Posted 15 November 2023
Cityfibre provider + Best router advice please
Hi all,
My gf has been dealing with the end of contract dance with virgin media for her renewal and just hasn't been getting anywhere with them for a decent price. So I've been looking into Cityfibre options for her and was hoping I could get any recommendations or warnings about any of the following providers from peoples experiences with them.
Obviously with them all using cityfibre, the only real difference between them is price, customer service and the quality of the router equipment they provide.
All the below providers are priced within a couple £ of each other, so I'd love to hear about anyones experiences with them, in particular the smaller companies.
As for the provided router, I emailed them all to ask what they supplied. I would appreciate any input from people who have better knowledge than me to say which they think is the best of the bunch, or if any should be avoided.
The providers in the area that have 1gb cityfibre FTTP priced at between £27-£30 per month and their respective supplied routers are;
Vodafone - Intelligent WiFi Hub (Can't find a page on the Vodafone site)
Octaplus - Said usually a TP Link EX230v or TP Link VX230v
No One - Mercku M6a (Judging by a No One customer youtube video)
Factco - TP Link Deco M4
Link Broadband - They said "TP Link C6" which I assume is the TP Link Archer C6
Rocket Fibre - ZYXEL EX3301
Yayzi - TP Link HX220 Have emailed them to ask if it's the single or double pack, awaiting response.
Gigabit Networks - Fritz!Box 5530
I think that's all for now, If I remember anything i've left out i'll update the post.
Thank you to anyone that takes the time to read this in advance.
Any help is much appreciated.
My gf has been dealing with the end of contract dance with virgin media for her renewal and just hasn't been getting anywhere with them for a decent price. So I've been looking into Cityfibre options for her and was hoping I could get any recommendations or warnings about any of the following providers from peoples experiences with them.
Obviously with them all using cityfibre, the only real difference between them is price, customer service and the quality of the router equipment they provide.
All the below providers are priced within a couple £ of each other, so I'd love to hear about anyones experiences with them, in particular the smaller companies.
As for the provided router, I emailed them all to ask what they supplied. I would appreciate any input from people who have better knowledge than me to say which they think is the best of the bunch, or if any should be avoided.
The providers in the area that have 1gb cityfibre FTTP priced at between £27-£30 per month and their respective supplied routers are;
Vodafone - Intelligent WiFi Hub (Can't find a page on the Vodafone site)
Octaplus - Said usually a TP Link EX230v or TP Link VX230v
No One - Mercku M6a (Judging by a No One customer youtube video)
Factco - TP Link Deco M4
Link Broadband - They said "TP Link C6" which I assume is the TP Link Archer C6
Rocket Fibre - ZYXEL EX3301
Yayzi - TP Link HX220 Have emailed them to ask if it's the single or double pack, awaiting response.
Gigabit Networks - Fritz!Box 5530
I think that's all for now, If I remember anything i've left out i'll update the post.
Thank you to anyone that takes the time to read this in advance.
Any help is much appreciated.
Community Updates
18 Comments
sorted byRocket Fibre - ZYXEL EX3301
These are with AX1800 router, and probably easy to add another mesh unit when required. I personally prefer TP Link. I had ZYXEL mesh wifi, their quick user manual is not clear which take me a while to set up
Gigabit Networks - Fritz!Box 5530
This looks good as well, but personally never heard of Fritz!Box as a brand.
What's your thoughts on the Mercku m6a router supplied by No One, it's also WiFi 6, although does only have 2 usable ports. However, I do have an old Netgear GS308 8 port Gigabit switch that could solve that problem if the rest of the router is thought to be ok?
Hopefully I wouldn't need to add extra mesh WiFi but I can only imagine it would be more of a pain and have less options with the Mercku over a TP Link router.
Thanks
If you ever plan on hosting something from your network such as Plex, Nextcloud or game server you won't be able to access it externally, at least easily. Some of these ISPs charge £6-8 extra per month for a static IP.
Also if a site uses IP blocking then all customers who share the IP will also be blocked.
Anyhoo have a look at Toob offering a £100 amazon voucher on sign up in November.
Also not sure if you use Reddit at all but there is a subreddit for CityFibre (edited)
£31 a month for 900mb for 24 months and also a £100 giftcard.
Also interested to hear in people's experiences switching providers with Cityfibre - can I just sign up to a new provider or would I need to cancel with Vodafone first?
Edit: So I just spoke to Vodafone to put my 30 day notice in. They offered me £29pm for the 900mb package but this is without boosters (of which I have two, and would stop working if I went for this package). The price with boosters would be a bit more (but less than the £39 it is currently), and coupled with annual price rises, I think another provider will be my best bet going forward. (edited)
I think No One may be best on price where I am.
Firstly, just checking if there are any promos, referrals, cashback or any other ways of getting some money off.
Secondly, I have an Orbi RBK40 mesh wifi system at home, and the Virgin superhub is currently setup as a modem.
I also have an 8 port gigabit switch plugged into my Orbi router.
What equipment will I need to change once I go to Cityfibre? I do need the Orbi mesh wifi due to parts of the house being a bit far from the Orbi router.
Thanks.