Community Fibre Reviews

Community Fibre's full fibre offering is decent for general purposes, the installation went well and I also had their landline service which was fine too. Unfortunately I had an issue with internet access which they were unable to resolve - to be fair it was a niche issue which probably wouldn't affect many users but for me it was a deal breaker.

Dealing with customer service is time consuming and frustrating. My preference is to use email so I have a written record, but they either don't respond to emails or respond only with meaningless platitudes so you are thrown onto their phone service.

As they were unable to resolve my issue I decided to leave at the end of my contract, but even that has been a confusing and protracted business, involving a lengthy phone call. I have now just received an email saying they'll be taking my direct debit as usual. I received no end of service statement, or any written confirmation of leaving, but luckily I had cancelled my direct debit.

To sum up, Community Fibre is a decent full-fibre ISP, until anything goes wrong or you want to leave. They are let down by chaotic customer service and admin.

Originally got Community fibre on my street around 2019 after having an awful experience with openreach (sky/plusnet) dying for days, or weeks at a time regularly and they couldn't be asked to actually fix anything. I've now been with CF for 6 years and I've only had an unplanned outage ONCE, all other outages had 1-2 weeks of warning in advance.

The installation was great, they don't do this now but they gave us two VELOP routers, you need a more expensive subscription now, but in 2019 they didn't have this. Customer support has always been very prompt, I appreciate having my phone call being picked up within a few minutes to this day after the hours and hours of calling sky/plusnet without anything being done.

There was originally no CGNAT, but one day they switched over (around 2022 or 2023 iirc), when i found out I emailed them and they actually put me behind traditional NAT within a few days after I explained to them it was one of the most important aspects of community fibre to me. very surpised they did this.

I was also starting to have speed issues with my original routers (which had yellowed like an old console at this point), and they replaced both for me free of charge.

I am also paying very little, around £26 for gigabit would've been a dream for me in 2018. As long as CF keep it up I will keep subscribing to them!

I have been a customer of Community Fibre for just over two years (since Mar 2023). I first signed up as they first launched on my street. From the first engineering interaction they were great. (I was on the 1Gbps plan at the time)
Installation was smooth, simple and easy. I had my own Wifi in place, and the provided 1G ONT interfaced with my own kit perfectly.
When I moved in Dec 2023, the Community fibre team were great once again. The installation team did the installation to the exact spot in the new house that I wanted - not stuck in the 'useless corner'. Even after replacing my Wifi kit with a full Unifi installation, the Community fibre link was rock solid.
I since upgraded to the 3Gps package in Nov 2024 as part of a Black Friday deal. The tech that came out didn't give me any uphill about my own setup and was happy to work alongside my existing work. The ONT was swapped for a 10G ONT (which has actually proven to be more stable than the 2.5G one I had).

My router consistently gets ~3.1G down and ~3.2G up - at all times of day.

A word of caution: if you're not at the top package level, you will be subject to IPv4 CGNAT, but this is fine for most users. On the plus side, it's a full dual-stack network. (my IPv4 address has been stable for a couple of months now)

I would wholeheartedly recommend Community Fibre to anyone looking to upgrade.

Here’s a 1,400-character version of your review while keeping the key points strong and impactful:

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Horrible Experience with Community Fibre – Avoid at All Costs!

I wasted three days off work trying to get Community Fibre to install my internet, only to deal with incompetence, miscommunication, and broken promises.

First Visit – Installation Disaster
The engineer removed my window blinds with a drill, then told me there was no internet service and a specialist would come in a week. No one showed up for two weeks, and I found out I was being charged for a service I never received.

Endless Calls, No Help
Hours on the phone, constant transfers, and empty apologies. No one knew what was happening.

Second Visit – Another Day Wasted
An engineer arrived clueless, stood around for an hour pretending to be busy, then left without fixing anything.

Management Lies & No Accountability
A subcontractor (DELTEQ) randomly contacted me, and Community Fibre mistakenly told me it was a scam. Their engineer then mocked me for not having internet.

Final Visit – Another No-Show
Scheduled for March 26. Community Fibre kept changing their story—then no one showed up.

Final Verdict: Zero communication, zero accountability. AVOID Community Fibre!

Yesterday midday I had my service installed ,leaving Virgin Media. I connected all my devices, including my security system, to my new router without any issues.
Comparing the coverage and speed test around the houses( using same mobile handset) between virgin media( still running) and community fiber, I found that the virgin media service was significantly better .
Speed test:
While standing next to routers, community speed was less than half what they promised, virgin was about what I signed up for.
The community fiber struggled to load the speed test page in one of the rooms on the 1st floor and when happened it ended with 0.09 M/S download speed, while the virgin network test gave 239.9 M/S download speed.
Wifi Coverage:
Virgin service wins big time. My security cameras stopped working due to weak or no signal.
Loss of connection:
There was a drop in service in the middle of the night, I could tell from the failure of my security system.
When I called customer service on the installation day prior to arrival of the engineer, they kept chasing for good reviews and feedback and kept sending links to their trustpilot page. ONLY THE GOOD REVIEWS MATTER TO THEM.
Not sure what impacts the service and makes it the worst service ever, it could be the main line, or the equipment they use (router and optical network terminal) and I think that would be it.

Had CF now for 2yrs. Initially all great. But in the last six months totally changed.
GGNAT - Well documented, but I can work around that as needed.

Very unreliable connection, over-contented with huge speed drops outs during the day and night, packet loss and routing issues in their backhaul which tech-support cannot even understand let alone attempt to resolve for over a month.

Just don’t get me started on billing and admin. Impossible to get a straight answer from anyone, phone calls contradicted by the next person to talk to you, billing changes by 25% randomly with no-one able to resolve without escalation.

New support team and customer service team with a recommendation to "turn it off and on again in five minutes" is their stock answer to everything. Even when you send screenshots of packet loss and routing issues - just ignored.

Whilst I loved the claimed 1Gig service rarely got 300MB during the evenings. Shame used to be great.

I've had Community Fibre for a little over a year at the time of this review. I took their 3Gb package for £49 per month with a 24 month contract.

Since the first moment of interaction with Community Fibre I was left with a good impression. I had my install performed 2 days from booking by my own choice and they came right on time, in-fact they called me on the morning of the install and asked if I wanted it moved up because someone else had cancelled their morning slot and I accepted, they turned up just 10 minutes later.

The installer was able to accommodate where I wanted the cable installed as I had prepared ahead of time with a pull-cord and the area for their devices to go with enough power outlets.

The install took about 30 minutes and they did a really clean job. I was very happy with their workmanship, the fibre optic cable from the pole outside was routed and secured around the exterior of our house neatly.

I chose not to use their supplied router and instead used my own (pfSense) and I was able to get 3.3Gb/s speeds up and down straight away.

Over the past 12 months we've only experienced a few minutes of noticeable downtime and the speed has always held consistently at the advertised 3Gb/s.

I would highly recommend Community Fibre based on our experience

2024 update

I've still got Community Fibre having signed up for a second 2 year contract a few months back.

I've gathered a bit more information from my and others use of Community Fibre.

For their basic connectivity package the full marks still stand.

After a friend had considerable difficulty with a number port, personally I would avoid their phone service.

It isn't sufficiently "integrated" to make it worth taking over a freestanding UK based VoIP supplier and over time you would be financially better off to do so as you pay for a phone "adaptor" through the rental over the 2 years.

You do get an IPv6 block of addresses. How well that works for you depends on the router you have and how you set it up. I don't know how the Community Fibre supplied router does.

2022 review

The Community Fibre offering is primarily Internet. There are phone and TV add ons but the main attraction is a fast symmetric Internet connection.

This works well and from my experience the installers will position the fixed part of the system (the incoming fibre and ONT) as you ask.

As expected from a fibre service the speed tests as expected.

The pricing and offers seem to change very frequently so if you are in an area where service is available and "sitting out" an existing contract you might be wise to keep an eye on comparison sites to see what a "good" price is.

I helped a disabled mum and daughter for home broadband. About 4 months later into a 24 month contract @£26 they were relocated by Sutton Housing Partnership with a month's notice (they were categorised as top priority) to a more suitable flat with a lift; the previous flat had 4 flights of steep stairs.

Community Fibre was soon informed, and proof of relocation was requested.

I sent in 3 attachments - laptop; similarly Fiona (disabled mum) -iphone. But, Community Fibre repeatedly said they could not open attachments because they were sent from an iphone; attachments from me from a laptop could not be read either. This is after several email exchanges and phone calls.

I was charged over £526 (full) for the remaining 20 months. Now Fiona will have to reimburse me; she's on benefit and social housing.

How could Community Fibre be so uncompassionate, and showing a distinct lack of understanding? This relocation was forced upon by medical reasons.

Yours sincerely,
Len

I say don't use them because you will be making the Internet just a bit worse. Why? They utilise IPv6 but they don't let you have a single (1) (uno) IPv6 public IP address. Please google how many IPv6 addresses are available (yes they they are here because we are running out of IPv4). Yes, they are behind CGNAT so you cannot use IPv4, I thought that's fine I can just use port forwarding on IPv6, but no. I called them and messaged them to confirm. All they say is that port forwarding happens on their end, so if you want port open .. yes you guessed it, you have to pay for premium broadband deals and then let them know what you want open. They can give you a public ip if you pick the most expensive broadband deal though, so it isn't that bad right ? ;). Well if you go this route, other ISPs will join the chase, so don't support this. Go for ISP that gives you a public IPv6 and not make you pay for it. You will be unlikely to get public IPv4 for free, but if you do, that's a bonus! I'm also disappointed with the service, unfortunately these are not really technical people so its really hard to speak with anyone and have answers to your questions, i.e. one person says that IPv6 public IP is available, but another says its not.