Cuckoo Broadband

Cuckoo Broadband beats Zen for speed and price with a 30 day rolling contract.
https://www.cuckoo.co/

They don't do FTTP though.

They nearly do FTTP

https://www.cuckoo.co/blog/full-fibre-what-is-it-why...

If you dig on their site FTTP is coming this month with a promise of sticking to the 1 month rolling contract!

Not the only one. Pulse8 already do 1 month on FTTP.

I didn't say they were the only one. I remember when I was an early adopter of Pulse8, just about every response here was to try and rubbish what was a good ISP, though LLU if your exchange unbundled. Thus far, Cuckoo have responded superbly to enquiries and I would think them a better deal than my Zen which is resold to overpriced IDNet warts and all!

Edited by professor973 (Thu 14-Oct-21 01:11:59)

I'll be interested to see what their pricing is for 1 Gbps FTTP.

Pulse8's FTTP packages are expensive though.

For my use 115/20. There is not much in it when copper line plus calls included.
Many family members only have copper line

Edited by flippery (Thu 14-Oct-21 12:41:57)

Agreed. However, for me, Too many 5 stars with interspersed 1/ 2 stars reviews .
A review from you in maybe 2 months?

Cuckoo are just reselling the offerings from one of usual big guns who allow other people to resell and rebrand their own offerings (BT Wholesale, Zen, TTB and/or some altnets). This means Cuckoo don't do anything network wise, they don't have peering arrangements or their own network kit for their customers. They are essentially a marketing and billing company, they even admit to this on their website and their start up "story" https://www.cuckoo.co/blog/building-a-broadband-comp...

Not necessarily a bad thing if the price is right.

Getting to use TalkTalk's network and not having to deal with TalkTalk seems like a good deal. The price is decent as well for rolling monthly contracts.

In reply to a post by jpm:

Getting to use TalkTalk's network and not having to deal with TalkTalk seems like a good deal. The price is decent as well for rolling monthly contracts.

Absolutely, although we don't know who they are using exactly.

The pricing is really good but monthly rolling contracts could be their undoing if customers start using them simply because they only need broadband for a short time (students, people in temporary accommodation etc), and leave before Cuckoo have covered their costs for that customer. There is a reason that most ISPs charge a premium for monthly rolling contracts from day one, if they do them at all! If they are as good as they say they are, why wouldn't someone who is willing to show them some loyalty in order to receive some back, not be happy to commit for 12 months as they are conditioned to already with other providers?

Good luck to them, they seem honest and upfront and the monthly contract has the benefit of letting people try them without too much risk.

Edited by E300 (Thu 14-Oct-21 16:08:57)

I also notice that a static IP address is £1 per month extra, and their website does not say whether that is just an IPv4 one, or an IPv6 one too.

.

Edited by professor973 (Thu 14-Oct-21 20:14:21)

I should have dug a little deeper; they only provide IPv4 at present - https://www.cuckoo.co/help/broadband/is-cuckoo-inter....

mmmm. You do know who zendesk are right?

They do according to Alex from Team Cuckoo in this thread - https://community.cuckoo.co/t/what-are-your-burning-...

We’re using Openreach as the bottom layer and TalkTalk Business’s LLU network.

Zendesk has nothing to do with Zen Internet.

In reply to a post by tboorman:

They do according to Alex from Team Cuckoo in this thread - https://community.cuckoo.co/t/what-are-your-burning-...

We’re using Openreach as the bottom layer and TalkTalk Business’s LLU network.

I think you have a typo in your url above (missing an open square bracket at the end)

Quite astounded in the second part of that answer that the CEO and founder of an ISP does not know what AS numbers, peering and upstream transit arrangements mean - even if you don't have any....you should be able to provide an intelligible answer.

That's like going to the dentist and asking where he buys his pharma and dental supplies from and him not knowing.

I didn't say it was, wake up and check the second link!

YEP, proving they farm things out and they state quite categorically they use BT and also mention Zen broadband.
Not much changed here then!

Just like BT owned EE!

In reply to a post by professor973:

YEP, proving they farm things out and they state quite categorically they use BT and also mention Zen broadband.
Not much changed here then!

Zendesk is a CRM support tool for managing a customer helpdesk and the associated cases/tickets therein. Many, many, many organisations use it (and of course other similar software).

The use of it within the context of a support email address is not unexpected. It bears no correlation with Zen the internet provider.

It also does not prove or disprove that they "farm things out" - its just a tool.

In reply to a post by professor973:

THEY DON'T USE TALKTALK - There is a clue in their email addresses from customer support - [email protected] !
https://www.cuckoo.co/help/broadband/how-does-cuckoo...

According the the support blog link as posted by tboorman above (although the link in his post is busted) Cuckoo do in fact use TalkTalk Business for backhaul. 'Alex' in the blog being Alex Fitzgerald (founder and CEO)

See excerpt screen grab.

This also explain the lack of IPv6 noted above.

They are being very cagey about their suppliers, which as a new supplier will make many wary. Why not admit on information and sign up pages you are using TTB, it's done Pulse8 no harm who are more expensive.

I wonder who is actually providing the service... does anyone know a subscriber, and can you get their IP address?

In reply to a post by professor973:

They are being very cagey about their suppliers, which as a new supplier will make many wary. Why not admit on information and sign up pages you are using TTB, it's done Pulse8 no harm who are more expensive.

They seem to have been open enough about the use of Openreach and TTB. And I wouldn't expect that being cagey about who is white-labelling the service for them makes much sense, one subscriber IP will tell us a lot.

It proves thay farm customer service out and in the link I provided they categorically claim to use BT and Zen broadband, which is very shifty marketing, especially when there is nothing wrong with TTB, but folks are entitled to know they will more than likely be quietly unbundled!

This is a quoted reply from Jodie at Cuckoo when I questioned their claim to supply BT broadband whe a customer on Trustpilot states they supply TTB,
Quote form Jodie at Cuckoo:-
"We do use the Openreach network however unfortunately there are a few providers that we don't have a porting agreement with (ie. Sky) which means we're unable to bring your landline number across to us. The same would apply to any providers not on the Openreach network."
The number change only applies to Sky and Virgin customers, exactly as stated elsewhere on the Cuckoo site."
Very evasive!

In reply to a post by professor973:

... and in the link I provided they categorically claim to use BT and Zen broadband

I could only find one link you posted above. Is this the link that you are referring to?

https://www.cuckoo.co/help/broadband/how-does-cuckoo...

Yep, scroll down to the "Middle men" that supply the Broadband... All BT, yet customers are being supplied TTB.

In reply to a post by professor973:

Yep, scroll down to the "Middle men" that supply the Broadband... All BT, yet customers are being supplied TTB.

Yes I read all that. But they are naming those companies as examples of companies that operate in that space - NOT as you maintain categorically stating that they use them.

Big difference.

Cuckoo categorically state they USE BT based broadband, on their site AND below a concrete response to my email on the subject!
Quote form Jodie at Cuckoo:-
"We do use the Openreach network however unfortunately there are a few providers that we don't have a porting agreement with (ie. Sky) which means we're unable to bring your landline number across to us. The same would apply to any providers not on the Openreach network."
The number change only applies to Sky and Virgin customers, exactly as stated elsewhere on the Cuckoo site.

VERY shifty marketing.

Edited by professor973 (Thu 14-Oct-21 18:56:37)

DNS and web hosting seem to be with AWS; MX records point to Google's service.

Weirdly, mail.cuckoo.co, smtp.cuckoo.co and pop.cuckoo.co are CNAME aliases to *.secureserver.net - US servers.

Without knowing the context of your enquiry - that reads as a response to you based on the voice number porting capability (or lack thereof).

This doesn't read to me as if they are trying to mislead you, either intentionally or unintentionally as to their upstream and downstream network service providers.

That's my take on on what you've put in front of me and linked. I haven't seen anything that suggests that they are engaging in deliberately shifty marketing practises.

.

Edited by professor973 (Thu 14-Oct-21 20:12:37)

You are reading into things that aren't there. Using Zendesk is not evidence that their support is outsourced.

Customer service certainly seems very good. Most reviewers seem happy with the signup fee in exchange for a 30 day rolling contract and router even if the Wi-Fi is bad.
There is a £20 referral discount available here https://www.nutsaboutmoney.com/reviews/cuckoo-broadband which makes it within a tenner of the Zen £29.99 connection fee, with the bonus of no tie-in and £3 per month cheaper. All in all seems a no brainer. Just a confusing sign up page down to be addressed and confusion on the web between BTW Talktalk and LLU

Edited by professor973 (Thu 14-Oct-21 21:49:40)

Thanks for spotting my error in the URL I gave.

My apologies for misinterpreting your post.

Cuckoo also beats the Pulse8 dirt cheap call charges, though not that much call for landline calls these days, but a massive improvement over Zen call charges that I refuse to use, with my line just for delivering Broadband and the very rare incoming call, so another positive.
https://www.cuckoo.co/call-charges

FTTP £54.99 1 Gig down 175 Mbs Up interesting.
FTTP £39.99 Mbs down 115 Mbs 20 Mbs up not cheapest.

In reply to a post by flippery:

FTTP £54.99 1 Gig down 175 Mbs Up interesting.
FTTP £39.99 Mbs down 115 Mbs 20 Mbs up not cheapest.

115 up actually rather then 175. There’s no such product as 175 up on OR based FTTP. It’s not the throttled 220 product either.

£54.99 despite their claim that it’s reflective of the underlying Equinox offer isn’t particularly good either.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

£54.99 despite their claim that it’s reflective of the underlying Equinox offer isn’t particularly good either.

It is cheaper than Zen, Aquiss and No One Internet.

For their 900/115 service:
- Cuckoo price is identical to BT
- Aquiss is a difference of £1.89 per month

Neither of those is claiming better prices reflective of the Equinox offer. They were pre-existing deals.

If we’re talking same wholesale network as Cuckoo:
- TalkTalk Fibre 150 is better bang for the buck compared to the Cuckoo 115/20 deal @ £39.99. TalkTalk is £10 a month less for more bandwidth.

Otherwise Sky offers four times the bandwidth on their UltrafastPlus 500 service for £5 more a month or for £5 less per month offers their 150 Mbps service.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

For their 900/115 service:
- Cuckoo price is identical to BT
- Aquiss is a difference of £1.89 per month

Aquiss is only that difference while it offers £32.50 a month for 3 months, otherwise it is £10.01 a month more. While Aquiss still have their offer, they actually work out cheaper, as they do not charge a set-up fee.

So are you agreeing with me now 🤣

I'm with Cuckoo and have found them excellent.
Their Customers service is not farmed out, its in house. Using Zendesk software like 1000s of other companies

In reply to a post by ukwoody:

I'm with Cuckoo and have found them excellent.

Good to hear a positive review. I'd like to know more about who is providing the actual routing to the Internet. Are you comfortable posting the first three groups of your IP address? If not, when you use speedtest.net, what ISP name is shown on the bottom left beside your IP address? This, I think, maps by AS number only.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

So are you agreeing with me now 🤣

Sort of. Cuckoo are still cheaper than most ISPs for 1 Gbps FTTP, and while their price is the same as BT's, they have the advantage of having a rolling one month contract. Even Aquiss only work out cheaper because of their offer of half price for the first 3 months. Assuming that Cuckoo's and Aquiss' prices remain the same, you would end up paying less than Aquiss with Cuckoo after 16 months (if I have done my maths right).

I love that we are being spoken about, but I also worry when the conversation is price driven as the race to the bottom never ends well. Our main focus has always been quality driven and will always remain so, so whilst it's a pleasure to be included in said conversations, our focus is on different goals and long term customer relations (32% of our customer have been with us 10+ years) and we include features such as Static IPs (v4 and v6) which are important to our customers.

What our friends at Cuckoo are doing is a model that I've been in the industry long enough to have seen play out many times with providers who have since been absorbed elsewhere. If it works for them, great, but that's not our model.

I will personally add, the release of their FTTP packages do, in my view seem a little rushed. A mixed message of marketing information and website information that differ, combined with averages that don't marry up with the products they are expected to be based upon, does raise an eyebrow for me.

Edited by aquiss (Thu 21-Oct-21 09:03:58)

In reply to a post by ukwoody:

I'm with Cuckoo and have found them excellent.
Their Customers service is not farmed out, its in house. Using Zendesk software like 1000s of other companies

I totally agree about zendesk and was trying to convince the prof that didn’t at all equate to an outsourced customer service. Total red herring!

Good to hear you like their support. As these guys are pretty new to the scene, and folks have lots of questions, have you had any cause to ‘test’ their support capability with a real world service issue / outage or billing issue - or is it just a general good vibe that you have had since joining them?

I appreciate that price is not the only factor that needs to be taken into account when choosing an ISP.

Do you see the price of your FTTP packages remaining the same for the forseeable future? Is the offer of half price for the first 3 months for your 1 Gbps FTTP package a limited time one?

Edited by tboorman (Thu 21-Oct-21 14:54:24)

In reply to a post by flippery:

FTTP £54.99 1 Gig down 175 Mbs Up interesting.

Wrong it 900 FTTP (u will never get 1000Mbps from ethernet 1Gig - only 900Mbps) and also upload is 115Mbps not 175Mbps

In reply to a post by professor973:

Cuckoo Broadband beats Zen for speed and price with a 30 day rolling contract.
https://www.cuckoo.co/

Seem so strange their FTTP on 80Mbps get 8Mbps upload? (surely should be 20Mbps as 8Mbps upload are mistake by this ISP)?

Openreach FTTP do have 80/20 FTTP not 80/8

In reply to a post by tboorman:

I appreciate that price is not the only factor that needs to be taken into account when choosing an ISP.

Do you see the price of your FTTP packages remaining the same for the forseeable future? Is the offer of half price for the first 3 months for your 1 Gbps FTTP package a limited time one?

The offer we are running is until the end of October (as October is always a quiet month for us), then will return to normal pricing. Commercially I can't comment on our future plans and conversations.

In reply to a post by aquiss:

The offer we are running is until the end of October (as October is always a quiet month for us), then will return to normal pricing. Commercially I can't comment on our future plans and conversations.

That is a pity, as my contract with Zen is until July next year - I realise that I am a bit premature in looking for a new ISP. With Cuckoo, I can schedule my switch in advance, but AFAIK, I cannot do the same with Aquiss.

Check their site, you will see their speeds are average actual customer speeds, which as far as I know it's a legal requirement to advertise a percentage of actual customer speeds. Either way, their speed is more than enough for most folks apart from those with more money that sense chasing speeds they will never need.

Everything as expected, from very good customer service to above quoted speed. Latency not quite as low as Zen but still very good and hopefully away from the regular drops I have had most days lately with Zen.
TTB without the unbundling of Pulse8 and cheaper.
https://openspeedtest.com/results/50304528

I have scheduled a switch to their 1 Gbps FTTP package in July next year, so I would appreciate it if you could update us on how things are with them in a few months' time.

I have found customer service to be every bit as good as the reviews claim, with an enquiry in the early hours on a sunday prior to my switch answered at 8:00am that same day. The £29.00 80/20 Talktalk Busines they sell is very good, and unlike the more expensive Pulse8 resold TTB I was once with, there is no switch to unbundled. The same price for double the speed of my unreliable Zen was a no brainer for me. Despite making very few calls via landline these days, I certainly avoided Zen call charges, so Cuckoo calls at less than 0.5p per minute are an option. Even the 9ms Zen latency is bettered at what is now coming into peak time, though test sites and reported latency etc seems a random number from some lol, but Aal good at nearly 400m from the cabinet. https://www.speedtest.net/result/12277663338
https://i.speedof.me/211103163858-982

Edited by professor973 (Wed 03-Nov-21 16:42:13)

Thanks for the update. I just hope that their customer service is able to cope with the volume of customers that are likely to be joining them.

Selling the same TTB with a rolling contract and cheap calls has not seen Pulse8 absorbed elsewhere.

Everything I dig up is good.
https://twitter.com/CuckooInternet/status/1446077958...

Hopefully they will be able to offer static IPv6 addresses by the time my switch is due. That depends on TTB though.

Post deleted by seb

In reply to a post by Thornhill5:

For those that can get Full Fibre via Openreach FTTP, I would say Cuckoo is someone to definitely consider.

Seems from all your posts about them you are a huge fan, I'm personally not convinced they are a provider I would want to be with but each to their own.

Just received an unsolicited private message from Thornhill5, its an advert for Cuckoo packages. This person I assume is employed by Cuckoo to promote them in forums such as this.

ONE GOOD reason not to use them, as they use shady practices with staff masquerading as impartial customers, so can you really believe trust pilot or any review is genuine? Not sure how I can report this on Thinkbroadband.

In reply to a post by E300:

Just received an unsolicited private message from Thornhill5, its an advert for Cuckoo packages. This person I assume is employed by Cuckoo to promote them in forums such as this.

I suspected that was the case when I made my post as 6 out of the 9 posts from Thornhill5 in just over an hour of registering on this site had Cuckoo in them.

I've just notified Seb about the unsolicited private messages from Thornhill5

Thanks, I also dropped him a private message with the offending 'advert' copied into it.

Unlikely to be the company themselves, more probably someone hammering their referral scheme

https://www.cuckoo.co/referral

In reply to a post by jpm:

Unlikely to be the company themselves, more probably someone hammering their referral scheme

https://www.cuckoo.co/referral

Very good point, still anyone who is underhand about why they are recommending a product or service is still being dishonest and I personally wouldn't trust them.