Giganet (CityFibre): really poor experience

I've just moved to Giganet from another CityFibre ISP (TalkTalk UFO in York) and the experience has been very poor so far. I thought I should detail my particular tail of woe for anyone else who is considering signing up with them.

Migration itself went smoothly and Giganet took over service on the right day. They supplied a router (Technicolor DGA4134) which is fine but very basic and I didn't intend to use it.

Problems:

- IPv4 behind CGNAT: despite being on their top 1Gig package I'm hobbled with CGNAT. When I signed up 10 days ago, the website claimed they offer a static IPv4 for £1 per month. I'm now told static IPs are "not available yet" so I'm stuck with a connection that's not reachable from the internet side via ipv4, so my home backup server is unreachable for some clients.

I've asked to be moved onto a real dynamic IPv4 (I don't actually need a static) but apparently they can't do that either.

- I want to use my own router (pfSense) so I logged a ticket a few days before I went live requesting my PPPoE username/password; ticket went unanswered. I had to discover the details myself by packet capture.

- Intermittent IPv4 routing errors: web sites on ipv4 will just time out randomly with "no route to host"; sometimes it succeeds, sometimes it fails, and it can vary from 1 second to the next. Still waiting for support to get back to me.

- No access to a customer portal (it's "temporarily unavailable") so I can't see any connection details, invoices etc.

The good news is I'm not tied into a contract so I'm free to leave (and if they can't get me off CGNAT I will have no choice).

So in summary, if all you want to do is browse the web and stream TV, you're probably OK with Giganet. But if you're any kind of power user (and if you're ordering a gigabit connection you probably are), I'd advise you to look elsewhere.

And if anyone has any recommendations for a CityFibre ISP I'd love to hear them.

Sounds like a nightmare.

I believe Zen offer connections over Cityfibre, and are still the only Which? recommended ISP.

Have a look at their rewards here: https://www.zen.co.uk/why-zen/awards/

Cheers,
Andy

Thanks. I'm looking at Zen's Full Fibre 900 but their website indicates it's only 100mbps upload speed. Is that correct? I was expecting symmetrical speeds, 900 mbps up and down.

Looking at their website, that does appear to be the case, which is strange as the Cityfibre network is perfectly capable of gigabit upload.

Seems that they might be nerfing it to match Openreach's offering by capping the upload.

Might be a simple mistake though, why not give them a call and check?

Zen services on CityFibre are symmetrical, but they can't advertise it on the website due to Ofcom rules about speed tests and the percentage of customers getting particular speeds.

See this (very long ) thread about it. A Zen employee on the forum (Ajays) confirms that the speeds are symmetrical. See post from john83 on 7th Jan 2022.

Zen Speeds

Perfect, thanks for that!

Interesting, I just renewed 12m with Giganet (over CityFibre) having had no problems with them for the last year, but they do seem to have gone downhill, I've had two tickets open and close without any obvious effect, so I had to call support (who to be fair did sort out one of them - still waiting on the other but its not impeding service) - wondering now if maybe I made a mistake renewing!

Having said that, I've had static IPv4 since I started, no issues with that, and never seen any CGNat (that would also be a deal breaker for me!) - and make more use of IPv6 now too (I run several servers at home and the IPv6 option is handy as they don't offer any more than 1 static v4. Just a shame IPv6 is so under utilized in this part of the world!

Not had many problems getting onto the account portal page (where the PPPoE username and password is displayed etc.) but its never been perfect!

Not had any obvious IPv4 routing errors, probably because I'm not forced through this CGNat nonsense!

Running OPNSense myself rather than pfSense

I am however, seriously considering a Three 5G backup option sorted (once the price rises come in (today?) and I know how much it will be costing) luckily I was seeing 1000+ MBit on 5G here! I did have VM business line as backup until a week ago (didn't realise how long I had left on the contract when I ordered with Giganet) but its pretty much had no traffic flowing over it for the last 12 months - was an expensive backup option at 1.5x the price of giganet!

6 Months ago I'd have recommended Giganet (in fact I did here several times) but I'm not sure I would now. I'd also be wary of Zen - they are not free of issues either (it was a close call for me) but they had (have?) some weird PPPoE balancing/routing issues, so be sure to check out the forums here before deciding!

In reply to a post by poppadum:

- I want to use my own router (pfSense) so I logged a ticket a few days before I went live requesting my PPPoE username/password; ticket went unanswered. I had to discover the details myself by packet capture.

Is one those things with is silly for them not give that information. I never tryied to packet capture it, If can get by packet capture then it is not really secure data.

How did you do this?, other would be intrestred (me especially)!

Also it something which ("useless") regulator OFCOM should do something about it. Why is not just given upon a simple request? (no fee)

[rant]
(It probley take OFCOM 24 months before they make there minds up if worth do a public consultation, if doing agree then public consultation would take about another 18-32 months, if after public consultation it agreed it should done then they have another 12-32 months to imploment it)
[\rant]

In reply to a post by amiga_dude:

Is one those things with is silly for them not give that information. I never tryied to packet capture it, If can get by packet capture then it is not really secure data.

Correct: if they're using PAP (Password Authentication Protocol) then the password is sent in clear text.

If they're using CHAP then only a hash of the password+challenge is sent (that's how Openreach's old IPStream DSL service used to work)

These days, many networks don't bother validating the password at all though: they know through out-of-band means exactly what line the PPPoE session is originating on.

In reply to a post by amiga_dude:

Also it something which ("useless") regulator OFCOM should do something about it. Why is not just given upon a simple request? (no fee)

Ofcom considers such issues are best handled by the market. If you're a power user who wants to do unusual things, then choose a provider that supports that type of activity.

Presumably such power users should be on a business tariff anyway? With different Ts & Cs and facilities.