Browns Tree Solutions & Firewood Fuel MK

Background: Browns Tree Solutions & Firewood Fuel MK are family run businesses in Buckinghamshire. Browns provide a wide range of commercial and residential tree and hedge services, whilst Firewood Fuel recycle the waste and sell products such as kiln dried firewood and smokeless coal.

Size: The companies are run by director Jaz Brown and her father, Ray. They have a small team of around eight employees and sub-contractors.

The Challenge

In 2020, Browns moved into a business unit on Lower Rectory Farm in Great Brickhill near Milton Keynes. At that time, the only broadband access was via a 3G phone signal connected to a router placed on a windowsill. Director Jaz Brown said: “It was very frustrating. I’m in the office every day, using the computer pretty much 24-7 and so, a reliable broadband connection is paramount to the business. Unfortunately, our 3G signal would drop out every five minutes and then we’d have to wait for the broadband to reconnect before we could carry on working which made things very difficult. What’s more, our security system and CCTV cameras also connect to Wi-Fi – almost everything linked to the successful operation of our businesses relies on a fast and reliable broadband connection. It was clear we had to look for an alternative.”

Jaz asked neighbouring businesses on the farm about their broadband providers. Some were customers of Gigaclear whilst others had opted for one of the big four UK providers. As they didn’t know much about Gigaclear at the time, Jaz said they decided to go with a recognised name. However, when they tried to arrange a broadband connection, they found the work kept getting delayed and trying to resolve the issue proved frustrating.

Jaz said: “If you managed to get through on the phone then you rarely spoke to the same person and, if you left a message, they took a long time to get back to you. That’s the problem when dealing with large companies, they can be quite faceless. As a result, we felt we were going around in circles with no solution in sight.”

The Solution

Jaz said she was grateful when, one day, Gigaclear B2B Field Sales Executive Stephen Burder called in. She said: “We explained to Stephen the difficulties we were having and even though we couldn't switch provider at the time, he couldn’t have been more helpful. Rather than give us the usual sales pitch he offered us useful advice on what we could do and explained the difference between Gigaclear’s full fibre broadband and the part-fibre broadband promised by our existing provider.”

FTTP (fibre to the premises) is full fibre broadband that gives you a dedicated connection that runs directly from the exchange to your property. FTTC (fibre to the cabinet) is part-fibre broadband that uses fibre optic cables to the main telephone exchange but then uses old copper wires to connect to properties.

Rather than waiting for outdated FTTC infrastructure to be installed, Browns had the option of choosing Gigaclear’s much faster and more reliable full fibre broadband. And, as Gigaclear had already extended its unique network to Lower Rectory Farm, it was straightforward to run fibre optic cable from the nearby junction box to Jaz’s unit. The landlord of the business park also supported the decision, recognising how vital it was to his business tenants – and therefore to him - to have fast, reliable broadband.

Business Benefits

Jaz said: “We have had no problems whatsoever as a Gigaclear business customer and the broadband never drops out. One of the benefits of being a customer with Gigaclear, as opposed to one of the big four provider, is that you can communicate face-to-face; it is so much easier. As a business reliant on broadband, it’s very reassuring to know that if we ever had an issue, Stephen would come out to us. Being a small company, we chose the ‘Business 100’ broadband package as it suited our needs perfectly – and it’s a lot cheaper than what we were paying when we first moved to Lower Rectory Farm.”