably when they try and bill for next months (I’d already paid past the handover date so canceled DD)
If I was kind I’d say growing pains, but that’s been an excuse for too long.
Should have retired Cuckoo and kept the Giganet brand. Giganet sounds much more professional.
Absolutely. I’m not sure if Cuckoo has any positive connotations.
The funniest thing is that they keep calling their customers and their staff “part of the flock”
Cuckoos are solitary birds.
Cuckoo’s are famous for laying their birds nests and leaving them for other birds to raise. I’m not sure naming your company after a bird with such nefarious habits is such a good idea.
According to wikipedia not all cuckoos are solitary birds “The cuckoos are, for the most part, solitary birds that seldom occur in pairs or groups. The biggest exception to this are the anis of the Americas, which have evolved cooperative breeding and other social behaviours”
Sadly this is the world we live in, Giganet owners I guess when presented with the offer wanted the short term £ rather than long term company, and then Cuckoo mysteriously keeps the weaker brand whilst trashing the Giganet service.
Giganet and Cuckoo owners are the same people
I wonder what this means for all the customers who signed up for Giganet before the build-out in their area and qualified for 12 months free 900mbit once it reached their area?
I’m currently with Giganet, on their own network build vs their CF or OR offerings etc – after initally checking out of interest in May, I’m still unable to place a new order for any houses on our street, just stating that their not in our area yet, doesn’t leave much hope.
Hopefully the full merger will improve support – it took nearly 2 months for them to sort a cease and regrade from their 500Mbps to 900Mbps package, leaving no connection at the property for the duration.
All in preparation for the purchase of Allpoints Fibre by Cityfibre. Consolidating everything, tidying up all the loose ends, getting the redundancies out of the way.
An ex-colleague of mine is employed by Allpoints Fibre on a 6 month contract which clearly indicates they’re not in it for the long term. Won’t be long now.
That would make sense. Are they (Giganet/allpoints) even building any more? They seem to have given up in my area…
In Tadley, Giganet is now a ‘toxic’ brand, given how they promised so much and delivered absolutely nothing, apart from some badly-repaired pavement/road works and a handful of people connected before their chaotic build ceased. You can still see an abandoned cabinet with ‘inspirational’ Giganet stickers on it, looking 100%… sad.
Wonder what they’ll do now, because whilst Cuckoo/Giganet were asleep, Nexfibre (I know, I know, who wants to be stuck with VMO2?) have embarked on an energetic build, judging by the proliferation of blocked roads and pavements (but sadly, nowhere near me). Even Trooli has deployed the occasional van where someone peers into a cabinet or existing hole in the pavement, but no-one knows what their plans are – if any – for this area.
On a good day, my FTTC reaches 12-14 Mb/s, with a gradually declining speed as the cabling and connections slowly but inevitably degrade. Truly 3rd-world
Giganet has 0 customer service. They don’t reply to tickets and customer service on the call knows nothing. They always presume it’s a fault at your home network rather than a fault within their network, and there is no follow up even if they said ‘we will call back’.
It’s harsh to say 3rd-world. The average fixed broadband speed in many 3rd world countries is more than 6-10 times of 12-14 Mb/s. We are a 3rd world country now.
And to add even more insult… courtesy of OR’s medieval infrastructure, I’ve had a 5-day outage which evidently didn’t make it to OR’s ‘must-do-today’ priority list. So John has a fair point – in my area we are 4th-world for speed and reliability of connection, not 3rd-world….
Did phone and ask a Trooli sales person about build in our area, but they wouldn’t even confirm if Trooli will ever offer FTTP, let alone an approximate date
Just got an email, and am very disappointed.
Giganet gave out a status page – cuckoo don’t. Giganet had accountability and information for the customer – cuckoo don’t.. The main reason I went with Giganet was because their status page told you EXACTLY what was going on, updated quickly and went back for so long.
A sad sad day for users.
Perhaps Cuckoo will improve the poor customer service by GigaNet. GigaNet is quick to answer the telephone for new customer enquiries, but grossly undermans ‘technical support’.
My broadband has not worked for 4 days – they could have posted an online message that GigaNet is ‘out’, but no; indeed they say it is working when it is not. Today I tried to telephone GigaNet again – after 90 minutes with no reply I gave up.
Suggestion: when your inward line is busy, say ‘You are #10 in the queue and offer a call back option. BUT GigaNet would say ‘You are #87 in the queue and we have no intention of calling back’.
The self congratulatory announcements only make it worse.