What follows is a timeline of correspondence between Gigaclear and myself over the course of more than a year about getting GigaClear Fibre installed / setup on Greyhill Farm.
Right now we use a combination of PlusNet Broadband and a 4G modem. At best we get around 2mbps down and 0.5mbps up (at best).
Some time around the beginning of 2019, I was away for work, but my wife messaged me to tell me that they were digging along our drive on Grayhill farm and installing fibre, as well as putting in fibre pots outside of each of the houses down here. I got pretty excited because our internet has been pretty bad, and really has been the only major issue we've had with living down here in the boonies.
I had called GigaClear previously about what it would cost to get fibre installed to our house and they basically said if we wanted it we would have to pay for the line to be run from the road to our house at the end ourselves. They figured it would be well over £2500 to do it, so we opted to just carry on using our 3G internet connection and PlusNet broadband. So I was super surprised when my wife texted me that they were running lines.
In between a few of the exchanges below I had phone calls with them, but most of these were in line with the email responses below. Right now we're paying about £40/mo for plusnet broadband that's < 2mbps down, and around £60-70/mo fro a vodafone 4G modem and unlimited data SIM plan because they both are intermittently unusable some times. For instance yesterday in the rains my vodafone internet didn't work at all.
Below is over a year of cat and mouse, non-answers and just plain being ignored by GigaClear. I'm pretty sure whoever ultimately paid for the lines to be pushed to the houses down here wouldn't be particularly happy at the fact that they paid for this...
Before any of this
Dear Jeff,
**Say hello to ultrafast living**
We are delighted to confirm that Gigaclear ultrafast broadband is now live in your community. Thank you for bearing with us as we made your location one of the best connected in the country.
Full fibre broadband gives you the freedom to watch, stream, work and share whenever you want to – even if the whole household is online. With uninterrupted download and upload speeds of up to 1Gbps (1000Mbps) there’s no buffering and no bickering over whose device is using all the data.
**Placing an order is simple**
Just head over to **gigaclear.com**, input your postcode, select your package and we’ll get you set up on the UK’s fastest broadband* from the UK’s best rural broadband provider**.
Alternatively, if you would like more information on our service options you can book an appointment with one of our broadband specialists, by simply calling **01865 591151** or emailing **sales@gigaclear.com**.
We look forward to welcoming you to our network.
Best regards,
The Gigaclear Team
^ This turned out to not be the case and we couldn't sign up.
Just after the lines had been installed to our houses.
Early February I was back from my trip, I put in a call to GigaClear to see if I could find out when I could connect to the fibre and set up an account. The person was super nice, and took my email address and was going to check to see with their network build team when things would start getting set up.
I arrived back from the aforementioned work trip, and rang GigaClear to see when we would potentially get connected.
Dear Mr Uren,
I have investigated the situation for you. This is currently sat with our specialised team rather than the initial build team due to the complexity of the issue. However, the news is good as I understand they have been on location this week attempting to find a solution.
The latest update is they are awaiting the delivery of the CDC (a small cabinet) before they can book in our contractors to return and bring everything up to a level where it is ready for service.
Unfortunately I do not have an exact timescales for this but the fact it is being looked at and only awaiting this cabinet and then some work by the contractors is extremely positive that a resolution is in sight.
If I hear more regarding this and estimations for service I will be sure to let you know,
Kind Regards,
That's great! Thanks for letting me know <redacted>, wasn't expecting a reply so quickly.
We've been living with about ~0.5down and ~0.25up for about three years now and I work from home in outbreak management and disease surveillance for the UN so you can imagine what that's been like.... we're so far down from the nearest cabinet on old copper lines that PlusNet basically told us to bugger off if we wanted faster speeds. So we're pretty excited to be able to have even slightly faster internet, especially since Gigaclear about 7-8 months ago told us if we wanted it we would have to pay around £3000 out of our own pockets to have the lines run to our house... my wife was so excited when she saw the engineers installing the lines that she called me all the way over in Syria to tell me they were laying lines!
- Jeff
Hi <redacted>,
Do you know if there’s been any progress on the below? We haven’t heard anything about whether it’s been resolved and the gigaclear web site says we’re still in network build stage...
Jeff
Good Morning Mr Uren,
I have spoken to the delivery manager working on this project and asked for an update. He has advised the delivery for this cabinet should be inside the next few weeks (roughly mid-April) and then he has to pencil in the job with the contractors to get it placed and active so it might be a few weeks after the delivery date until all of this is completed.
Thank you for your continuing patience while this is done and please rest assured the situation is in hand and the team are working hard to rectify this asap for you.
Kind Regards,
Several months later
Hey <redacted>,
So it's July now.... kind of getting a bit crazy how long it's taken to get a connection set up out here. Especially considering the connection points are sitting there right outside the house... I mean even if the cabinet was being delivered back in April, that's 2+ months that the delivery team has had to get it installed and set up...
- Jeff
At this point the original person I was talking to switched to someone new
Good afternoon,
Thank you for your email.
Please may you provide your full address details and we can look into this for you?
Thank you
Hi <redacted>,
The address is:
The Cider House, Greyhill Farm
Lower Apperley
Gloucestershire, GL19 4DY
And just to give a recap. About 4-5 months ago, lines were put in up to the houses here on Greyhill farm. We have connection points outside of the individual houses (there are multiple down here). After a few weeks of not hearing anything about whether the connection was being set up and when we could potentially get connected up (our broadband is so bad we have to use 3G/4G modems here) <redacted> informed me there was a fault and they couldn't hook it up until a new cabinet was ordered and installed. His estimate for the cabinets delivery was mid-April, and that finalisation of the build would be in the following weeks. Obviously this has not happened as of yet so it's been 2+ months since the cabinet was supposedly going to be delivered and over 5 months I believe since the lines were actually run up to the houses.
Hopefully that all makes sense, we haven't even signed up yet for the service to be honest, i've just been trying to find out when we can actually sign up and potentially get the service...
- Jeff
This is where they started talking about having issues running lines to the property, but they had already run lines from the main road up to our houses and installed the fibre pots
Good Morning Jeff,
Thank you for your reply.
I have looked into the matter for you and unfortunately during the initial build of our network we were unable to complete the planned route for our network to your property.
This is usually due to unforeseen circumstances such as structural challenges and land ownership. This means that the fibre and connection to your property has therefore been stumped.
We have a dedicated team that will investigate, negotiate or plan alternative options in order to connect you.
We are unable to provide an exact time scale of when this will be resolved but, please be assured that this team are working through of the all network builds to ensure each and every property with one of our connection pots, is connected as promptly as possible.
I appreciate this may not be the answer you were hoping for and I do apologise for the inconvenience and frustration caused to you.
Kind Regards,
Hi <redacted>,
It's ok, i'm not upset or anything like that! Just was curious on whether there was a timeline for things to get finished or not. We can plod along until we either move or some resolution for the connection comes down the line.
To be honest I'd forgot about it until a neighbour asked me what we do for internet. So we're not chomping at the bit or anything like that, so thank you for taking time to look into it!
- Jeff
Good Morning Jeff,
Thank you for your response.
We will endeavour to get your connected as soon as we are able to. We appreciate your understanding in relation to our build and thank you for your patience.
If you require any another assistance then please do not hesitate to contact us.
Kind Regards,
I realized at this point that what they were saying was they couldn't run lines when they already had. Decided to try a different tact...
Hello,
I'm emailing to find out if there has been any movement on the issues below as of yet. We're waiting in limbo here as we are currently stuck with 3g modem internet and have been holding off purchasing satellite internet for almost a year now in case gigaclear figures out our connection and gets it working. We need a concrete timeline (if there is one) and a clear answer as to whether the fibre installation is going to be completed or not so that we can arrange for alternative connections.
At this point we have fibre lines run all the way from the road (where the main lines are) directly up to our houses, as far as I am aware there shouldn't be any land access / permission issues as the lines are already run through to the houses. The only concrete details we've received so far are that a cabinet needs to be installed in order for the lines to work and that our lines are currently "stumped" with no concrete timeline or information about when these things will be resolved.
I am starting to feel a bit as though we are getting the run-around, especially considering I can go across the road and fibre is available. Crews laid lines at the end of our driveway as we were told the pot was there and we watched the crews dig the road and lay the fibre right across the end of our driveway. We also watched the crew run the lines all the way from the road right up to the connection points outside of our houses. The only thing missing here is the elusive cabinet that was supposed to have been resolved around 5 months ago. All that together makes this all sound pretty silly to be honest and like no one is really working to resolve anything.
I need a concrete answer whether this will be completed so that I can decide how to help these people down here get a better connection and save a bit of money, if you can please let me know if the build for our area will be completed in any kind of a reasonable timeline it would be greatly appreciated as at this point I feel we've been overlooked and that a resolution to this isn't coming any time soon.
Regards,
Jeff Uren
Good Afternoon Mr Uren,
Thank you for your email.
I appreciate your frustrations and I can only apologise for the delays in getting you connected.
I have contacted our delivery team and contractors to see if there is anything we can do to get you connected as soon as possible. Once they come back to me I will hopefully be able to advise you further. I will work to try and get you connected with our services and I do appreciate your patience.
Once I have a response I should be able to provide you with a suggested time scale to get you connected.
I will be in contact shortly.
Kind Regards,
Several months later...
Hi <redacted>,
It's been a month since this last response.
- Jeff
Good Morning Mr Uren,
Thank you for your email.
I have chased our delivery team again in relation to this matter. As soon as they come back to me with further information I will update you accordingly.
I do apologise for the inconvenience being caused.
Kind Regards,
Several months later...
Hey there, it's been another 3 months since this last email and still no insight into when this will get completed?
- Jeff
Good Morning Mr Uren,
Thank you for your email.
Please be assured that our team have still been working on your case.
At this point we are working to obtain a quote from our contracting team, Complete Utilities for the work we require to be completed. We are hoping to receive this by next week. Once this quote is approved internally we can then begin to arrange for the work to take place meaning that we are working towards having you connected.
As and when I receive more updates about your connection I will keep you informed.
I hope this information finds you well.
A month later...
Any movement on this? It's been another month...
- Jeff