Which home broadband do you reccomend?

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redsnappa

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After years of trouble free broadband with O2 the have recently been bought out by Sky. The transition completed a couple of weeks ago and already there are problems.
On the latest bill they supplied it shows that I am been charged an extra supplement because I have not taken out Sky TV or Sky telephone. As a consequence of these billing issues I now want to move broadband providers.

I'm happy with 16mb broadband and I would like unlimited downloads.

Who are you with and would you recommend them?
 
Been with Talk Talk for donkeys years. Never had an issue (though some may say differently).
 
Virgin Media. I know they have a bad rep, and occasionally (though more a couple of years ago) they have outages. But the service is fast, and I'm happy with them Far better then BT
 
In process of leaving BT after 4yrs, too many faults and inconsistent speeds recently + poor customer services.

Got a deal with EE for unlimited fibre at same price as currently paying BT.
 
in my experience BT are horrendous. been with plusnet for about 3 years and never had any problems.
 
another for plusnet, really good company with good support, moved to there fibre option, really good fast speeds (73MbDL on up to 76Mb)
 
VIRGIN 60mb broadband increasing to 100mb in july next year and yes i have a genuine 60mb broadband connection hth mike
 
Isn't it the truth that they should all be the same. Until you need to contact customer support, that is. And it's in this area that the greatest differences between suppliers occur. This is why I'm with the Utility Warehouse.
 
I was with Pipex for years and I have to say they were superb.

Pipex were bought out by Talk Talk and to say things went down the pan was the understatement of the century. Simply unfit to be called an ISP, unable to even understand my issues never mind resolve them and the worse customer service I've ever experienced.

I changed to BT and they've been great.
 
I'm with Clara Net. They are expensive, but every time I've had a problem (probably twice with a real problem) they have been superb. I am on a 24 month contract with them (fibre and 24 month avoided the install cost) and when the period completes I will be staying with them (unless they try and hike my price). Support is UK based and knowledgeable although only operate extended office hours and not 24/7. Note though on the website, prices EXCLUDE VAT.
 
PS. I'm a heavy user - 500G/month on average - and they are totally uncapped/unmanaged.
 
dinners said:
I was with Pipex for years and I have to say they were superb.

Pipex were bought out by Talk Talk and to say things went down the pan was the understatement of the century. Simply unfit to be called an ISP, unable to even understand my issues never mind resolve them and the worse customer service I've ever experienced.

I changed to BT and they've been great.
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Snap, I was with freedom2surf, who were bought by Pipex all was fine then talk talk and as you say it was shocking.
Currently on BT but will move at end of contract, probably to EE
 
Zen - Because you get what you pay for. Years of trouble free service.
 
VIRGIN 60mb broadband increasing to 100mb in july next year and yes i have a genuine 60mb broadband connection hth mike
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Fibre is out of the question as despite living less than half a mile from Birmingham city centre neither Virgin or BT supply fibre to the road where I live.
 
neil_g said:
Err, sky. Never any bother, stable 19mb (non fibre).
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Have to agree with Neil, Sky has been spot on for over 3 years, unlimited and reasonable speed. Just wish we had fibre :(

Steve
 
I'm on Virgin fibre-optic, when I do a speed test I get around 95mb/s, it's good but I've had horrendous problems with them in the past where my download speed would only be not even 1mb and this lasted for months! They seem to have improved for me though.
I've heard a lot of positives about plusnet and they do fibre as well. If I could be bothered with the hassle of switching over, I would go from Virgin to PlusNet.
 
Another for Zen. Not the cheapest, but never had a problem and I live in rural Wales. I get a sable 6mb connection which is great considering where I live and BT suggest I should get a whopping 512k
 
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BT Infinity reliable and fast, no issues.
 
Definitely not the cheapest, but BT Infinity. Never had any issues in a couple of years. Super fast and reliable (compared to the cack cable connection I've got now)
 
I was on the verge of dropkicking my Virgin "superhub" down the road last week. The wireless on it is total gash. Ended up buying a shed load of coax just so I could move the router somewhere the room next to it could get a signal.
 
The difficulty is that everyone seems to have problems with one provider or another.. I was with Talktalk for a few years but started having trouble following a line upgrade in my area, they were incapable of resolving it, switched to BT and the fault was solved the very same day and BT have been excellent from then onwards. You get BTsport and BThotspot access for free.. also get the dual band Homehub 5 router which has much improved my wireless connections

Simon
 
antihero said:
I was on the verge of dropkicking my Virgin "superhub" down the road last week. The wireless on it is total gash. Ended up buying a shed load of coax just so I could move the router somewhere the room next to it could get a signal.
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I think they have a new improved Superhub, but wanted me to pay around £50 for it!!
 
I dumped Virgin about 18 months ago because of appalling service on their 50mb service, never got over 10 and that was when it worked. Had countless engineers but still never fixed it. Moved to BT infinity and have never looked back, fast , reliable and you get BT sport and a flikr pro account for free!!!
 
Sky has been spot on for over 3 years, unlimited and reasonable speed
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Since the transfer to sky from O2 my download speed has dropped from 12.5MB to 7.2MB and the upload speed has been reduced to 0.8Mb from the 1.2MB when O2 was the broadband providor
 
I changed to Sky from BT.
Better service, speed and price.
I asked for- and got- free installation, router, Sky box, catch up, satellite dish, unlimited broadband, evening/weekend/local calls. I'm getting around 20Mb/sec - three times BT.
£19.95 a month
 
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Had a few providers

bt, did a good job.
got convinced to go to utility warehouse, most dire customer service ever and very poor broadband
then swapped to talk talk, router was rubish, I complained they said sign up to a new contract we will replace the modem for you! Told them I will think about it.
Recently swapped to sky, nice smooth internet, no drops in connection or anything, plus all phone tv and bb bills are together.
 
Virgin for me. 120 meg gives me the bandwidth to allow the whole tech family to download anything all at once. Not had any service issues with them. Been with them since it was dial up. (can't believe how things have changed in just a few years)
 
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I was with homecall they were great and stayed that way when bought buy pipes. then the trouble started pipes were taken over buy tiscaly later talk talk. went to sky and they are great
 
+1 to Plusnet. Been with them two years now and it's been fine. Am on a rolling monthly contract so can cancel at any time. Downside is I'm getting only 3-4 meg max (physical limitations). I pay extra for the gaming supplement.

Steep said:
Zen - Because you get what you pay for. Years of trouble free service.
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Zen was my next choice. They didn't appear to do a charge for gaming (ie minimising ping). Would be nice to know how much lag is on their lines.
 
I've been with wanadoo/orange/EE for a LONG time - been a couple of faults over the years, usually due to BT's hardware, and they've been fine. I bought my own routers because I'm at the end of a long copper wire, and having a better router gave me more speed than any change of ISP could.
 
One word of warning - if you go with a bundled phoneline & broadband deal, be careful of the call charges. When we were bundled on Virgin a few years ago, the phone line was cheaper than BT but the individual call charges were higher, particularly the minimum call charge which was way higher with Virgin. This meant bills were actually higher with the combined phone/broadband package than if we had stayed with BT phone and Virgin for BB alone. Couple that with Virgins then draconian "traffic management" policy (which didn't work like they claimed) and I would NEVER touch Virgin Media or a bundled contract ever again.

A couple of other points:

  • I think fibre is being rolled out to areas that can benefit most from it. If you are close to the exchange, you will likely get fibre last on the exchange. This is because you already have pretty decent speeds anyway (although for me fibre brings upload speed which is what I'm most interested in).
  • The higher speed Virgin services are, as far as I'm aware, cable based, not fibre based as they are a cable company.
  • I'm surprised Virgin don't have a cable running past your house - are you in a newish house?
  • Unless you go for an unbundled service (i.e. one where the ISP has their own equipment and backhaul at the exchange - thius is different to a bundled deal) you will be using OpenReach equipment to get you from your home to your ISPs Point of Presence. This means using OR's network for a while. My ping times are ~10ms, 9.8 of those 10ms are in OR's network....
  • I too would ditch whatever router you have been given and use my own (although they are getting better, I have yet to have one in my hands that I would be happy to use - too many compromises to get something that is cheap IMHO). My current recommendation is Asus RT-N66U or RT-AC66U depending whether you want wireless AC or not but for ADSL, either of these choices involve you using the ISP supplied router as a bridge or buying a modem to do the job for you as they do not include the ASDL modem.
  • To find out what is available at your exchange/postcode, the best place I have foiund is SamKnows: http://www.samknows.com/broadband/broadband_checker
 
Mum is also having similar problems with Sky broadband. I use BT and I've never had a problem (not fiber but the customer support is really good, as are the hotspots) and in my rented accommodation I had Virgin who were also good.
 
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