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Gigler launches Gigabit fibre service in Bournemouth
Thursday 04 October 2012 10:27:15 by Andrew Ferguson

Bournemouth has had a full fibre network in place for sometime, and today another retail provider launches on the network. Gigler are offering Gigabit downloads and 500 Mbps uploads in three packages, and taking a leaf out of the Google Fibre project manual they also offer a Fibre Connect service which for a one-off fee of £250 will get you a basic 5 Mbps service for a three year period.

The three main Gigabit packages, are an 80GB monthly allowance for £25 per month, 250GB for £35 and unlimited is £50 per month. On all three packages there is a £50 install charge, which includes a Gigabit router and the fibre termination unit.

The service is available to 21,000 homes in the Bournemouth area, which is the footprint of the homes passed by the CityFibre service that has seen various ups and downs in the years since its inception. Installation is straight forward for those properties already wired with the CityFibre service, this is confirmed and checked by a site survey at which point the provisional install date will be confirmed, if the fibre is not working or needs to be got the last few metres from the pavement to your property a revised activation date will be issued.

Gigler is not the only provider on the CityFibre network, FibreBand are another and they still have a 60 day free trial promotion running for the first 250 connections since November 2011.

CityFibre is also working on a metro fibre ring in York, with the promise of bringing full fibre to the home to 1 million homes as part of a £500m investment programme.

[ Topic: Broadband | 23 comments | link to this item ]

Comments

Posted by Eljmayes 8 months ago
Is the 5Mps service unlimited?

Posted by spinneybel 8 months ago
What happened to the Fibre via sewage pipes? Did that plan go all to sh%t. Pardon the pun

Posted by Spectre_01 8 months ago
Brown fibre?

Posted by andrew ( staff member) 8 months ago
@spinneybel when the water company said no, yes it went down the drain.

Micro-trenching then took over in Bournemouth at least, then various financing issues, from which CityFibre arose to carry on.

Posted by hope4thefuture 8 months ago
Fantistic about time a company with a vision. The UK is so far behind in their thinking. I think we are even behind poland in fibre to the home. This is like google thinking. I bet thats why they used gigle. I note their references to pre-registration. I bet they are thinking about copying google and a pre-registration process. Imagine having a gigabit at the home.

Posted by bgbgx 8 months ago
Are Gigler and Fibreband the same company? They appear to have the same general manager.

Hopefully the network does well and makes some money, other companies may then be prepared to invest.

Posted by c_j_ 8 months ago
The public info on LinkedIn shows A**m T****n as GM at Gigler Ltd and also as GM (Gigler) at CityFibre Holdings (both since Aug 2012) and MD at Monster WiFi (also in Bournemouth) since April 2011. Other readily findable articles refer to his role(s?) at FibreBand.

Is it me, or is it all very confusing?

Companies House shows Gigler and CityFibre Holdings have the same registered address, and shows Gigler Ltd as dormant (which has presumably changed).

New ISP, or exercise in badge engineering?

Posted by KarlAustin 8 months ago
Probably a case of, "if we make it look like there are two companies using the network then people are more likely to signup as it doesn't look like a dying one trick pony".

Posted by hope4thefuture 8 months ago
No I think it a case of CityFibre is the infrastructure company and Gigler is the retail arm. Its a smart play. They can get additional investment or partners at the retail level and City Fibre can concentrate on building fibre.The basic facts are evident however, this is best example of the future in the entire UK. FTTC is old world, slow and under delivers in every instance. I like the thinking here.

Posted by hope4thefuture 8 months ago
Also, it is possible that Gigler could operate on other FTTH networks. So if this is what Cityfibre did then they are smarter than I thought. Again, lets hope they succeed, if they delivered this across the mid tier cites in the UK we as a society would be way better off. Just think of the business market getting a hold of Gig services at anything close to these prices.

Posted by hope4thefuture 8 months ago
You know I was also thinking about the connect the home product - if that is true then it is the best value in the UK. It will also increase the value of my home.

Posted by c_j_ 8 months ago
"I like the thinking here."

Lots of people like(d) the thinking. It's the practicalities, the economics, that have been, and probably still are, a problem. Some people pointed out on day 1 that the numbers seemed unlikely to add up. Some of the other goings on round here haven't been encouraging either. A promise is worthless until it is delivered.

You registered specially to make these comments here, now, did you?

Posted by NetGuy 8 months ago
@hope4thefuture - yes, certainly true some buyers checking broadband speed and have seen such info (or link to speedtester) on property web sites.

However, have you actually seen that 'home connect' deal on the website? Think only TBB mentions it but could not see it myself (then again, I didn't enter a local postcode when on site).

Posted by hope4thefuture 8 months ago
NetGuy - yes it was on the site, on the main page at the bottom. However, I could not find it today. I think it was modelled after the google fibre project in Kansa City. They have a similar program - the idea is to get people connected to fibre. Then increase the speeds later, I think.

Posted by hope4thefuture 8 months ago
C_j - not sure I understand about a promise. It is being offered to 20,000 homes right now...given that its a all fibre network, already installed, it is obviously deliverable - gigabit speeds are easy on all fibre. The issue is where else they will build and how to get it financed. Reggie fibre has built well over 1 million homes in the netherlands. So if it can done there it can be done here.

Posted by herdwick 8 months ago
Comedy ISP - caveat emptor

Posted by andrew ( staff member) 7 months ago
@hope4thefuture York is next, apparently £500m of funding and talk of 1 million homes connected.

Posted by VSubscriber 7 months ago
They will be up against some pretty stiff competition with Virgin rolling out 100mb and BT with their Infinity enabling then to offer complete packages for less than Giglers Broadband only package? And their not going to be able to run the company on only the subscriptions of a few hardcore downloaders?

Posted by New_Londoner 7 months ago
Quote "gigabit speeds are easy on all fibre"
Fine, but what about the backhaul? It's the end-to-end throughput that drives the customer experience, not the 1Gbps on the link to the head end.

And as for the common management of the companies, it makes the announcement look, at the least, misleading. Hardly ideal given the many false starts on this project to date.

Posted by hope4thefuture 7 months ago
been reading about FTTH around the the world. Seems obvious. FTTH is real and beats cable and FTTC every time. Backhaul is cheap. It is less than you think. It is certainly less that a £1 or £2 per user.

Dont know about false starts all I know is that it is being offered and that they are way ahead of the rest. Gosh I hope they succeed. It is about time that someone and some company has vision. Makes me feel good. Sky and TalkTalk are just reselling BT. That has got to be a losing proposition long term.

Posted by VSubscriber 7 months ago
I fear, as it stands this will fail. They are limited to a customer base of only 21,000 which already have access to reliable fast unlimited broadband through cable, I could never fathom why the project was started in a cable area in the first place? I understand they offer greater speeds but aside from that they offer nothing else and its more expensive too.

I can see the company going bust or dramatically slashing their prices in the next 12mths, the former is more likely as by the time they realise their too expensive it will probably be too late.

Posted by PidgeonOne 7 months ago
I've boon doing a fair bit of research into this lately, including reading all the comment above.

I've decided to go for it. I currently pay for two landlines (home & business), two call packages and one broadband package. Replacing all that with this and a couple of VoIP subscriptions will actually work out cheaper.

I've always been wary of VoIP because I know how temperamental my BT (or re-sold versions of BT) broadband can be, but if this as reliable as they promise I've saved myself a few quid a month and increased my average download speed x 220.

I hope I won't regret this...

Posted by PidgeonOne 6 months ago
All up and running and I absolutely love it. I'm averaging download speeds of around 30mb over WiFi with up to 5 devices connected at any one time. I have one of my VoIP lines working via a soft phone app on my smartphone and the quality's crystal clear. I'm just waiting for the hardware to get the other line in.

All that, and it's costing me less than I was paying before. Brilliant.