Provider recommendations for G-Fast

mushtafa · 23 Jul 2021 at 15:48

I've discovered I can get Gfast at home. Currently have FTTC with a max speed of around 60 down, 19 up with Plusnet. It seems Plusnet does not offer Gfast, so going to go elsewhere.

Choices are;

BT £50 month 24 months
Zen £60 month 24 months, also never heard of Zen
EE £42 month 24 month contract
Talktalk £40 month unsure of contract length, also heard bad things of Talktalk
Sky £35 month 18 months, slower than the others
Fibre.net £60 12 month contract, same slower speed as Sky, also never heard of them

I currently have a static IP setup which makes it easy to access my home server. How easy (or not) is this to do without it? Should this make/break the decision?

I also don't want to be stuck using a crappy supplied wireless router ( unless it can be switched to modem only mode).

And good customer service goes a long way. For instance, I can ring Plusnet and be speaking with a person within a minute.

Any thoughts, reviews, recommendations?

Duke · 23 Jul 2021 at 16:11

Zen are a small ISP compared to the others but are meant to have very good support and some other extras so thats what you're paying more for.

Caged · 23 Jul 2021 at 16:41

EE would be my pick out of those. G.fast gets you a modem supplied by Openreach so as long as you can do PPPoE from your router then you can use whatever kit you want.

I'd struggle to justify paying £18 a month more for the promise of better customer service.

mushtafa · 23 Jul 2021 at 16:52

Do you use EE? To me EE is a mobile provider with broadband thrown on top as an extra income. I wonder how they compare with a broadband company?

Caged · 23 Jul 2021 at 17:09

I have used EE for FTTC with no issues. They are basically BT at this point.

sandys · 24 Jul 2021 at 10:51

I had Sky, it was a great connection, low latency etc, always solid, no complaints, I moved to VM for higher bandwidth but it can't match Sky for Low latency and VPN/gaming pings.

Modem mode is not an option on any openreach products to my knowledge, I ran sky with double NAT and had zero issues with gaming or my own hosted servers and used a redirection service to update dynamic IP, not that I recall the IP ever changing on Sky more than once, its wifi was rubbish in my house, its a difficult house, so ran my own mesh setup off of it.

If I had realised Virgin Cable was going to be so much worse than gfast for latency I'd have probably took BTs ultra 250 product which would have been 330 to my house according to line tests.

mushtafa · 24 Jul 2021 at 13:20

Sky can only offer 134 down so not the full gfast speed.

Would the openreach products work OK with my Netgear Nighthawk R8000P? It's currently in 'Router mode' with the old skool openreach vdsl modem

radderfire · 24 Jul 2021 at 13:39

Zen have been going for years, and are a good company. I use them and whenever I've had to phone them it's been quite easy to get through.

the-evaluator · 24 Jul 2021 at 15:20

mushtafa said:
Sky can only offer 134 down so not the full gfast speed.

Chances are it's not about what Sky can offer, it's about what they believe your line can support. G.Fast is fairly notorious for over promoising and under delivering.

mushtafa said:
Would the openreach products work OK with my Netgear Nighthawk R8000P? It's currently in 'Router mode' with the old skool openreach vdsl modem

The router will be fine, but that modem won't work. I don't think there's much choice with G.Fast modems. There's the Draytek Vigor 166 but last time I looked they were having some pretty bad firmware issues.

Turn · 24 Jul 2021 at 15:49

I had great experience on GFast with BT.
Based on that pricing I'd have to go with EE though.

sandys · 24 Jul 2021 at 16:38

the-evaluator said:
Chances are it's not about what Sky can offer, it's about what they believe your line can support. G.Fast is fairly notorious for over promoising and under delivering.

Sky and openreach don't seem to bothered about gfast, as it requires ideal conditions, think they are waiting for the fttp roll out like every one else.

Sky stated I would only get 130 based on their database, I did a solid 160, which is their cap for gfast in my area, I had some network knock out and speed degradation due to the dslam? getting mixed signals from my powerline adaptor (basically powerlines are a no no anywhere near a gfast modem) and the engineer testing my line said it would hold 330 no problem due to my proximity to cabinet. Checked online and sure enough other ISPs offer this at my property but not Sky.

mushtafa · 26 Jul 2021 at 07:54

Looking at BTwholesale website, my line should be capable of more than Sky can offer at the moment.

https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL

Avalon · 26 Jul 2021 at 17:42

Sky only offer the lower tier of g.fast speed, I suspect because the ability to hit top tier speeds are very limited. Knock the wifi guarantee off and it’s even cheaper, you will need a g.fast modem, but they are a lot cheaper now - in the early days I sold spares for a few hundred quid, now you’re lucky to pull £75 and the DHCP 60/61 requirement is exactly as per FTTC. Choice comes down to your line, check what OR says your line will support, if it’s significantly above Sky’s profile speed then you may be better off choosing to go with another provider. EE being a BT business seems the safer choice vs TalkTalk, but I have a feeling TT run it’s fibre and possibly FTTP teams from the UK, or at least they did initially. Remember to use Quidco/TCB.

Sui · 21 Aug 2021 at 19:32

Month old bump but if you're still deciding @mushtafa I'm on Gfast with EE at the moment and have been for over a year.

Support is based down in Plymouth and I've never had to wait long on the phone for an answer, Openreach mucked up after they installed my line and EE were pretty helpful when I rang them up.

Only reason I'd be against it is the 2 year contract, but I guess it doesn't matter too much unless you're in a development area for some sort of FTTP roll out.

mushtafa · 22 Aug 2021 at 14:02

Thanks for the feedback. I've not ordered yet, still trying to decide what to do.

I'll give EE a ring and see what they say.

I rang Vodafone last month regarding my mobile phone and couldn't get hold of anyone, just kept saying use the website and went round in circles. Used the web chat service and it said ring them!

Spudgun · 24 Aug 2021 at 15:41

How close is your location to fttp provision? You don't want to be stuck in a 24 month contract if you can get fttp in the next 12 months

mushtafa · 24 Aug 2021 at 19:43

How would I find this out? FTTP is not currently available at the cabinet, but it doesn't give any future dates etc?

the-evaluator · 25 Aug 2021 at 08:39

The Openreach fibre checker may show something.

As long as you choose a G.Fast supplier that also offers FTTP you should have no problems upgrading mid contract if FTTP becomes available.