Broadband Internet & ISP Recommendations?

Giganet wanting 500 quid a month for 1GB up/down here in Devon.
As much as I hate Virgin for their £67 for 250mb...

@MCamb @tramp please do send your referrals, I’m rallying my neighbours to sign up also.

What’s the exact model of Linksys router you were given?

https://communityfibre.co.uk/friends?referral=nbwg0_9iuv

There ya go :-)

What’s the exact model of Linksys router you were given?

I’m not 100% but will have a look when I get home!

Thanks. How’s the service in general?

For me it’s been rock solid for over a year. I wfh and am constantly downloading / uploading pretty large files. Haven’t had any dropouts. We were on virgin media before and there’s no comparison.

Customer service were helpful at the beginning but haven’t really had to deal with them since then

https://communityfibre.co.uk/friends?referral=Be3JFNYqBx

Here is mine - let me know if you need my email.

And I upgraded with them to 1gbps because it was a cheaper deal at end of contract and they sent me this router Havent actually set it up yet as still getting about 500/300 on the old router.

Only issue we had was when BT accidentally cut through the community fibre cable when installing their fibre.

Thanks, getting mine installed on the 5th, so glad to have ditched Virgin after 7 years of total monopoly on our street.

I've got community fibre too, I was an early adopter in our area, and I've had 10 referrals from recommending it on my local Facebook group.

New TV, Philips hue lighting etc etc. Living the Bezos / Community Fibre / doubleodavey dream

Had Community Fibre installed this morning, getting the full ~930Mb up and down via Ethernet, low latency as to be expected, the tri-band Velop router is decent (getting ~850Mb/s via WiFi on an M1 Max MacBook Pro), and the installers put the wall box and overhead cable exactly where I asked (nicely).

Anyone want my referral code lol?

930Mb

*weeps in buffering jitter*

I was downloading some work stuff at ~6MB/s (note capital B) yesterday. Still stuck on FTTC for the moment.

FTTP is perpetually "coming soon"...thanks OpenReach.

Can't really complain though. 60Mbps is good enough 99.99% of the time. It's just the occasional times (once a month?) I need to download ~20GB for work and it means it takes an hour instead of a minute. Plus it's boat loads better than the ~5Mbps I used to get a few years ago prior to FTTC.

(I should really sort out that network cable to sneak onto my downstairs neighbour's Virgin 1Gbit connection for times like that.)

For those interested in the way Community Fibre handles public IPs:

After speaking with several staff, CF will categorically not offer a static IP unless you switch to a ~£300/mo business connection. I even offered to pay extra, no use.

The good news is that they do not use CGNAT on residential connections, and issue a public IPv4 address via DHCP. The DHCP lease duration is 48 hours, so unless you’re unlucky and reset your CPE box at the wrong time, you should in theory maintain the same public IP ad infinitum.

and presumably you can also just use one of the many dynamic DNS services to update it if/when it does change, or tailscale or similar

paying for a static IP unless unless you're doing something serious seems OTT

Anyone have experience with Hyperoptic? Briefly chatted to an engineer of theirs working nearby who said it may be available around March/April.

Currently on Virgin 350Mb and - unlike many of my neighbours - am perfectly happy with the service, just feel that I'm paying for stuff (landline and TV package) that I rarely use. Looks like I could get Hyperoptic 1Gb plus separate subscriptions for Sky Sports and BT Sport much cheaper than what I'm paying now.

I had a 1Gb/s Hyperoptic connection installed in my mum's flat a few years ago. At the time, 1Gb/s up and down was the preserve of £1K/month leased lines, truly mind blowing to have it in a residential setting for £50/mo.

I hosted a few servers from hers for a while using it. No contention to speak of, low latency as to be expected.

Not heard a peep from my mum in all the time she's had it, 'it just works'.

I have Hyperoptic, in theory, but there is currently a service outage, the third in about a month. I am out of contract with them, so probably switching back to Community Fibre.

I've used Hyperoptic for years and have had it in our current place for a year.

Long term, they've been great for customer services and stability but they are dependent on BT for core stuff (in most London installs) so sometimes outages happen outside of their control. I think HO are struggling with engineer staffing at the moment too.

Their first line support is the best I've experienced. No scripts to follow. Just experienced people listening to your problem and using their brains. Communication for simple outages is second to none. You usually don't even need to call them if you lose service. You'll get a message from them to say they're working on it before you can find their phone number.

I'd recommend them in that while they're struggling a little with staffing levels and Openreach issues, their processes and staff training are pretty good. Fast as fuck too.

If you had a choice between Virgin and HO it's a no brainer. Between CF and HO, it's probably a toss up.

If anyone has one of the Linksys AX4200 routers, you can downgrade the firmware, then install the Linksys retail one if you are so inclined.

I've just tested it on a cheap one I bought from eBay:

https://www.reddit.com/r/LinksysVelop/comments/10fyy2h/unlocked_communityfibre_mx4200/

Goto x.x.x.x/fwupdate.html (x.x.x.x is your ip address)

Download the Starhub router firmware - https://www.linksys.com/support-article?articleNum=317331

Attach the update, press upload and wait until it says OK

Download latest retail (non starhub) fw from linksys for mx4200

Attach the fw and spam upload for a few seconds, if done correctly it should say OK

What is the benefit of doing this?

My new Community Fibre connection came with a Linksys MX4200 that doesn’t appear to have any kind of branding or restrictions… What would be different if I did the above?

I'm not 100% sure, as the ax4200 was added as a child node to a non CF router, but from what I have read:

I believe you can't use it as a router unless your ISP is CF, also you can't update the firmware if you're not at CF customer

So firmware updates were my main reason. Also because I've got a broken ankle and I'm bored AF

Just had 'the letter' from Virgin that they're putting bills up by £7pcm this spring. They've put it up by £6-£8 every year I've been here so it's gone from £39pcm to now £74. Just for internet* and a phoneline that isn't connected to a phone.

When I'm not swamped with work and can tolerate the phone call to cancel, that'll be me very much done with them.

*(unreliable and not that fast with outages roughly every month)

I pay £65 a month with virgin for TV (including all sports but no movies) and 350 Mbps broadband.

I spend twenty minutes every eighteen months getting a new deal and that price is fixed for the duration.

Virgin can get fucked, shit service and shady practices. I’m ecstatic I could finally ditch them.

Even cancelling my account was hellish; no way to do so online, compelled to call in and wait on hold, only to be met with script-reading droids who demand answers to questions like “why are you considering leaving?”… I’m not ‘considering’, just close my account you muppets! Took hours, three phone calls and an email to some hidden ‘boss’ address just to get them to get to fuck.

My partner had the same tedious process, took several hours on the phone and many calls.
Between our 2 flats we were paying virgin £95 per month for broadband.
looking forward to ditching them myself once our new place is ready and paying £20 odd pounds per month. unfortunately community fibre isn’t ready yet and hyperoptic not available but there’s a few monthly/1 year options i need to explore.

I phone up, go straight for the I want to leave option, turn down their rubbish offers and refuse to discuss it. That bit takes about 15 minutes.

A couple of days later someone from virgin calls me and gives me the deal I want (normally ask for what you get as a new customer). That takes about 5 minutes.

Pointless but much easier than trying to sort it with the call centre people who are pretty incompetent.

You also get much better customer service going through their forums rather than on the phone.