Which Broadband Provider

[chishnfips]

Hi folks,

Right I have recently moved and am now finally getting around to sorting the broadband.

There are three companies that I am considering but wanted to know if you guys had any experiences with them. I have looked at reviews online but its such a minefield and it seems that no matter who you choose there is going to be a disgruntled customer, so its hard to find a company that fits the bill.

The three I am looking at are Virgin Media (probably the TV, phone and broadband package), talk talk (you get a £60 voucher) or Sky (not sure you can get just broadband through them - do you need to have the telly too?) My girlfriend had Sky TV and broadband package and have to say it was pretty reliable.

I want one that gives you a wireless router too cause I don't really want to have to go an buy one. And one thats compatible with playing the PS3 (used a BT homehub once and it was crap - Wouldn't let the PS3 connect something to do with port forwarding....?)

I am looking to pay around £20 a month.

Any ideas guys?

Cheers chish

 

[ZoddyZod]

I can't recommend one, but I would advise to stay away from Talk Talk.....had nothing but trouble with them on BOTH occassions that they have treid to connet me.

Each case to weeks to resolve. Avoid!

 

[da7thson]

Hi there,

I did used to work for a Business ISP not so long ago (they sold broadband and fixed connections to UK business only so you woant have heard of them).

The technology and the service is the two things i would consider, Cable and ADSL.

Cable is your virgin broadband (and this is what i have at home). The speed quoted is the speed you get as cable doesn't suffer signal loss between the exchange and your home. I have the 50mbps one and it works at 50mbps and i get about 1 1/2 mbps up stream. However, its Indian call centers for broadband faults which can be a pain the butt the odd time you get a problem (in fairness i've not had much problems)

ADSL - this is pretty much everyone else and the vast majority you buy, the last mile or more is BT anyway irrespective of who you buy it from. ADSL is distant dependant from the exchange, so if someone is selling you 8mbps, you may only get 2mbps down stream for example and typically 448kbps or 832kbps upstream. Support comes from who ever you buy it off and may be passed back to BT should there be a fault with the line. To have ADSL you need a BT line so will have to pay BT line rental as well. Flavors of ADSL are Max (up to 8 mbps down), 2+ (up to 24 mbps down) and FTTC (fibre to the cabinett which BT call Infinity - up to 40 mbps down). With ADSL you get what you pay for as ADSL providers contend their centrals to BT (the hand over point between BT and the provider) so the only way to do it cheap is to vastly over contend this connection meaning slow broadband for the end customer.

Hope this helps

Andy

 

[elisew]

Hi folks,

Right I have recently moved and am now finally getting around to sorting the broadband.

There are three companies that I am considering but wanted to know if you guys had any experiences with them. I have looked at reviews online but its such a minefield and it seems that no matter who you choose there is going to be a disgruntled customer, so its hard to find a company that fits the bill.

The three I am looking at are Virgin Media (probably the TV, phone and broadband package), talk talk (you get a £60 voucher) or Sky (not sure you can get just broadband through them - do you need to have the telly too?) My girlfriend had Sky TV and broadband package and have to say it was pretty reliable.

I want one that gives you a wireless router too cause I don't really want to have to go an buy one. And one thats compatible with playing the PS3 (used a BT homehub once and it was crap - Wouldn't let the PS3 connect something to do with port forwarding....?)

I am looking to pay around £20 a month.

Any ideas guys?

Cheers chish

We currently have Sky TV, phone and broadband and can`t fault any of it. Whenever we`ve had any concerns, which has been rare, Sky customer service have been fantastic.

We were going to change over to Virgin Media, purely because of costs but after booking the installation Virgin decided to cancel it without even bothering to let us know. It took for us to phone them and ask where the engineer was. The installation had apparently been cancelled due to a thin layer of snow on the ground but an alternative date hadn`t even been arranged and as already said we never even got a phone call to tell us what, why or when.......not what I consider good customer service at all

Regarding Talk Talk, I wouldn`t touch them with a barge pole. A friend of mine had a problem with her broadband due to TT having 'upgraded the line', this in turn created some sort of problem with the router. Well, to put in it short terms.......it took my friend numerous calls to an incompetent call centre, talking to incompetent staff who had no idea what the problem was or how to resolve it. They continuously promised to call her back, to arrange an engineer blah blah blah but in reality they did nothing........although they did insist that they were still entitled to keep taking the direct debit every month! My friend became so frustrated, she`d get really tearful and angry while trying to talk to TTT`s staff, so much so that I had to take the phone off of her many a time and try to speak to them and sort things out.......they drove me mad though, there`s just no sense from them of even wanting to sort problems out for their customers. These problems have gone on for over a year


So personally after having experienced all 3, my vote would go to Sky. I`m sure there will be others who have good and bad opinions of the 3 companies but these are mine

 

[Katch]

plusnet

BE if you can get it.

oh and Sky - where unlimited really means ulimited.

 

[micko]

Sky all the way.

 

[ALW]

We currently have Sky TV, phone and broadband and can`t fault any of it.

Lucky you, iv had no problems with the Tv or phone. Internet different story, every so often sky like to cut me off. Normally only for a few seconds but sometimes a few minutes.

 

[moochy13]

i heard bad things about talk talk aswell. were on virgin, and like mentioned, the speed you pay for is what you get. we got a router with it, and it runs a laptop, phones, 2 xboxes and different accounts. very rarely have any problems with it.

 

[walkers101]

stay away from talk talk and i have just cancelled sky broadband after a month as they are a complete waste of time

 

[chishnfips]

Hi Folks thanks for all the replies, I think I might go with virgin, they cant offer me the tv box where I am but I can get broadband up to 2.4mbps on my line (according to them) So thats ok. Only things is I heard that where I am is the end of the exchange so I hope I dont keep getting cut off during busy times... I believe its a big problem in my area...

Is there anyway I can combat that or get a reduced rate?

Oh and can you get sky without having the telly? dont answer that I just googled them lol.


Cheers chish

 

[TropicalLad21]

I've had both sky & virgin & im currently back on virgin with 30Mb and for me its much better then sky.

With most providers you don't get the bandwidth you purchase... but with virgin i get nearly the full amount of the bandwidth... and my comp runs smooth, i also used to play on xbox live & had very few problems.

So i'd recommend Virgin but it's entirely your choice!

 

[CrazyAirborne]

ive really had alot of problems with Sky, including a full week of no internet connection, which only took that long because BT owns the line to my home, so I do also have to rent a phone line from BT. The whole system seems kind of ridiculous. I get internet cutouts for a couple seconds all the time, and I play online games quite often, and I get disconnected at least once twice a day. Its such a pain in the butt. Sky says that cant see anything wrong with my line....

It all seems even worse to me, since I came from an amazing Fiber Optic line in the states, and had zero issues. (and amazing speeds)

 

[Ace Of Spades]

Sky took 3 months to connect me, Virgin took 1 week. Virgin are a good broadband, I'm just ticked off that they don't offer Cable around my area yet.