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Choice of ISP

NugentS

Casual Member
Gigaclear recently cabled my street - so I will (late next month) be in the position to chose a new ISP and replace my existing VirginMedia 350/?? setup. I want off VM to get off their non-stop price escalator and crappy upload.

I use the VM router as a modem and have my own edgerouter X behind it acting as the NAT router.

I have two choices:
  1. Giganet. 900Mb, 450Mb Garanteed, £40.00 pcm, Prices frozen for 2022 (woohoo). 3 Months free (not really bothered)
  2. PureFibre. 1Gb, 500Mb Average upload and Download. £36 pcm (will remain £36.00 for as long as I remain a paid up customer apparently)
Technically.

Giganet - Technicolour Router (I did write down the model -but can't find it now) which should work with my existing setup (I need to be able to enter a route into the routers routing table, and multiple (ideally 3) ethernet ports plus external port)
£1.00 pcm for fixed IP
The price freeze "We never increase your price in-contract" - but it appears that the contract is a one month rolling contract - so that looks like weasel words

Purefibre. Some strange wireless only router (which I don't want as its useless to me, can't enter a route and don't want wireless anyway)
£5.00 pcm for fixed IP
Will need to replace what they jokingly call a router with my own device. I don't have an issue doing this but am wondering what is suitable and what it requires to be able to interface with the PureFibre/Gigaclear NTE/UMT/Whatever. I am considering a Ubiquiti ER-4 or ER-12 (if I want to go overboard, and assuming I can get them, and assuming they are technically suitable).
When I asked PureFibre they said "
We have checked our system and found that our routers do not have a routing capability. Whilst you can use your own devices, they would need to be VLAN enabled and we would only be able to offer limited technical support for devices not supplied by ourselves."

On the surface of it - Giganet seems a much easier solution - its plug and play. I just don't like the words of the price freeze AND I really like the idea of the never increasing PureFibre price (allegedly). I also don't mind using my own router

So - on to questions.
1. If I was to go down the PureFibre route - I will have to replace the router (my current ER-X doesn't have the guts, but from what I can see it does have VLAN capability on the external port - so I am assuming that the ER-4 or -12 would also work). But is there something simpler / easier / better I could / should use? Anyone got any reccomendations for something that won't choke on a 1Gb duplex load?

2. Price wise they are much of a muchness, in fact the same price (baring special offers) if I include a fixed IP - which I don't really need, but would be useful at times.

3. Any other thoughts - I am looking for advice and comments, perhaps from people who already have one or other of the services. What have I not considered / looked at / asked about?
 
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I was slightly confused by your post, since you say that Gigaclear has cabled your street but then go on to mention that Giganet and PureFibre are your two ISP choices? They use different networks. Router specific questions are also a minefield to answer due to the fact that ISPs may restrict your choice of device, although Giganet are usually more flexible.
 
So 63 Views and no response - doesn't anyone here use PureFibre of Giganet?
…errr. Is it either

Gigaclear:

or

Giganet
on either CityFibre or Openreach networks?

Purefibre are very niche, although I think they’re on the CityFibre network in some limited places. Did they confirm they can serve your property?
 
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Sorry - I got confused with my parents connection.

CityFibre put the fibre down - at least that was what the hi-viz on the workers was saying although one did have high-viz saying Virgin Media - apparently he used to work for them. I did ask

Giganet are supplying service as is PureFibre. I haven't found anyone else that is using this new fibre yet. Both say that they should be able to take orders end of June

I was amused by the email from PureFibre support
 
Sorry - I got confused with my parents connection.

CityFibre put the fibre down - at least that was what the hi-viz on the workers was saying although one did have high-viz saying Virgin Media - apparently he used to work for them. I did ask

Giganet are supplying service as is PureFibre. I haven't found anyone else that is using this new fibre yet. Both say that they should be able to take orders end of June

I was amused by the email from PureFibre support
Any particular reason you're restricting the choice (or narrowed down the search) to these two providers?
 
Cos I cannot find any other provider that is using the cityfibre network here. I only spotted PureFibre in another article.
None of the others I have checked are offering anything other than DSL of some kind.

If any other company is using this - then they are being very quiet about it

OR, assuming that other companies start to appear out of the woodwork. Are there any companies I should avoid for:
Non UK based support
Really bad contention
Crappy Routers (AKA Pure Fibre)
 
Last edited:
Perhaps give it a few more weeks once the network is ready for service, then once various providers checkers and databases are progressively updated, you may find that there is a much wider choice of providers to choose from.
 
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Thats true.
I shall keep an eye out for possible providers.

Still, can anyone reccomend a wired router that I could use, other than the ER-4 or ER-12 from Ubiquiti
 
Your post is rather confusing, Giagclear and CityFibre are two separate infrastructures.

If it is CityFibre might be worth checking their website, pop in your postcode and they list all the providers that are live in said area.

> https://cityfibre.com/availability
 
Its an email I shall be keeping for posterity
I have found some more suppliers - but giganet are coming out ahead so far.
 
So. I ordered from Giganet who turned up two weeks ago, looked at where the Toby was and where my house was and went away again.
They then turned up today and I have 900/900 Mb Internet (in theory)

However putting a route into their router has proved challenging
adding a route to 192.168.38.0/24 via 192.168.49.10 as I run an Non NAT FW behind the ISP router is proving difficult. The router rejects the route saying you can't use the network address.......

I am planning on not using their router / relacing it with my own - but my own is at least a week away on a slow boat from China and I will need to test it carefully first.

Oh, and this heat.........

Router is a Technicolor DGA4134NLK
 
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Managed to add a route into the commandline as part of the ISP diagnostics so it all loked good except that now I cannot add port forwarding to the remote subnet. Again looks like a GUI bug
 
@NugentS Can you send some traceroutes please maybe to fastly.com & 1.1.1.1?
Knowing what CityFibre location you're in with the above would be useful too if you don't mind.

There's not too many detailed reviews that provide some sort of insight on latency etc so that's why I ask, thanks.
 
Physical Location - Slough, Berkshire

Tracing route to fastly.com [151.101.1.57]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms xxx.xxxxxxxxxx.xxx [192.168.38.15]
2 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.49.1
3 3 ms 3 ms 3 ms lns.ld8.m12.net.uk [37.48.224.15]
4 3 ms 4 ms 4 ms ge-1-0-1-10.core.ld8.m12.net.uk [37.48.224.87]
5 8 ms 4 ms 3 ms 185.84.16.213
6 3 ms 3 ms 4 ms 212.119.4.121
7 4 ms 3 ms 3 ms 151.101.1.57

Trace complete.
-------------------------------------------------------

Tracing route to one.one.one.one [1.1.1.1]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms xxx.xxxxxxxx.xxx [192.168.38.15]
2 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.49.1
3 4 ms 3 ms 3 ms lns.ld8.m12.net.uk [37.48.224.15]
4 3 ms 3 ms 3 ms ge-1-0-1-10.core.ld8.m12.net.uk [37.48.224.87]
5 4 ms 3 ms 3 ms xe-0-1-2-0.core.thn.m12.net.uk [37.48.224.183]
6 5 ms 4 ms 4 ms lonap.as13335.net [5.57.81.75]
7 4 ms 4 ms 4 ms 141.101.71.2
8 4 ms 4 ms 4 ms one.one.one.one [1.1.1.1]

Trace complete.
 
Hello, didn't want to open a new thread, but probably I will if needed, wanted to ask about using your own router with Giganet- like the Netgear Orbi for the wi-fi mesh. Is it hard to configure?
 
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