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

Squirrel is very limit to UK. They not Openreach but believe to be Cityfibre!

I've been with them now for a fair while via MS3 and compared to VM they are night and day better, Don't get me wrong i never had a problem VM speed wise I've lived in 2 very good areas for them with no noticeable congestion but CS and constant price hikes have been a ball ache over the past 20 years, so when MS3 came to the area i did my digging around on the available ISPs, Compared to the likes of city fibre there are no big name ISPs to choose from on MS3 but squirrel shone above all available, ive always had great speeds, CS have been fantastic on the occasion i had to contact them (not really about any problems more just some info ) and at the time automatic static IP big bonus, seems its now CGNAT by default but they let you add one easily enough free of charge so still fine in my books,

id cant vouch for how they perform outside of MS3 but for me they've been faultless i did 11TB last month and they haven't moaned and i get consistent speeds both ways at all times

https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/d/0466886c-9a85-...

id say give them a go

[referral link removed]

Ash

Edited by seb (Fri 17-Jan-25 12:53:56)

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Squirrel is very limit to UK. They not Openreach but believe to be Cityfibre!

In reply to a post by ryan125_hst:

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.

Already been posted above which networks Squirrel probably resell.

The only addition to this is to clarify Squirrel definitely resell Full Fibre Ltd also (it is not just BeFibre).

According to https://bidb.uk Full Fibre Ltd ISPs include BeFibre, Squirrel, IDNet and Octaplus (IIRC).

As with any reseller that sells multiple networks if you have a preference (and you have a choice) make sure you get commissioned on the network you prefer.

As already noted if you show as service available on BeFibre checker I believe they only sell Full Fibre Ltd (so if you sign up with Squirrel, IDNet or Octaplus you are likely to be commissioned on the Full Fibre Ltd network unless you have a massive choice of providers)

ISPreview forums have sub forums for specific networks including Full Fibre Ltd.

If you think you are going to be commissioned on the Full Fibre Ltd network you are better looking at the TrustPilot reviews of BeFibre for an indication of installation/speed etc as the TrustPilot reviews of Squirrel include feedback from their customers commissioned on other networks.

Also do not forget people are more likely to leave a bad review than a good. Regardless of ISP if you have a Full Fibre Ltd connection the same engineers will come and install/fix so if you have blocked ducts delaying an installation or a severed fibre cable it is unlikely one ISP can get it fixed quicker than another.

Edited by think26872 (Fri 17-Jan-25 10:03:33)

In reply to a post by kingbiscit:

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.

That sounds promising. Consistent speeds of over 800 Mbps sounds amazing. It's crazy how speeds have increased in such a short space of time. It was only 10-15 years ago that we were struggling with 2 Mbps down 0.5 Mbps on ADSL!

In reply to a post by think26872:

Let us know how it goes

I will do

In reply to a post by acpsd775:

I've been with them now for a fair while via MS3 and compared to VM they are night and day better, Don't get me wrong i never had a problem VM speed wise I've lived in 2 very good areas for them with no noticeable congestion but CS and constant price hikes have been a ball ache over the past 20 years, so when MS3 came to the area i did my digging around on the available ISPs, Compared to the likes of city fibre there are no big name ISPs to choose from on MS3 but squirrel shone above all available, ive always had great speeds, CS have been fantastic on the occasion i had to contact them (not really about any problems more just some info ) and at the time automatic static IP big bonus, seems its now CGNAT by default but they let you add one easily enough free of charge so still fine in my books,

id cant vouch for how they perform outside of MS3 but for me they've been faultless i did 11TB last month and they haven't moaned and i get consistent speeds both ways at all times

https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/d/0466886c-9a85-...

id say give them a go
Ash

They seem fairly consistent across multiple networks which is encouraging, and the positive customer service keeps coming up in reviews too. I'm looking forward to it, it should be installed by the end of the month if all goes to plan. In fact, we were quite impressed as when my Dad placed the order on Wednesday, there were dates available for next Thursday which beat the 4 week lead time on their website. He opted for the following Wednesday as it's his day off so he can be here to oversee and confirm where he wants the ONT etc (it's my parents house so I don't want to be making the decision!), and it won't disturb me working or need me to take a day off.

Am I right in saying the router is posted out once the installation has been completed? How many days does the router typically take to arrive?

In reply to a post by think26872:

Already been posted above which networks Squirrel probably resell.

The only addition to this is to clarify Squirrel definitely resell Full Fibre Ltd also (it is not just BeFibre).

According to https://bidb.uk Full Fibre Ltd ISPs include BeFibre, Squirrel, IDNet and Octaplus (IIRC).

As with any reseller that sells multiple networks if you have a preference (and you have a choice) make sure you get commissioned on the network you prefer.

As already noted if you show as service available on BeFibre checker I believe they only sell Full Fibre Ltd (so if you sign up with Squirrel, IDNet or Octaplus you are likely to be commissioned on the Full Fibre Ltd network unless you have a massive choice of providers)

I think I could have phrased my post better but yeah it's Full Fibre Ltd (branded publicly as Fibre Heroes) that have built the network in Retford, and through which we will be getting Squirrel.

What I meant with BeFibre is I think they are part of the same company as Full Fibre Ltd and therefore only sell on that network, whereas Squirrel sell on others.

I opted for no router to be sent as I already have a opnsense firewall and own APs so can't confirm times but yes they odly send it activation and claim next day delivery my mates did arrive the day after though so I'll say 1-2 days as I can't 100% confirm

In reply to a post by acpsd775:

I opted for no router to be sent as I already have a opnsense firewall and own APs so can't confirm times but yes they odly send it activation and claim next day delivery my mates did arrive the day after though so I'll say 1-2 days as I can't 100% confirm

That sounds fine as with a Wednesday install it will hopefully be up and running by the weekend.

If you have your own router (not isp locked) yiu can be up and running half hour after install they don't force you to use theirs as long as your router supports DHCP wan they'll happily support you

In reply to a post by ryan125_hst:

In reply to a post by think26872:

Let us know how it goes

I will do

Have you had an progress with your order with Squirrel? Thanks

In reply to a post by think26872:

Have you had an progress with your order with Squirrel? Thanks

My Dad ordered it on Wednesday 15th January and was impressed that, despite the lead time on Squirrel's website being given as four weeks, he could have had installed as early as the following Thursday. He chose Wednesday 29th as he has Wednesdays off.

To our surprise, there was a knock at the door at 8am on Monday 20th and it was Fibre Heroes sorting out a blocked duct. I didn't have chance to take too much notice of what they were doing but after they left at about 9:15, I opened the front door to see a fibre cable had been installed through the Openreach duct in preparation for installation. We weren't expecting that! It was great to see though as this should speed up the installation on the day.

He told me yesterday that he had received an email from "Nibbles" and the Squirrel team to confirm the installation today and saying the router will be posted following installation and will be here within 2 days. Fingers crossed all goes well with the install and we should have full fibre broadband before the weekend.

In reply to a post by ryan125_hst:

My Dad ordered it on Wednesday 15th January and was impressed that, despite the lead time on Squirrel's website being given as four weeks, he could have had installed as early as the following Thursday. He chose Wednesday 29th as he has Wednesdays off.

To our surprise, there was a knock at the door at 8am on Monday 20th and it was Fibre Heroes sorting out a blocked duct. I didn't have chance to take too much notice of what they were doing but after they left at about 9:15, I opened the front door to see a fibre cable had been installed through the Openreach duct in preparation for installation. We weren't expecting that! It was great to see though as this should speed up the installation on the day.

He told me yesterday that he had received an email from "Nibbles" and the Squirrel team to confirm the installation today and saying the router will be posted following installation and will be here within 2 days. Fingers crossed all goes well with the install and we should have full fibre broadband before the weekend.

Sounds really positive and thanks for the information.

Looking forward to how you find the connection and whether you have any trouble getting a free static IP.

Edited by think26872 (Wed 29-Jan-25 10:55:30)

An engineer from CASS (Fibre Heroes contractor) turned up yesterday at about 11:30 and installed the ONT, CSP box and attached the fibre to the outside wall. I was working so couldn't watch what was going on but my Dad seemed happy with it. The engineer put the ONT where we wanted it and Dad has run an Ethernet cable under the carpet so we can still put our router where it currently is - I'd discussed all this with him advance so he knew about the ONT needing power etc.

The only thing we are concerned about is the light level was apparently -30 from what the engineer told my Dad. He had a look at the connection to the ONT and then went into the street and looked in one of the chambers under the footpath. We're not sure if anything changed but we have two green lights on the ONT so it seems to have a good connection. I'm concerned that a video online shows -22 as being the value that they investigate at. This was for Wildanet but they also use XGS-PON so I'd presume tolerances are similar? The reading in the video was about -17. Would it even work if it was -30? Is this reading something else? Or perhaps it was that bad and he sorted it?

Squirrel have confirmed the router has been dispatched so we'll see what the connection is like when it arrives over the next couple of days.

-30dBm is very, very low. Basically too low for most ONTs to successfully receive at.

Typically the ONT will operate from -28 dBm ~ -9 dBm for receiving.

A green light can turn into a red light in future if the level is borderline.

If you log in to the admin port of the router you may find an 'Optical' section giving the levels.

The installers probably have a level at which they intervene, such as -26.

I had to call out an engineer for a flakey connection. They have a light gun they can connect to the fibre to help in tracing light leaks. In my case it was at a plug and he cleaned the face of the fibre on a special fabric that the sleeve of his jacket was made of.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

-30dBm is very, very low. Basically too low for most ONTs to successfully receive at.

Typically the ONT will operate from -28 dBm ~ -9 dBm for receiving.

That's concerning. I found the datasheet for the ONT, a Nokia xs-010x-q, and it does indeed say -28 dBm ~ -9 dBm. Hopefully he sorted the cause of the low light level and it's now better than this.

In reply to a post by Thinker27:

A green light can turn into a red light in future if the level is borderline.

If you log in to the admin port of the router you may find an 'Optical' section giving the levels.

The installers probably have a level at which they intervene, such as -26.

I had to call out an engineer for a flakey connection. They have a light gun they can connect to the fibre to help in tracing light leaks. In my case it was at a plug and he cleaned the face of the fibre on a special fabric that the sleeve of his jacket was made of.

I'll have a look when the router arrives. I guess they'll have to sort it if it's out of spec and isn't a reliable connection.

There's no way to manually review the light levels on the OP's kit. There is no accessible user interface on the Nokia ONT their ISP provides.

The only way is to either:
1. Use a discrete calibrated light power meter (I would doubt the OP or most regular folks have one at their disposal)
2. Use a user-supplied / configured XGS-PON ONT 'stick' (read SFP+ pluggable) that they could read light levels via DOM in their own supplied router. Again I don't believe the OP has this as a ready setup.

As said. It will either work or it won't. If the light levels are too poor the ONT will throw up a LOS warning.

In reply to a post by ryan125_hst:

The only thing we are concerned about is the light level was apparently -30 from what the engineer told my Dad.

Is it possible they said -13 and he misheard?

In any case, if it's working reliably, don't worry about it. If the connection becomes flaky in the future, you can mention it.

I really don't believe an engineer would have gone away and ticked-off a successful install if the light level was -30dBm

Ah yes, of course. I have a combined ONT Router, where the light levels can be read. But not something to worry about, as you say.

Is it known Fibre Heroes lock down the ONT?

My MS3 supplied Nokia (XS-010G-Q - the 2.5G one) leaves the web interface available at http://192.168.100.1with default login admin/1234 providing access to a moreinfo.html page reporting light level.
It requires manually assigning an IP to access, but I configured OPNsense to make it available.

As you say kind of useless though, it's either working or it's not so just go by the lights.

In reply to a post by ryan125_hst:

An engineer from CASS (Fibre Heroes contractor) turned up yesterday at about 11:30 and installed the ONT, CSP box and attached the fibre to the outside wall. I was working so couldn't watch what was going on but my Dad seemed happy with it. The engineer put the ONT where we wanted it and Dad has run an Ethernet cable under the carpet so we can still put our router where it currently is - I'd discussed all this with him advance so he knew about the ONT needing power etc.

The only thing we are concerned about is the light level was apparently -30 from what the engineer told my Dad. He had a look at the connection to the ONT and then went into the street and looked in one of the chambers under the footpath. We're not sure if anything changed but we have two green lights on the ONT so it seems to have a good connection. I'm concerned that a video online shows -22 as being the value that they investigate at. This was for Wildanet but they also use XGS-PON so I'd presume tolerances are similar? The reading in the video was about -17. Would it even work if it was -30? Is this reading something else? Or perhaps it was that bad and he sorted it?

Squirrel have confirmed the router has been dispatched so we'll see what the connection is like when it arrives over the next couple of days.

Thanks for the update. It sounds like a positive experience. Hopefully the engineer did something to fix the light reading before he left. At least with proper fibre it generally either works or it doesn't so fault finding should be much easier. Looking forward to your next update

By and large the main network providers here in the UK lock down the ONT on the Ethernet side. I’m aware that some don’t, mostly AltNet providers here and some overseas networks - so it can be possible to get light levels and some very basic info from a landing page. But it’s by no means the rule or standard.

The router arrived on Thursday afternoon and my Dad installed a Cat 6 cable under the carpet between the ONT and the router in the evening (a seemingly difficult job due to the thickness of Cat 6 meaning he had to cut out some underlay, and I wasn't up to helping him as I've been suffering with a herniated disc in my lower back and painful sciatica for 7 months so I can't kneel on the floor to pull cables!)

We had the service up and running by about 10pm on Thursday night, in parallel with our existing Sky FTTC service. I worked connected to it on Friday and had no issues accessing files on the work server or in video calls.

I've not been able to do a reliable speed test as my desktop PC is connected over WiFi and the only other device I have is my work laptop which uses a USB-C adapter for Ethernet which I'm not convinced is the most reliable either!

It's definitely faster than Sky FTTC by far and even over WiFi when I'm in my room I'm seeing 200-300 Mbps as my Backblaze backup uploads which is brilliant, and I've seen speed tests over 400.

I don't think the WiFi is the strongest in the provided router though as it keeps dropping to a lower negotiated speed or even down to 2.4 Ghz so I'm looking at buying a high end router, probably an Asus ROG GT-BE98. I had hoped I could persuade my Dad to run an Ethernet cable for me and he initially accepted the idea, but after the experience the other night and with the thought of drilling holes in the wall, I think I'm sadly out of luck. Having the Sky router on as well also seems to be causing interference (I put my Sky box on earlier to look at moving it across to the new WiFi and it was stuttering while connected to the Sky router) so we'll move the last things across tomorrow and switch the Sky router off.

That said, the best speed I have seen on my phone so far when stood in front of the router is 826 Mbps down and 768 Mbps up which is miles ahead of the 70 Mbps and 18.5 Mbps we used to have. It does seem to vary a lot and even when plugged into my work laptop it was in the 600's and varying. I'm not sure if this is due to network contention or if it's because I've not been able to plug a device in that can get the full speed reliably. I'd love to see it nearer 900 Mbps but either way, we can't really complain with those speeds! We've also not noticed any drop outs so hopefully the fibre light levels are fine after all.

The last thing to mention is I think we're getting some bufferbloat. Webpages were snappy to load but suddenly I was seeing YouTube thumbnails take a while to load which led me to do some research and discover this. I found the Waveform Bufferbloat tester and sure enough it's grade A when plugged into the router and grade C or worse in my room. Another reason for me to look at improving the WiFi.

We also still need to contact them to organise a Static IP.

Overall though, so far so good and the speed bottlenecks are keeping me busy in the hunt to try and get the best out of the connection!

Very good. Bit more tweaking on the WiFi in due course.

You’ll find when you’re trying to reliably get > 800 Mbps on WiFi 6 and 7, obstacles of any sort will put a big dent in performance. Distance also. If you really want / need this level of throughput then coordinated multiple access points (with their own wired uplinks) start to become a necessity unless you practically have everything in one room!

You are so right. Wasn't so long ago I had two ADSL lines bonded together costing me £100 a month! Now I'm getting 800+ for £33!

Edited by kingbiscit (Mon 03-Feb-25 09:50:02)

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Squirrel is very limit to UK. They not Openreach but believe to be Cityfibre!

Squirrel use Freedom Fibre where I live.

. In my case it was at a plug and he cleaned the face of the fibre on a special fabric that the sleeve of his jacket was made of.

Tell me you are joking ?

If that was genuinely what the ‘engineer’ told you, then that’s a huge demerit against them.

In reply to a post by Thinker27:

he cleaned the face of the fibre on a special fabric that the sleeve of his jacket was made of.

Ha ha. And I bet he washed it with a bit of the special cleaning solvent that he keeps in his mouth

A mouthful of vodka (Ukrainian of course) will make it all better. 😎

In reply to a post by ryan125_hst:

We also still need to contact them to organise a Static IP.

Overall though, so far so good and the speed bottlenecks are keeping me busy in the hunt to try and get the best out of the connection!

If you have time are you able to provide an update?

How has the service been since going live?

Did you get your static IP address sorted for free?

Thanks

The service has been great so far. It would be difficult to run an Ethernet cable to my PC in my room (a powerful, very heavy desktop!) so it's difficult to get the maximum speeds, however the fastest I've seen is 859 Mbps down and 823 Mbps up on my phone standing right in front of the router. Can't argue with that! It's slower in my room but I actually did a speed test on my phone earlier and I got 501 Mbps down and 320 Mbps up which was very good for the WiFi upstairs and through a few walls. My personal Backblaze backup was completed in just over a week and it would have taken until into March on the old connection! I've had no dropouts or anything while working, Teams calls have been fine and I even managed to download a 150 GB Virtual Machine in a few hours last week.

My Dad contacted them via email to request a static IP address. He had to supply a reason and once given they sorted it quickly. The only thing I do need to ask is how do I check this as the IPv4 address on the router starts with 100.64 which seems to be a CGNAT address, but I might be wrong here. Is there a way to prove whether the IP address is static or CGNAT? It's caused us no issues so far so I've not looked into it further but it would be good to check it.

100.64.0.0/10 is a CGNAT block. I did skim through, but didn't see why you want a static IP address. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrier-grade_NAT#Shar... refers

Thanks for the update.

I too have relatives with access via Full Fibre Ltd but it is such a gamble to recommend as there is no way of knowing what the service is going to be like in a specific area. It is a pity the Trust Pilot reviews do not give their location so you know if a specific location is having problems.

In reply to a post by ryan125_hst:

The only thing I do need to ask is how do I check this as the IPv4 address on the router starts with 100.64 which seems to be a CGNAT address, but I might be wrong here. Is there a way to prove whether the IP address is static or CGNAT? It's caused us no issues so far so I've not looked into it further but it would be good to check it.

If the IP address is still in that range it is CGNAT.

Does anyone know if you need to restart the router or even the ONT for IP address changes to be picked up?