Sign in / up

back to article Smallish telco Gigaclear gets €25m loan for rural broadband roll-out

British telco minnow Gigaclear has topped up its coffers with a €25m (£19m) loan from the European Investment Bank, a move it reckons will help treble its rural broadband network in the UK this year. During 2016 the biz plans to "rapidly" extend its pure fibre, ultrafast broadband infrastructure. However, that amounts to just …

COMMENTS

Post your comment
House rules Send corrections
Add to 'My topics' unstar *
  1. JetSetJim
    Thumb Up

    Good

    Happy Gigaclear customer here - BT were too incompetent to supply a line with 3 months notice, the good folks at GC did it the next day (admittedly, circumstances were rather fortuitous). Friendly and knowledgeable tech support located in the UK (Abingdon, IIRC).

    Higher bitrate than BT, lower price. Hope they don't evolve into BT's level of (in)competence.

    2 0 Reply
  2. James 51

    Here's hoping the seed money will grow into something more substantial with time.

    1 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Here's hoping the seed money will grow into something more substantial with time.

      Well, three main threats:

      1) that the business case doesn't really scale, and the economics mean they're only able to infill a few marginal notspots. I also note that they are using BDUK funding - does it stack up without subsidies?

      2) They make a go of it, but some Big Scumbag Corporation (name your choice) buy them out, and it all goes to pot.

      3) The start to make a go of it, but then a Big Scumbag Corporation (only one name in here) start targeting rural roll out to intentionally nobble them, whilst Ofcom sit and do nothing.

      My money's on number 3.

      2 0 Reply
      1. JetSetJim
        Reply Icon

        1) that the business case doesn't really scale, and the economics mean they're only able to infill a few marginal notspots. I also note that they are using BDUK funding - does it stack up without subsidies?

        2) They make a go of it, but some Big Scumbag Corporation (name your choice) buy them out, and it all goes to pot.

        3) The start to make a go of it, but then a Big Scumbag Corporation (only one name in here) start targeting rural roll out to intentionally nobble them, whilst Ofcom sit and do nothing.

        My money's on number 3.

        In the village I'm in, GC deployed FTTP just as OpenReach showed up to deploy FTTC - but the plans for the local exchange & cabinets had been known about for quite a while, so it's not news to GC that BT are upgrading cabinets in areas they are deploying into. BT will find it difficult to compete on bitrate, or even price. My money's on #2.

        If they go the #1 route, then when the subsidy runs out either they raise prices significantly and customers leggit (although their T&Cs limit price increases to 2% above RPI), or they go to the wall, in which case #2 will happen.

        1 0 Reply
        1. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          BT will find it difficult to compete on bitrate, or even price.

          Even on price for the volume customers (such as volume is, in rural locations)?

          I'd be pleased if GC were showing the big boys how to do it, and offering something better, but I'd have expected them to have the same problem of funding expensive infrastructure as everybody else.

          0 0 Reply
          1. JetSetJim
            Reply Icon

            I'd be pleased if GC were showing the big boys how to do it, and offering something better, but I'd have expected them to have the same problem of funding expensive infrastructure as everybody else.

            Perhaps when the BDUK funding dries up, they'll stop digging trenches in roads, but I'd hope that the pricing model covers their operating costs and so existing customers will continue to be served well if they have to stop rolling out new coverage. I'm now paying less than what I was with BT in a previous property, for a service that is nigh on 100 times faster.

            At best, in the FTTC-enabled places, you'll still pay more for less with BT.

            1 0 Reply
      2. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        BDUK money only covers the difference between an installation cost that allows a profitable service to be run and the actual install cost. That means the BDUK money stops when the install is complete and what's been delivered should be profitable without support if the sums were right in the first place.

        That's why BT handed some money back recently. More customers than expected in some locations and so the sum was too pessimistic. More customers means more revenue to pay back installation cost and the subsidy reduces appropriately.

        0 0 Reply
  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Another happy customer

    Another happy Gigaclear customer here - for more than 2 years now. Excellent speeds and customer service. Very few (minor) outages - all quickly resolved. Moved to Gigaclear after getting fed up of BT to provide "fibre" broadband near Oxford - despite getting loads of money from the government to do it.

    0 0 Reply
    1. JetSetJim
      Reply Icon

      Re: Another happy customer

      I was rather impressed when they had an outage caused by their backbone supplier (Vodafone, IIRC), and they had the audacity to text me updates on progress before I'd even noticed. And then continued to give me updates, unsolicited, until it was fixed. The bare faced cheek of it all, I didn't even get the chance to take to Twitter to vent at them.

      4 0 Reply
      1. 2460 Something
        Reply Icon
        Joke

        Re: Another happy customer

        I feel your pain. The only solution is to sign up to another provider just to normalise yourself again. Heaven forbid you get comfortable with that kind of excellent service!

        2 0 Reply
        1. JetSetJim
          Reply Icon

          Re: Another happy customer

          Never fear, I'm being sucked back into the fold as my mobile is with EE :(

          2 0 Reply
  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Slight correction on the BDUK funding, while GC has some contracts that are funded with BDUK funds. Others are funded directly by GC. In Oxfordshire the BDUK money went to BT, who were planning to just do the "easy" part of the village I live in. This was about a 500m radius from the exchange. The rest of the village was "subject to further funding". This would have split the village. After nearly two years of extensive campaigning by a volunteer committee we got 30% of the village to sign up to GC and they installed the network with their own funding. Network has been live for a year now and I am a very happy customer. BT installed a new FTTC cabinet across the road from the exchange about 6 months ago and it still isn't live.

    0 0 Reply

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

Forgotten password ?

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like