Full fibre puts a stop to broadband dramas (so you can focus on the on-screen ones). It isn’t just about faster speeds – it’s about having internet that works exactly how you want it to.  

Here are 5 brilliant things you can do with full fibre that older broadband (like copper cable) just can’t handle. 

1. Stream uninterrupted – even during the big match 

From the Premier League to the latest season of Squid Game, full fibre’s made for the biggest events. Because fibre optic cables run directly to your home, you don’t have to share your connection with neighbours. 

So, even when the whole country’s watching, there’ll be no spinning wheels or fuzzy screens. 

Storms, drizzle, surprise hail — you name it, the UK’s got it. But full fibre is more reliable than your favourite umbrella. Unlike older broadband connections that rely on copper wires, full fibre shrugs off the wind and rain, keeping you online no matter what’s happening outside. 

Run a meeting, stream The Crown or game with a group… Everyone in the house can do all the things they want, all at the same time. You’ve got bandwidth to go around.  

Got a YouTuber in the house? On older connections, uploading videos can take longer than actually making them. But full fibre upload speeds are super speedy, so you can share the latest unboxing video or cat montage in seconds.  

Smart lights? Check. Video doorbells? Check. A thermostat you can control from the other side of the world? Check. With full fibre, you can power all your smart home gadgets. That’s got you (and your house) looking pretty clever.  

5 things you can do with full fibre (that you can’t with other types of broadband) 

Picture the scene. You’re streaming the season finale, speeding towards the inevitable cliffhanger, when bang... Buffering.  

You know how it goes – some days you’ve got a lot more in the tank than others. And that’s totally OK, because not every day’s meant to be a personal best. But when it comes to your broadband, only peak performance will do. Enter full fibre – the sturdiest, most reliable broadband around.  

Let’s go back to broadband basics. There are actually two main types of connection – copper cables and full fibre. Copper wires are older technology that use your phone line to bring internet into your home, making them slower and much more likely to break down. Whilst full fibre runs directly into your home using fibre optic cables – hands down the most reliable connection out there.  

At Cuckoo, we’re full fibre all the way.

Head-to-head: copper wires vs full fibre 

Back in the day, the internet wasn’t used for much more than the odd email. Those old-school copper wires were designed in the era of landlines (remember those?), so they can’t always handle the strain of today’s internet use. And that’s why you might end up with slower downloads, stuttering streams or buffering right as you’re about to share your screen in a meeting. 

Full fibre, on the other hand, was designed to deal with all the technology you need in modern life. Like 4K streaming, gaming, WFHing and so much more. So, when it comes to loading, it doesn’t just keep up – it races ahead. Like the reliable little speedster it is.  

Most days, the internet is a pretty busy place. But some days, it’s like a shopping centre on Christmas Eve. Utterly crowded and chaotic, with simple things like paying for stuff in your basket taking forever.  

During these really busy times, some broadband set-ups can’t handle the strain (copper cables, we’re looking at you) because they share a connection with a whole street or neighbourhood. And when everyone’s online at the same time, the copper cables get overloaded and give up.  

But other types of broadband (hello, full fibre) can hold strong – because every connection serves one home directly, and isn’t impacted by what other people are up to. Pretty cool, right? 

Take Black Friday as an example. On 1st December 2024, shoppers were snapping up deals while Fortnite fanatics downloaded the latest update. The result? A huge 405 petabytes of data consumed on the Openreach network (that’s enough to keep your TV streaming in 4K for over 40 million hours). And a lot of frustrated people whose connections couldn’t keep up.  

Moral of the story? Full fibre’s your key to staying online, all the time.  

Hopefully now we’ve convinced you that full fibre’s ridiculously reliable. Here are a few tips and tricks to make sure you always get peak reliability: 

Plug in 🔌– whenever you can, connect your laptop or phone to your router with an Ethernet cable. It just makes everything that little bit smoother. 

Share nicely 🤗– got an important call? Nicely ask your Twitch-loving housemates to pause their gaming spree 

Declutter your network🧹– check your router settings and disconnect anything you don’t use anymore (like old phones or laptops). Like a spring clean, but for Wi-Fi. 

Get an extra eero router ➕ – this helps spread the signal and coverage further in your home with a mesh system  

Ready to upgrade your connection? Let’s make it happen.

More streaming, more scrolling, more screen-time... it all takes a toll. Unless you’ve got full fibre, that is.  

Hitting peak performance: Why full fibre is so reliable 

There’s just one thing they absolutely need to work properly, and that’s your broadband. Which is why it makes sense to go for the speediest and most reliable kind: full fibre.  

From AI-powered ovens to automatic blinds, robot vacuums to self-watering plants, smart home tech really and truly does it all for you. Which is great, of course, until your Sunday roast stops roasting because of a sketchy Wi-Fi signal. 

That won’t happen with full fibre broadband, though – as it’s genuinely way more reliable than any other kind of broadband. Pair it with an eero router, and you’ll get the very best signal and coverage everywhere in your home.  

Like most people in the world, you’re probably streaming your favourite movies and TV shows on platforms like Disney+ and Netflix. But no-one wants to see that dreaded wheel of doom in the middle of the big Severance season 2 finale. With full fibre broadband, there’s not a buffering wheel in sight – even if your housemates are, for some reason, watching something else at the same time and using up bandwidth. 

Check out this guide to see what kind of broadband you need for different streaming platforms. 

If you take your gaming seriously (hello, Helldivers 2) you’ll need to take your broadband just as seriously. Because aside from playing online, which you need a solid connection for, loads of games rely on cloud services like Xbox Game Pass just to download. If your connection’s a bit patchy or your bandwidth’s struggling, this can mean high ping during a game, or waiting ages for an update. But again, full fibre broadband and an eero router makes all that a thing of the past. 

Whether you’re a streamer, gamer, or your flatmate just can’t get enough of that robot vacuum, you’ll need full fibre broadband to keep all your devices working smoothly. Our speeds go up to a whopping 900Mbps, and while you’re with us, you’ll get access to an eero Pro 6E router worth £249.99*, boosting signal and coverage everywhere in your home. 

8K TVs, your PS5 Pro, fridges that tell you when the milk’s going off… smart devices are truly amazing. And in 2025, we’ll be using them more than ever. 

Gadget addict? Full fibre’s for you

But we don’t use these terms at Cuckoo because, well, they’re just not that useful. Instead, we stick to a numbered approach: the higher the number, the faster the speed. Crazy, we know. 

But we can still help you figure out what everyone else is talking about. And, more importantly, help you understand what speed you really need. 

When it comes to figuring out how fast your broadband will be, it’s the download speed you want to look for. Starting at the bottom end of the scale, Ofcom defines superfast broadband as a download speed of 30Mbps and above. Ultrafast is, by their definition, a minimum of 100Mbps, with hyperfast broadband being anything between 500Mbps and 1Gbps.  

Like we said, we prefer to use a numbered approach when it comes to the three speeds we offer. So our C-150 has a download speed of [drumroll please...] 150Mbps. C-500 gives you 500Mbps and there are zero clues for what our C-900 speed provides. Yep, that’s right: 900Mbps. Click here to find out more. 

But what about fibre vs full fibre broadband? 

We thought you’d never ask. Well, fibre is the older type of connection, where a fibre optic cable (fast) runs from the exchange to a cabinet near where you live. From there, your data runs on an older, copper wire (slow) to your home. 

Cuckoo only provides full fibre, which is where fibre optic cables run all the way from the exchange, directly into your home. So there’s no copper to slow you down. And yes, it’s much, much, much faster. Up to 25 times faster in fact. Right now, about 70% homes in the UK can get it*, so if you don’t have it yet, the first thing to do is check your postcode and see if it’s available. If it’s not, don’t worry – more and more people are being connected to full fibre every day, so it should only be a matter of time.  

A very good question. Not all households use the internet in the same way, so it’s good to have a think about the following, before you choose your speed: 

Got a busy family or loads of housemates? Do you often need to be online at the same time? If so, your bandwidth needs to be large enough to be shared around. Which means you’ll want one of the faster speeds available. 

If you’re a regular gamer, and especially if you like streaming on Twitch or Discord, you probably don’t want to have anything slower than 100Mbps. And ideally, a minimum speed of 500Mbps should give you the best shot at being on the podium most evenings. For more on gaming, click here.

Whether you’re streaming the latest Netflix thriller, pumping out your favourite playlist, or cycling through another Peloton workout, you’ll need a fast speed to keep the dreaded wheel of doom at bay. And if you’re streaming in UHD this only becomes more important. A minimum speed of 100Mbps would be a good place to start but it really depends on what you're streaming and when. See more here

With around 44% of UK workers now working from home at least some of the time, this inevitably means video calls, downloading files and real-time collaboration. Which all need good download speeds. And if there’s more than one of you WFH at the same time, you’ll really need something fast, probably at least 500Mbps to be safe- especially if you're dealing with large files.

As our homes and appliances get ever smarter, they all need to use our Wi-Fi to do their thing. Which means a good constant connection is needed, before you even start doing any of the above. If you have apps on your phone for your fridge, security, speakers and lighting, you might want a faster speed to make sure they all run as smoothly as possible. 

A good rule of thumb is 5 Mbps for any non-video devices. And 10 Mbps for anything video. Read our smart home guide for more

If you’re not sure exactly what speed you’ll need, it’s always good to go a bit faster than you think you’ll need, because you’ll never notice the difference. But if you go too slow, you’ll be reminded over and over again.  

And if you’re not going with Cuckoo, remember to look out for that download number. If a provider says they’re offering you superfast broadband, then as good as it might sound, it’s only going to be somewhere between 30-100Mbps.  

Finally, don’t be distracted by the word ‘fibre’ either. Make sure you ask them if it’s full fibre and full fibre only.  

If you’re ready to join our flock and get full fibre from just £36/month, we’d love to have you join our flock. Click here to get started. 

*source: think broadband https://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/

Many broadband providers can’t wait to tell you how superfast, ultrafast or hyperfast their broadband is. 

5 things you can do with full fibre (that you can’t with other types of broadband)

1. Stream uninterrupted – even during the big match

2. Weather every storm

3. Do it all, all at once

4. Upload without the meltdown

5. Give your house a glow up

Ready to go full fibre?

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Hitting peak performance: Why full fibre is so reliable

Gadget addict? Full fibre’s for you

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