We are able to provide services to residential premisis via CityFibre's network in England. CityFibre is an "Alt-Net"; a fibreoptic carrier independent of Openreach. They supply gigabit services into homes in many cities and towns throughout the country over their own fibre network infrastructure.
June 2023 - we are working with CityFibre to trial 2.5Gb/s services in some areas:- read more here.
We are offering 1Gb/s and 160Mb/s speed options. The 160Mb/s service is great for smaller households where a lower costs outweigh the need for top-end speed. With CityFibre, the upload speed is the same as the download speed.
We are working with CityFibre to trial 2.5Gb/s services in some areas - read more here.
We have access to most CityFibre residential areas in England. The network is expanding every week with existing 'cities' increasing their coverage and new 'cities' being planned.
Although many A&A customers stay with us for decades we're offering CityFibre on a 1 month minimum term!
A new installation involves CityFibre engineers installing a fibre cable in to your home. If you already have a CityFibre box installed then a migration from your existing ISP or re-activation can be ordered.
Customers can use their own router or we can provide a discounted one if required.
Offering CityFibre services is still new for us at A&A and getting fibre installed in to homes can be tricker than installing phone lines. We are currently processing orders manually with a very hands-on approach. To request an order, email: sales@aa.net.uk
The monthly cost depends on the speed of the service and the quota.
| Download/Upload | Home::1 1TB Quota | Home::1 10T Quota |
|---|---|---|
| 160M / 160M | £37.00 | £47.00 |
| 1G / 1G | £57.00* | £67.00 |
Speeds listed are the "line rate" actual throughput will slightly lower due to overheads etc. See our Gigabit FAQ and FTTP Speeds pages.
*We'd usually expect the 10T quota option to be selected for the 1G service.
Order now!
Offering CityFibre services is new for us at A&A and we are initially taking orders on a 'soft launch' basis. To request an order, email: sales@aa.net.uk
New Order Process
Installation day information
Engineer visit
An engineer visit is required for new installs, which will be booked during the order process. We usually only offer morning appointments (8am-1pm) as that gives a better chance of the installation being completed that day. Some installs can take longer than the allocated time and may need a second appointment. CityFibre outsource the installation to Kelly Communications.
Dig work
CityFibre would have already dug up and installed their cables and junction boxes along your street. Further work is required to connect your premises to this cable, and will involve either running cable overhead, if you have telegraph poles, or digging a trench from the pavement/road to your building, then drilling in to the building to gain access to the inside.
Digging up your drive
This would involve digging from your pavement area to your building, so may well mean digging concrete driveways or flowerbeds, or pulling up driveway brickwork. The contractors will try to do the best job possible but do be prepared for some disruption. We'd suggest you take a look at your driveway and imagine what would be needed to run a cable from the pavement to your building and whether you are prepared for the destructive work to take place.
Time
If there is easy access, such as where overhead cabling is used or where the box is next to easy to dig earth, the installation can take less than an hour. However, it can take a lot longer, 3, 5 or more hours, where digging and drilling is required.
Wiring in the home
The cable being installed it fairly thick and can't easily be bent around corners like telephone or CAT5 wiring can. The engineers are not allowed to drill door frames. The point the cable enters the building will be decided when the engineer arrives and due to the cabling constraints and building structure it may not be exactly where you'd want it to be.
They will try to make the install as neat as possible. The engineer will take photos and one of their managers will sign off on each install.
Equipment
The fibre that is installed in to your home will be connected to an ONT (Optical Network Terminal) that will be provided by the engineers. This does need to be powered so you will need to have a power socket close by. This is the box that you'd plug your router in to. You can read more about the ONT on our Support Site.
Migrations
Moving from one CityFibre 'Partner' to another is possible. Until April 2023 this is 'Losing provider led' - which means a bit of manual for for the customer and for us (and the losing partner). Get in touch with us and we can explain the process as it can be a little fiddly.
What's the latency like?
Latency can vary depending on the location. As an example, we see around 3ms ping time on lines in Reading, Milton Keynes and Cambridge to the IPs: 1.1.1.1, 8.8.8.8 and 9.9.9.9, but nearer 7ms in the West Midlands.
Can you tell be about the box that will be installed in my home?
The CityFibre installers will install an 'ONT', you can find details about this device on our Support pages: https://support.aa.net.uk/CityFibre_ONT
Can I use my own router?
Yes, that's no problem! It'll need to be set up for PPPoE using VLAN 911.
Business premises
CityFibre classify residential and business addresses and offer two separate products to each. We are not yet able to order a CityFibre service to a business address, though we are working on this.
Can I have multiple CityFibre circuits?
CityFibre will install only one service to a property, so it's not possible to have two.
You could have multiple services as well as CityFibre - eg, you could have a CityFibre service and a FTTP from BT, or FTTC from us as a backup.
CityFibre and Toob
It was announced at the end of 2022 that CityFibre and Toob had agreed terms to work together and provide eachother's services. Originally the press release said that partners (like us) would be able to access Toob's network by Summer 2023 - however, this has not happened and we have no ETA from CityFibre as to when we'll be able to order Toob-based services via CityFibre.
| Lead time | Typically within a week, can be longer, date will be offered during the order process |
|---|---|
| Minimum term | 1 month from activation date |
| Install days | Mon-Fri, AM or PM appointment slots, though we will offer AM to increase success rate |
| Repair SLA for a fault | eg, for fibre breaks: "end of next working day", but could take longer. Other faults can also take longer. |
| Termination type | CityFibre will install an ONT with an Ethernet port |
| Router type required | PPPoE capable router (VLAN 911) |
| MTU | 1500 bytes (if your router supports RFC4638, jumbo frames) else 1492 |
| Committed rate (for 1G services) * | 70Mb/s / 35Mb/s |
| Committed rate (for 160M services) * | 10Mb/s / 10Mb/s |
* Committed rate
The Committed rate is the minimum rate that CityFibre guarantee across their network, in practice we'd expect customers to be able to use their full bandwidth without any congestion. The CityFibre FTTP service is not like a leased line where you have sole-use of the bandwidth between your premises and the ISP, this is a shared service using GPON or XGS-PON technology, much like BT's FTTP service.
