Gigaclear: Who and Why

The information given here is only a brief summary and is intended to introduce you to Gigaclear – to find out more visit their website or ask one of their sales representatives when they visit the village in December.

What will Gigaclear provide? Gigaclear will provide every property within the main core of the village a broadband connection and wireless router. Their service provides access to the Internet using a fibre to the premises (FTTP) service that is reliable, ultrafast (*much* faster than BT Infinity), and cost effective. This is not Gigaclear marketing blurb, Gigaclear were ranked as the UK’s fastest internet service provider in 2013. You could have internet speeds of up to 1000Mbps – both up and down (Compared to BT current village speeds of about 4Mbps download & 0.3Mbps upload)!

Can I use it for Phone Services as well? Gigaclear have a partnership with Vonage – which would allow you to make all your telephone calls over your broadband line via a service known as ‘Voice over Internet Protocol’ (VOIP). You can keep your existing telephone number and cancel your BT line altogether – saving you line rental charges.

Why now and why not BT? The government is committed to ensuing all communities have access to superfast broadband by the end of 2017. Northamptonshire County Council decided they did not have enough funding to provide a subsidy to BT to provide the new service and after BT stated they had no plans for an upgrade for our village, Gigaclear volunteered to provide a technically faster and better solution than BT would have provided in any case!

How much will it cost? Gigaclear price is £38.80* a month which is very comparable with BT’s Superfast Broadband costs. There is no line rental with Gigaclear. If you also subscribe to the Vonage phone service this will be £7 a month including call costs. The same service with BT costs from £37-£51.40 a month and that’s is before BTs forthcoming price rise! Full details are on Gigaclear’s web site here.

Why is the Parish Council involved? In the recent village survey over 85% of respondents stated that they wanted faster broadband sooner than 2017. The Parish Council is very keen to help this initiative as we need to encourage 30% of the community to register interest to make this project a reality. Gigaclear also want to have village representatives to help with the planning and communication with residents as it will require the fibre optics cable to be buried in small trenches across the village. Whilst it is for individual to decide if the service meets their requirements, the PC is keen to support this project and feels it will be of enormous benefit to the village.

How long and what would be the timetable before the village goes live? We hope that we will get the 30% of orders by end Dec 14. Gigaclear are taking orders via their website and directly via their sales team, who will visit the village. We could have a live service by Jun 15!

I tried to order and it did not recognise my postcode? Please email Sadie sadie.patamia@aynho.org with your name and address, including postcode.

What if I have more questions? Visit www.Gigaclear.co.uk or talk to one of Gigaclear’s Sales representatives when they visit Aynho in December.

Where can I keep up to date with Gigaclear’s plans for the Village? The monthly village newsletter, the new Aynho Website at www.aynho.org (goes live beginning November) or via emails sent out by Sadie to those on the email list – email her at sadie.patamia@aynho.org if you are not currently on her list.

*Gigaclear’s new price from 1 January 2015 and not reflected on their website as yet .

Tags: Gigaclear, Ultra Fast BB