Gigaclear broadband deals: symmetric rural fibre, and the one step that decides what it costs

What does Gigaclear cost right now?

Direct answer: Three packages, published without a postcode: £19 a month for 300 Mbps, £24 for 600 Mbps and £32 for 900 Mbps, every one of them the same speed up as down, on an 18-month minimum term (checked 16 September 2026). Set-up is £30 on the entry package and £0 on the other two. Those are promotional prices for new customers, and they run for the term rather than for ever.

Gigaclear also publishes something most providers leave out: a minimum guaranteed download for each package, not just an average. 240 Mbps on the entry tier, 480 Mbps in the middle and 700 Mbps at the top. An average is a statistical promise about half the users at peak time; a guaranteed minimum is a promise you can hold a provider to, and it is the number to quote if the line underperforms. The averages mean achievable by at least 50% of users on a wired connection at peak times.

A £50 gift card was attached to the 900Mbps package when we checked.

The promotional prices are for new customers only, and Gigaclear defines that narrowly: at least 60 days must have passed since anyone in the household had service disconnected at the address. An existing customer who upgrades mid-term pays those same list prices, not the promotional ones. For the arithmetic on any provider, our price and contract checker works out the real cost of a deal over its term, price rises by provider lists who raises what and when, and our gigabit deals page shows every gigabit option at your postcode.

The one step: what happens at 18 months

Direct answer: Nothing goes up during the contract, because there is no annual in-contract price rise clause in Gigaclear's residential terms, so no fixed April increase and no CPI-linked increase. Instead the whole increase lands once, when the 18-month term ends and the price reverts to the list price: £19 becomes £51, £24 becomes £63 and £32 becomes £88. On the middle package that is £39 a month more, an increase of 162%.

Gigaclear's own promotional terms put it plainly: After the 18-month minimum term, the price will revert to the list price advertised for existing customers at that time. Its residential terms say the same thing in contract language: Any discounts or introductory pricing applicable during the Minimum Term will end and your monthly charges will change to the pricing for existing customers which applies to your Services on the date your Minimum Term ends. Nothing about that is hidden, and nothing about it is unusual in principle, because almost every provider has a standard price behind the offer. What is unusual is the size. The middle package goes to 2.6 times its promotional price in a single month, and no other provider on this site moves that far in one step.

The practical response is a diary entry, not a decision. Put the term end date in your calendar with a month's warning, because leaving needs one month's notice, during which you keep and pay for the service, and treat that month as the moment to re-contract with Gigaclear, negotiate, or switch. Our report on the loyalty penalty shows what staying past a term end costs across the market, and our page on out-of-contract prices sets out the same moment provider by provider. Since 17 January 2025 Ofcom has required any in-contract rise to be stated in pounds and pence before you buy, which is why the list prices are published at all; our guide to in-contract price rises explains the rules.

Symmetric speeds, and why rural addresses notice

Direct answer: On Gigaclear, every consumer package carries the same average speed up and down, and it publishes a guaranteed minimum download for each one as well as an average. For a household coming off a copper line, the upload is usually the bigger change: an FTTC connection that downloads at 40 Mbps often uploads at well under 10.

One honest limit belongs here. Ofcom stopped publishing its UK Home Broadband Performance research after the September 2023 report, and Gigaclear was never in it, so there is no Ofcom measurement of Gigaclear's real-world speed or latency to quote. So the speed figures on this page are Gigaclear's own, defined the way the industry code requires, and the guaranteed minimums are the part you can hold it to. Our guide to upload against download explains what the difference feels like day to day, and latency, jitter and packet loss covers the measurements that matter more than headline speed once you are on fibre.

Does Gigaclear reach your address?

Direct answer: Only where it has built, which is rural England: 600,000 premises across 26 counties and 250 communities, with more than 175,000 customers. It is a property by property network, so check the house rather than the village.

The sequence is the same as for any altnet. Run the postcode in our comparison, then confirm the exact property, because a part-built lane can give two different answers a hundred metres apart. If Gigaclear has not reached you, the alternatives in the countryside are usually an Openreach line, whether FTTP or FTTC, a fixed wireless service, or 4G and 5G home broadband: Ofcom's Spring 2026 data puts full fibre availability at 82% of UK premises and gigabit-capable availability at 89%, and the gap is overwhelmingly rural. Our rural switching guide covers what to do while you wait, and what altnets are explains how networks like this one get built at all.

Project Gigabit and the villages still waiting

Direct answer: Gigaclear holds three live Project Gigabit contracts, covering East Gloucestershire, North Oxfordshire and South Oxfordshire, covering 12,850 premises between them, of which 7,840 premises had been built at 17 August 2026, published on 24 August 2026. Building Digital UK republishes those figures every month, so they move.

Project Gigabit is the government programme that pays for fibre in the places no commercial business case reaches, and Gigaclear is one of its suppliers. Across the whole programme, all suppliers together, the position at the same date was 846,770 premises contracted and 296,770 built across all Project Gigabit contracts. One recent change matters if you are in Gloucestershire: the East Gloucestershire contract was varied on 3 September 2026, adding 912 premises and removing 587 for a net gain of 325, and cutting the public subsidy by £777,041 to £10,038,014. Contracts are varied like that fairly often, which is why a published premises count is a snapshot rather than a promise about your house.

If you are waiting, two things are worth knowing. The first is that a subsidised build has a target rather than an appointment, and the Communications Ombudsman cannot help with it: the Communications Ombudsman can only take a complaint about a live service or an order you have placed, not about when the network will reach a village that is still waiting. The second is that waiting is not the only option, because 4G and 5G home broadband has improved sharply in exactly the places fibre has not reached. Our page on rural broadband when full fibre is not available works through the alternatives, and full fibre against FTTC, cable and mobile compares what each actually delivers.

What is included, and what costs extra

Direct answer: On every package: an eero Wi-Fi 7 router at no extra cost, with an eero Pro 7 and Smart WiFi mesh on the 900Mbps package, plus free eero Secure. Unlimited data, free expert Wi-Fi set-up and the WiFi Guarantee are all included too. What costs extra: the £30 activation fee on the entry package, and home phone from £6 a month for unlimited evening and weekend calls to UK landlines.

Gigaclear sells a narrower range than the big providers: no television, no mobile, no bundle discount to weigh. For a household that wants one bill for everything, that is a real gap, and the BT, Sky and Virgin Media pages cover the alternatives. For a household that wants a fast, reliable line and would rather choose its own streaming, the narrower range is a feature. Our guide to mesh against extenders covers the Wi-Fi question if the included kit does not reach the far end of the house.

Home phone, power cuts and the people it matters most to

Direct answer: Gigaclear's home phone runs over the fibre, so it stops in a power cut, and Gigaclear is unusually direct about it: Gigaclear says it does not recommend buying its home phone if you rely on a landline because of a disability or accessibility requirement and have no other way to reach the emergency services in a power cut. The route for anyone in that position is the vulnerable customer policy: a battery back-up unit giving at least one hour of power is free to vulnerable customers who rely on the home phone as their only means of communication, sent within a week of Gigaclear being told.

Every full fibre provider has this problem, because there is no copper line carrying power from the exchange. What separates them is how the warning is worded and how easy the battery back-up is to get. Gigaclear's warning is blunter than most, which is to its credit, and its policy is clear about who gets a unit and how fast. Alongside that it offers free directory enquiries for visually impaired customers, text relay, free emergency British Sign Language video relay, priority fault repair, bills in large print, Braille or electronic form, third-party bill management and payment plans.

If a landline is a lifeline in your household, say so before you order rather than after, so the unit arrives with the service rather than weeks later. It is also worth registering with the energy and water Priority Services Register, which Gigaclear points customers to and which is free. Our guide to what happens to your landline covers the switch from copper in full, care alarms and pendants covers the equipment that most often stops working after a fibre install, and switching for an elderly relative covers doing all of this on someone else's behalf.

Switching in, and getting out

Direct answer: Gigaclear uses One Touch Switch, so it contacts your existing provider for you and your old service ends when the new one goes live, so do not ring your old provider yourself. Gigaclear was offering to cover the cost of leaving an existing contract with up to 12 months of free broadband, for people with 12 months or less left to run, when we checked. Leaving early costs the standard monthly charge, less any recurring discount and less the wholesale and business costs Gigaclear saves, multiplied by the months left, then discounted by 4% for early receipt, and leaving at the term end costs nothing but needs one month's notice, during which you keep and pay for the service.

Installation is an engineer visit, because the fibre has to be brought to the property, and the appointment is booked when you order. In a rural build that can mean a duct or a pole run across your land or a neighbour's, which is why the terms ask for the consents and wayleaves before work starts. Gigaclear pays automatic compensation as a bill credit when it misses a One Touch Switch appointment or delays the switch, unless the delay is down to number porting or it gave at least 24 hours' notice. There is also a cooling-off period of 14 days from the day after your order confirmation.

The exit arithmetic is worth doing before you sign rather than after. That early termination formula is the standard shape, and better than a flat bill for every remaining month, because it takes off the costs Gigaclear no longer has to pay. The two dates that matter are the term end, which needs one month's notice, during which you keep and pay for the service, and the date any price change is notified, which gives you at least one month's notice, and a right to leave without penalty if you give notice within 30 days of being told. Our One Touch Switch guide explains the switching process, leaving a contract early works through the charges, and our switching checklist covers the practical steps on the day.

Who owns Gigaclear now, and why that matters

Direct answer: Gigaclear is owned by a consortium of its lenders, including the National Wealth Fund, ABN AMRO and NatWest, and led by Nathan Rundle. The change is recent and large: Gigaclear's lenders took ownership on 9 April 2026 in a debt restructuring that wrote about £388 million off a senior facility of roughly £963 million, leaving about £575 million; Infracapital, Equitix and Railpen were left with nothing. Gigaclear said the change of ownership was not expected to affect customers, who would continue to receive the same service.

The numbers behind it are the shape of a network builder rather than a business in decline: £64.9 million in 2025, up 37% on £47.2 million in 2024, against a pre-tax loss of £152 million in 2025, narrower than the £242.6 million loss in 2024, with 165,000 live customers at the end of 2025, up from 134,000 a year earlier and 618,000 premises ready for service at the end of 2025, up from 588,000 a year earlier. Losses of that size are normal for a company laying fibre across the countryside, because the cost lands years before the revenue does, and the restructuring removed the debt that had made them unsustainable. Gigaclear still says it aspires to cover one million premises one day.

For a customer the practical points are small. Your contract terms, your price, your term end date and your right to leave are set by the paperwork you signed rather than by the shareholder register, and they travel with the business if it changes hands again. What can change over time is the shape of the range and the service operation, which is worth watching rather than worrying about. Our altnet consolidation tracker follows who is buying and merging across the smaller networks, and our Great Consolidation report covers the market as a whole. Keep the order confirmation showing your agreed price and your term end date, and you are covered whatever happens above your head.

The gaps: no social tariff, no automatic compensation

Direct answer: Two things Gigaclear does not offer, both worth knowing before you commit. Gigaclear has no social tariff on Ofcom's list, checked against Ofcom's own published list on 16 September 2026. And Gigaclear is not one of the providers signed up to Ofcom's wider automatic compensation scheme, so a total loss of service or a missed repair appointment carries no automatic daily payment.

The social tariff gap is the sharper of the two, because Gigaclear's customers are disproportionately in places with no alternative provider at all, and a household that cannot afford £19 has nowhere else to go on the same network. What exists instead is its vulnerable customer policy, which offers payment plans for temporary difficulty, and the open market: County Broadband at £17.50 a month in the East of England, Quickline at £16.50 in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, Wildanet at £20 in Cornwall and Devon and Truespeed at £20 in the South West, alongside BT Home Essentials, which is sold across the UK. BT Home Essentials is the one to check first at a rural address, because it is sold wherever an Openreach line reaches, which is almost everywhere Gigaclear is. Our social tariffs page lists every tariff and what each asks you to prove, and social tariff eligibility explains the qualifying benefits.

The compensation gap matters in a different way. Ofcom's automatic compensation scheme is voluntary, and the providers in it pay set daily amounts when service is lost, an appointment is missed or a start date slips, without the customer having to ask. Gigaclear is not in it, so a fault means a conversation rather than an automatic credit. It does pay switching compensation, which is a regulatory requirement rather than a choice: Gigaclear pays automatic compensation as a bill credit when it misses a One Touch Switch appointment or delays the switch, unless the delay is down to number porting or it gave at least 24 hours' notice. Our guide to automatic compensation rates lists the current payments and who is signed up, and complaints and your rights covers what to do when a provider is not in the scheme.

Complaints, reviews and the dispute route

Direct answer: Ofcom publishes nothing for Gigaclear: it has no published Ofcom complaints figure, because Ofcom tables only providers with a stable market share of 1.5% or more. What exists instead is a Trustpilot profile at 4.7 out of 5 from 40,811 reviews on 16 September 2026, its own claims to Rural ISP of the Year 2025 and Best Rural Fibre Provider at the 2025 UK Fibre Awards, and a Top Employer 2026 certification, and the Communications Ombudsman as its dispute scheme, reachable free of charge after six weeks.

An absence is not a good record or a bad one; it means Gigaclear sits below the market share at which Ofcom tables a provider, as every altnet does. That puts more weight on what is measurable, and here the measurable thing is unusually positive: 4.7 out of 5 from 40,811 reviews, on a large and long-running profile, with the reviews leaning heavily towards engineers and telephone support rather than marketing. A review profile is a sample of people who chose to write rather than a random one, so read it as a strong signal rather than a measurement. Our Complaints Floor report explains how much of the UK market now sits outside Ofcom's tables altogether.

If something goes wrong, the route is clear but it has one limit. Gigaclear promises 28 days to resolve a service complaint, acknowledged within 5 working days, with an executive escalation route that acknowledges within 3 working days, after which an unresolved complaint can go to the Communications Ombudsman once it has run six weeks, which matches the rule that changed on 8 April 2026. The limit: the Communications Ombudsman can only take a complaint about a live service or an order you have placed, not about when the network will reach a village that is still waiting. Our complaints and your rights guide walks through the steps, and our complaints page has the contacts.

Gigaclear against the other lines at the same address

Direct answer: At the promotional price it usually wins outright at a rural address: £24 for 600 Mbps symmetric averages £33.75 a month across 24 months, against £26 for Sky's entry full fibre at a quarter of the speed, £31.24 for EE's 150 Mbps and £34.41 for BT's entry full fibre. At the list price of £63 it loses to all of them, which is what makes the term end date the thing to watch.

Two comparisons are missing from that table on purpose. Virgin Media and the city altnets barely overlap with Gigaclear's footprint, so for most Gigaclear addresses the real choice is Gigaclear, an Openreach provider, or mobile broadband. When we last hand-checked every deal, on 1 September 2026, the 373 broadband-only deals from the 28 providers we compare started at £13.50 a month (4th Utility, 150 Mbps on CityFibre), with good full fibre clustering between £23 and £34 a month and a median of £28. A symmetric 600 Mbps line inside that band is rare anywhere and rarer in the countryside, which is why the promotional period is worth having even knowing what follows it.

Who should choose Gigaclear, and who should not?

Direct answer: Choose it if it reaches your address and the alternative is a tired copper line, if upload matters to your work, or if you want a guaranteed minimum speed rather than an average; look elsewhere if you will not diarise the term end, if you need a social tariff, if you want a rolling monthly contract, or if you want a provider in Ofcom's automatic compensation scheme.

The test is the same as everywhere on this site: run the postcode, see what is actually available, and compare the total over the term rather than the headline. At a rural address with Gigaclear on the list, it is usually at or near the top of it for the first eighteen months.

What should you check before you order Gigaclear?

Direct answer: Six checks, five minutes: the exact property, the term end date in your calendar, the 24-month average rather than the headline, the guaranteed minimum speed, the landline and power cut question, and whether a cheaper tariff elsewhere would suit you better.

Related reading: how to switch broadband, rural switching, social tariffs, what altnets are, and gigabit deals.

Live Gigaclear deals at your postcode