Fibre Exchange

The Giganet network is underpinned by our ability to deliver high capacity, reliable, flexible, and cost effective connectivity across the entire UK.

The Giganet Fibre Exchange is what makes this possible.

The Giganet Fibre Exchange is where we interconnect over multiple high-capacity fibre links to twelve national carriers (and counting) in our resilient London-core network.

This helps us to deliver to deliver super and ultrafast broadband, as well as dedicated & high-capacity leased lines across the entire UK at competitive prices, whilst maintaining flexibility, resilience and control over the design.

Giganet Fibre Exchange benefits

  • Carrier Neutral: We're not tied to one particular carrier.
  • Better resilience: Not being tied to one carrier, allows us to engineer diverse & resilient connections.
  • Better pricing: As all carriers have different network footprints across the UK, one carrier in London may not be the best for someone in Swindon.
  • Flexibility: At the expiry of your minimum term with us, we can scan the market seeking out the best circuit for the next period; retaining your IP addresses even if we switch carrier.
  • More innovation: We work with exciting new carriers like CityFibre, Gigaclear & Glide who are installing their own fibre networks, whereas many of the others are just resellers of Openreach.
  • Great for MPLS/multi-sites: With the Giganet Fibre Exchange, we can recommend the best connectivity and carrier for each location, reducing compromise.
Giganet Fibre Exchange Members-01

Comparisons to working with BT, TalkTalk Business or Virgin Media

BT, Virgin Media or TalkTalk Business don't have a "fibre exchange", they use their own networks exclusively and they can't be everywhere in the country for the best price, resilience options and flexibility.

You are tied into working with one carrier option, and this can mean that they have to "long-haul" circuits across multiple towns which can substantially increase costs.

For MPLS and multi-site organisations, this represents a big disadvantage and the issues are compounded with each site brought onto the network. You could end up paying vast sums more and receiving slower speeds.

 

FAQs

Aren't you just reselling other ISP's connectivity?

No. Giganet is directly interconnecting with the networks as part of the Fibre Exchange - layer two - and this give us full control over the QoS, throughput, IP addressing, PWAN MPLS options, monitoring, resilience options ourselves. We don't outsource these capabilities. This helps to ensure shorter lead times, you have direct access to experts, more options for bespoke configurations and designs, and improved resilient options.

 

Why don't I just cut you out and go direct to the carriers?

You may be able to, although some carriers do not sell directly to end customers, instead they work with the likes of Giganet who are ISPs. Some carriers are just the infrastructure builders and don't pass the IP packets down the fibre. This is the case with CityFibre and Openreach for example. You can't order an Internet connection directly from them.

If you order direct, you reduce your flexibility. You are locked into their supply, IP addresses, potentially limited resilience options and network reach than compared to if you worked with Giganet and leveraged our Fibre Exchange.

You may also face reduced customer care as you could be a small fish in their great big ocean.

 

This is nothing new, everyone has been offering this for a while

You are right that we are not the first to offer a Fibre Exchange, however the difference is that the vast majority of "providers" are just reselling other ISP's connectivity. They don't have their own core network. They don't purchase the carrier circuits at layer two. They don't configure the QoS, bandwidth, MPLS PWAN, IP addressing or routers. They outsource this all to their partner ISP. This can help increase lead times, decrease accuracy of communications, and you are effectively going through more middlemen as a result.

 

Will you be bringing more carriers onto the Fibre Exchange?

Yes. We have a track record of connecting to more carriers where we see their network footprints increase that makes it worthwhile. For example, we have recently in past twelve months connected to CityFibre and Glide who are innovative and building their own fibre networks in many towns and cities across the UK.

 

I'm concerned you have too many carriers, how can you be experts and manage them all?

Good question! In many cases, we have no choice but to connect to the most significant providers in the country, as if we didn't, customers would be limited with higher pricing, slower speeds and decreased satisfaction. However, we have very close relationships with all our Fibre Exchange carriers, have an even split of services across most, can benchmark them against each other, so we are able to manage these relationships well, and still remain expert, offer great communication to customers, and price competitive solutions!