Salisbury Frequently Asked Questions - FAQs

If you live in Salisbury and are after the very best broadband connection, at the lowest prices, and with amazing customer service from a local provider, you've come to the right place. 

We appreciate this can all sound a bit too good to be true, but to back up our claims, please read our FAQs below to understand more about us, what we're offering in Salisbury, how we compare, how we're able to offer this, and our track record.

We're working in conjunction with Openreach who have recently completed the full fibre rollout of the city. We've directly tapped into this new network by installed our equipment in the Salisbury exchange, which means we reduce the supply-chain, we have direct access to the fibre infrastructure, offer lower prices and better customer service. Currently Giganet offers the lowest prices for every one of our home packages, compared to the same services from our competitors. 

 

1. What broadband services do you offer?

The very best “full fibre” broadband 

Giganet only offer the very best in broadband technology - full fibre. This is not like the so-called 'fake fibre' that BT, Virgin, Sky and other providers advertise, where they predominantly still use a copper cable to your home. Our full fibre is a fibre optic cable that runs straight into your home. This means that your broadband speed doesn't slow down the longer the cable (like the copper cables do). Full fibre offers greater reliability, as there are no electrical signals. Copper signals with their electrical signals can be severely impacted with water-ingress if the copper joints along the route are not water tight (often they are not), and also there can be lots of interference with your neighbours copper lines, something called cross talk interference.

We do not sell any copper or 'fake fibre' services to home customers, so there's no fear of selecting the wrong package with us. Our full fibre services are ultrafast, super reliable and future-proofed for years to come.

Salisbury Packages 

Name	Download Speed	Upload Speed	Monthly Charge
Full Fibre 200	200Mb/s	30Mb/s	£35
Full Fibre 500	500Mb/s	70Mb/s	£45
Full Fibre 1000	900Mb/s	100Mb/s	£49

 

Contract Term	12 / 24 month options
Activation Charge	£9.95 (24m contract) £55 (12m contract)
Free Wi-Fi 5 Router	Yes
Price guarantee*	Yes
Minimum speed guarantee	Yes

 *Your out of contract price will not increase after the 12 month minimum term.

 

2. How does Giganet compare to other providers?

• Faster: We're offering a faster ultrafast full fibre service than BT and Zen, and for less money.
• Full fibre, not 'fake fibre': Unlike Virgin, TalkTalk and Sky, our full fibre services use fibre optic cables to your home, unlike their copper cables.
• Shorter-contract term: As well as standard 24 month term, we also offer a short 12 month minimum contract with a slightly increased set up charge.
• No price rises: Unlike most other providers, including Virgin, Sky and BT, our prices do not rise, either during your contract or at the end of it. Our price promise gives you peace of mind that your costs will not be automatically hiked.

 

3. But Sky and TalkTalk offer 'Fibre' broadband for much cheaper.

Look closely, and you'll see that other providers are actually selling copper broadband using FTTC technology. This is inferior to the full fibre services we're offering.

It's confusing and especially difficult to trust what others are advertising, but many providers offering services in Salisbury are not advertising full fibre broadband. They are instead referring to the so-called ‘fake fibre’ service which include Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC), or in the case of Virgin Media, coax cable.

These broadband services use a copper cable into your home - and not a fibre optic cable. Even Virgin Media doesn't use fibre to the home, they rely on a coax copper cable similar to what TV cables use. All these providers claim their services are ‘fibre’. But the only fibre in their service is the fibre cable that feeds a cabinet in the street and from the exchange to the wider internet, but they all mostly rely on a slow old copper wire from a cabinet in the street to your home. This is where most of the slowdowns/problems arise.

With Giganet, we're using a fibre optic cable from the exchange, all the way to your front door. There are no cabinets, and no conversions in the street from fibre to copper. It’s full fibre all the way.

Where you compare Giganet to other providers, be sure to look for their "Full Fibre" or FTTP (Fibre to the Premise) packages. Then you'll be comparing like-with-like.

 

4. Are you offering the lowest priced full fibre broadband in Salisbury?

Yes, we are.

We're able to offer this because we're directly connecting our network to the new full fibre network in the Salisbury exchange. So we're reducing the supply chain and middlemen providers that often get in the way with broadband supply.

We've also signed up to a special local marketing pricing with Openreach, so we're passing these savings onto our customers.

 

5. What is included with your broadband packages?

We offer full fibre broadband installation and rental, with a bundled free Wi-Fi router. This is everything that you need to get started. The Wi-Fi router we include is pre-configured, so all you need to do is connect it up (something the engineer can help with), and then connect your devices, either wired or over Wi-Fi. You don't need to be a tech whiz to get started, and our team are standing by on the phone, email or social media if you have any questions.

The router we're bundling is a high-end WiFi 5 router, with 7 antennas, which should offer great performance and coverage in average sized homes.

 

6. What about my phone line and number, can I keep this with Giganet?

Giganet's services are data-only, however we know that some customers wish to retain their local 01722 number and keep broadband & phone with the same provider.

So Giganet offer two types of phone service:

• Virtual Landline: migrate your 01722 number to Giganet, and we'll divert calls to your mobile. Ideal for those that want to keep their number, but mainly use their mobile.
  
  
• Home Phone: migrate your 01722 number to Giganet, and connect your home phone to the phone port on the router, then use your home phone line as normal to make and receive calls. The calls will go over the new full fibre broadband connection.

We offer a range of inclusive minute bundles for each plan type, and our call rates are very competitive compared to the larger providers. Details can be viewed on our website here.

Currently only new customers can order these services, and existing customers will be able to order the add-on service from September. 

FAQs about our phone services can be viewed here.

 

7. What's the lead time for installation?

Installing a full fibre connection can be complex, as this requires engineers to install brand new fibre optic cabling to your home. The process for this can be straight forward in some cases where your cable is running overhead from a nearby pole or underground is a good condition duct, but can be complex and protracted if there are any other challenges.

The minimum lead time for full fibre broadband is 11 working days, however depending on the category of your order, this can be significantly longer.

Please see our lead time article for further details.

When you come to place your order, if you select "earliest possible" installation date, we'll select the first available installation date available. You will not get a faster install with another provider using Openreach infrastructure.

If you specify a specific date, we'll do our best to target this date for the installation, but sometimes this may not be possible due to the complexities of installing your connection, and COVID is having on engineering resources.

All broadband providers are working to the same set of challenges.

If your order category is 1 Stage, then typically we can confirm your installation and activation date within 3 working days of your order.

 

8. How is the full fibre service installed?

Giganet's full fibre broadband needs a brand new fibre optic cable running to your home.

Your current copper landline connects to your home either overhead or underground. The new fibre optic cable will usually follow the same path as your old copper telephone wire. So if your copper landline comes in overhead, then the new fibre cable will come overhead from the same pole.

 

Customer Splice Point - CSP

Once the new fibre optic cable is installed to your home, it will then connect to a CSP - or Customer Splice Point. This is where the external fibre cable routing from the telegraph pole or underground joint, is connected to the indoor fibre cable that then runs through your wall and to where the service will be terminated. 

Due to COVID-19 and social distancing guidelines, engineers are installing the indoor termination location as close to the external point as possible, so usually they will fit the indoor equipment the other side of the wall. This means any special requests for indoor cabling or more complex works are not possible right now. This will be the same for all broadband providers.

The below image shows a CSP for an underground routed fibre cable. The fibre cable from the underground joint runs up the bottom left grey trunking into the square grey box. If your fibre is running overhead, the fibre cable will run down the side of your home, and into the bottom of this box.

In here, the fibre is cut and spliced into the indoor cable. You can see the black fibre cable running out of the grey box and up and into the small circular caping protector where the cable runs off indoors.

 

Optical Network Terminator - ONT

Once the fibre is installed indoors, it's connected to the Optical Network Terminator (ONT) box. This is an Openreach provided box that required a 13A mains socket for power. In Salisbury, most of the network is provided by NOKIA, and therefore the ONT will look like the one below.

 

 

9. Who are Giganet and what's your track record?

Giganet is the broadband trading name of business telecoms provider M 12 Solutions Limited. M12 have been trading since 2003 and have a superb reputation for telecoms and Internet solutions and fantastic customer service.

Giganet's offices are based just over 30mi away in Whiteley, Hampshire. All our sales, customer services, accounts, support teams work from this location. We're now 50% working from home but we have all the tech including secure access to our usual phone lines/messaging channels and systems to work as normal.

The team behind Giganet co-founded another local broadband provider called Wessex Internet in 2012. In 2018, we sold our stake in Wessex Internet to focus on our new broadband company Giganet. Initially, Giganet provided business broadband and leased line services across the UK. Early on in 2018, we installed our own network equipment in Basingstoke, Salisbury and Winchester exchanges to provide services more directly to our local communities.

In March 2020, Giganet started accepting our first home broadband orders from all over the country, with a big focus on Salisbury due to Openreach full fibre announcements in 2019. We pride ourselves on offering the very best full fibre broadband services, supported by the very best customer service. If you have any more questions, please get in touch.

 

10. Reviews

Check out our 5* Trustpilot reviews.