Is Squirrel Internet any good?

My Dad is out of contract on his broadband and has asked me to look into what we can get as we know fibre is available.

It seems we are quite lucky as we’ve gone from no fibre to three networks in a fairly short space of time, with Openreach, Virgin Media and Full Fibre (Fibre Heroes) all being available. We are with Sky on FTTC currently and have 60 Mbps down and 18.5 Mbps up. It is extremely rare to see dropouts, and we had a similar experience on BT before he moved to Sky.

However, while we are able to get full fibre broadband with Sky or BT, I’ve noticed that Fibre Heroes ISP’s are generally cheaper than those provided by Openreach, plus have symmetrical speeds rather than the 115 Mbps maximum of Openreach providers due to their use of XGS-PON instead of the much older GPON standard currently.

I was originally tempted to recommend BeFibre to him as they have advertised a lot around us recently. However, looking into them I saw quite a few complaints, with issues around drop-outs, poor customer service, as well as no static IP address without paying extra and the use of CGNAT. I looked further and found Squirrel Internet.

It seems that Squirrel’s customer service is better than BeFibre, and I’ve seen their representatives post on forums where customers have IP address issues with Sky downloads etc, so they seem proactive with addressing any problems. They don’t use CGNAT and all customers have a static IPv4 IP address, and IPv6 is supported too. The router looks fairly good and they have a VOIP service as well if my parents want to keep their landline (we all have mobiles so the landline seldom gets used these days).

They are currently offering 900 Mbps symmetrical for £28 for 24 months, and £32 a month after which is similar to the cost of the existing broadband service, albeit the landline is included in that and would cost an extra £5 a month with Squirrel, or £7 a month for unlimited calls.

Squirrel is an ISP I hadn’t heard of until doing this research and seems a relatively small company. What is everyone’s experience of them? I work from home currently due to an issue with my lower back so need a reliable internet connection. I also don’t want to recommend an ISP to my parents that turns out to be unreliable!

Are the speeds consistent? Do dropouts occur much? Have people had lots of issues with IP addresses being seen as being abroad or is that a short-lived issue? Is customer service as good as people say it is?

On one hand it would be less of a risk to encourage him to stay on Sky or move to other familiar ISPs such as BT or EE, but you seem to have to pay more for less, particularly with regard to upload speeds, so if Squirrel is good they look to be a great ISP to join.

https://uk.trustpilot.com/ can give you an idea but I think Squirrel resell various providers so the TrustPilot (or any review) can be a bit deceptive unless they indicate what their provider & location is. I do think BeFibre only resell Full Fibre Ltd but without the reviews giving a location you do not know if you have a location that is causing problems or not.

One thing worth confirming before ordering is you will get a proper IP addresses with Squirrel and if they are using the same network as BeFibre whether you would also qualify for the 30 day money back guarantee. If you want to use your own equipment it is also worth checking.

Another advantage of Squirrel/BeFibre is probably no inflation increases either - check though. Just remember they are smaller ISPs so do not expect the earth support wise - e.g. they may be shut weekends etc and faults may take longer to fix.

Edited by think26872 (Tue 14-Jan-25 15:57:08)

I'm with Squirrel and my honest opinion is they are excellent. I can't fault anything about them. I've just taken out a new contract after my original one ended to get faster speeds for the same price. Whenever I've needed to contact them, an answer has always been instant both over the phone and through the web chat.

In reply to a post by think26872:

https://uk.trustpilot.com/ can give you an idea but I think Squirrel resell various providers so the TrustPilot (or any review) can be a bit deceptive unless they indicate what their provider & location is. I do think BeFibre only resell Full Fibre Ltd but without the reviews giving a location you do not know if you have a location that is causing problems or not.

One thing worth confirming before ordering is you will get a proper IP addresses with Squirrel and if they are using the same network as BeFibre whether you would also qualify for the 30 day money back guarantee. If you want to use your own equipment it is also worth checking.

Another advantage of Squirrel/BeFibre is probably no inflation increases either - check though. Just remember they are smaller ISPs so do not expect the earth support wise - e.g. they may be shut weekends etc and faults may take longer to fix.

The reviews seem fairly good overall. There's a few negatives ones but that seems to be the case with all ISPs. Squirrel resell on a few networks as they are also on CityFibre, MS3 and Gigaclear I believe, but BeFibre are linked to Full Fibre Ltd so are only available through them.

Squirrel changed things on Monday to be behind a CGNAT sadly but they have confirmed you can get a static public IPv4 address free of charge upon request. I'm sure a monthly charge will be brought in eventually but there isn't one currently. I didn't ask about the 30 day money back guarantee. They confirmed that it is possible to use our own router as I asked that as well.

There isn't any mid contract increases with Squirrel and it only goes up £4 out of contract on the 900 Mbps plan which is good. The support was my concern although I've seen good things about their customer service. I guess they won't be available at weekends but equally I've seen people moan about Virgin Media as it takes a long time to get hold of them when they are available. It's ironic for a communications company!

In reply to a post by derby13:

I'm with Squirrel and my honest opinion is they are excellent. I can't fault anything about them. I've just taken out a new contract after my original one ended to get faster speeds for the same price. Whenever I've needed to contact them, an answer has always been instant both over the phone and through the web chat.

Great to hear you've had a good experience with them and the customer service has been as others have said. I'm a bit nervous about going to a smaller, newer ISP but if you've signed a second contract they must be doing something right.

In reply to a post by ryan125_hst:

Great to hear you've had a good experience with them and the customer service has been as others have said. I'm a bit nervous about going to a smaller, newer ISP but if you've signed a second contract they must be doing something right.

I had similar decision but opted for Idnet/fibre hero’s over squirrel because they have been around much longer. Could not be happier. No price rise in over 2 years. Support top rate ant uk based 24/7/365. Still getting special introductory rate despite being out of contract. Prices very reasonable given quality of service.

In reply to a post by DrBob:

I had similar decision but opted for Idnet/fibre hero’s over squirrel because they have been around much longer. Could not be happier. No price rise in over 2 years. Support top rate ant uk based 24/7/365. Still getting special introductory rate despite being out of contract. Prices very reasonable given quality of service.

I had a look at IDnet but the only FibreHeroes package showing for my post code was 900 Mbps symmetrical for £48 a month which is £20 a month more than Squirrel so we've gone with Squirrel.

Post deleted by adslmax

Edited by adslmax (Thu 16-Jan-25 10:18:00)

I switched to Squirrel in September, moving from 900Mbps EE via Openreach. In my area, Squirrel uses the Freedom Fibre network.

The installation process was quick, and the team did a tidy job. I’m on the 900Mbps package, and my speeds are consistently above 800Mbps, both download and upload. Having symmetrical speeds has been a great bonus.

I did experience one outage, but it turned out to be my wife accidentally knocking the cable while moving furniture. An engineer came out the next day and resolved it without any issues.

Overall, I’d definitely recommend them if they were the same price as EE, but they are considerably cheaper so its no brainer.

In reply to a post by ryan125_hst:

I had a look at IDnet but the only FibreHeroes package showing for my post code was 900 Mbps symmetrical for £48 a month which is £20 a month more than Squirrel so we've gone with Squirrel.

Let us know how it goes