Giganet Home Frequently Asked Questions - FAQs

Giganet Home is a new name in home broadband. We're a small family-run business that only provides the very best full fibre broadband services. We don't touch those often slow & unreliable BT copper ADSL/FTTC/G.Fast or Virgin coax cables. Our business has actually been around for 17 years (2003), and our internet brand Giganet has been providing high-end business broadband and leased lines since 2016. We previously co-founded a rural wireless broadband company called Wessex Internet which had over 2,000 home broadband customers when we sold it in 2018. So we're very experienced in being a broadband provider, and our approach to customers comes from this pedigree of providing business-grade levels of service.

 

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 services include 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. 

Compared to Virgin Media's DOCSIS (coax copper) cables, our full fibre broadband doesn't suffer from the same slow-down and inconsistent performance that Virgin Media connections often experience.

We do not sell any home copper broadband or 'fake fibre' services, so there's no fear of selecting an inferior package with us. Our full fibre services offer ultrafast speeds (greater than 100Mb/s), are super reliable, and ultimately future-proofed for years to come.

 

2. How does Giganet compare to other providers?

Giganet comes to the market with our business-to-business pedigree of providing high-end services to small and medium sized businesses. As broadband becomes the fourth utility, and our reliance of great, reliable and fast broadband is a must, we believe that there are many consumers who want to work with an organisation that offers something more than the large monolithic broadband giants who just can't provide.

• Full fibre, not 'fake fibre': Unlike Virgin, TalkTalk and Sky, our full fibre services use fibre optic cables to your home, unlike most of their services which use slow & old copper cables.
• Shorter-contract term: Most of our services come on a short 12 month minimum contract. This is the minimum our suppliers tie us into, and we don't believe that we should tie customers in for anything longer than we have to. 
• Faster: We're offering a faster ultrafast full fibre service than BT and Zen, and for less money.
• No price rises at the end of your contract: 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 never go up. 

 

3. But I already have 'Fibre' broadband.

Look closely, and you'll probably discover that your broadband router is connected to your copper telephone line socket, or the cable connecting to your Virgin Media router resembles a coax copper cable. 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 advertising "fibre broadband" are not providing full fibre broadband. They are instead referring to the so-called ‘fake fibre’ service which include Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC/VDSL) or G.Fast, or in the case of Virgin Media, coax cable. These broadband services use a copper cable to provide the broadband into your home - and not a fibre optic cable. Even Virgin Media largely uses a coax copper cable similar to the one your TV aerial uses. 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.

With Giganet, we're using a fibre optic cable from the exchange, all the way inside your home. There are no fibre-copper conversion cabinets. 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. 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.

5. 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 01/02 area code number.

So Giganet are making available two types of services:

• Mobile Landline: migrate your 01/02 area code 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.
• Giganet Voice: migrate your 01/02 area code 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're finishing the final touches to our phone services in July 2020, and we hope to have these available to order by the end of July.

6. What's the lead time for installation?

The standard lead line for full fibre broadband is 10 working days, however COVID-19 has caused challenges with engineering appointment slots such that the lead time can be much longer. 

If you select ASAP on your order with us, we'll select the first available installation date available.

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 with the impact COVID is having on engineering resources.

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

We will provide your committed installation date approximately 2 working days after your order.

7. 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.

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.

 

 

8. Who are Giganet?

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 in Whiteley, Hampshire, where (pre-COVID) all our sales, customer services, accounts, support teams reside. We're now all mostly working from home.

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.

In March 2020, Giganet started accepting our first residential broadband orders from all over the country. 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.

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