Broadband & Home Phone

pblakeney

Contract renewal time.
There are a multiple of companies offering similar deals but I am wondering about real life performance.
I am looking for a minimum of 50Gb/sec broadband and inclusive phone calls as my wife insists on using the landline.
Any companies that give good customer service, or more importantly, any companies who fail to live up to the hype and should be avoided?

big_harv

North Essex. I think we'd all like to avoid BT but they own the street, such as I understand it. Their customer service is non-existent and forget calling an engineer. That impacts every other copper line provider, Vrgin etc.

Sky do some good deals, if you have a dish. Frankly though I think we're all getting ripped off.

Sorry, I 'm not an engineer, if my terminology or understanding is off.

surrey_commuter

PBlakeney wrote:

Contract renewal time.
There are a multiple of companies offering similar deals but I am wondering about real life performance.
I am looking for a minimum of 50Gb/sec broadband and inclusive phone calls as my wife insists on using the landline.
Any companies that give good customer service, or more importantly, any companies who fail to live up to the hype and should be avoided?

Find out what the achievable speed is then find the supplier with the best offer for that speed.

surrey_commuter

Big Harv wrote:

North Essex. I think we'd all like to avoid BT but they own the street, such as I understand it. Their customer service is non-existent and forget calling an engineer. That impacts every other copper line provider, Vrgin etc.

Sky do some good deals, if you have a dish. Frankly though I think we're all getting ripped off.

Sorry, I 'm not an engineer, if my terminology or understanding is off.

Virgin is one of the few that don’t use BT equipment

timothyw

PBlakeney wrote:

Contract renewal time.
There are a multiple of companies offering similar deals but I am wondering about real life performance.
I am looking for a minimum of 50Gb/sec broadband and inclusive phone calls as my wife insists on using the landline.
Any companies that give good customer service, or more importantly, any companies who fail to live up to the hype and should be avoided?

I think you mean 50 megabits per second ;-)

Basically I rate-tart around the various BT fibre resellers - so I started out with BT broadband, then went to plusnet, am now with EE - the performance and service is essentially identical - can't complain about any of them.

Go via Quidco or topcashback, work out the best cost per month across the contract period in a little spreadsheet, when the contract expires, switch.

I've never been with Virgin, but upload speed is important to me and better with BT fibre products (and I understand latency tends to be better too).

oxoman

Used to be BT phone and super fast broadband and dumped them recently and have gone to sky for landline and broadband service the same reduced substancely, however we use the mobiles for all outgoing calls as unlimited free minutes on them. Pretty much use the sky landline for broadband service connection and incoming calls. Kids both game on Xbox live at the same time as well as me and OH surfing the net with no problems with speeds. Just be aware EE is owned by BT

pblakeney

TimothyW wrote:

I think you mean 50 megabits per second ;-)

Basically I rate-tart around the various BT fibre resellers - so I started out with BT broadband, then went to plusnet, am now with EE - the performance and service is essentially identical - can't complain about any of them.

Go via Quidco or topcashback, work out the best cost per month across the contract period in a little spreadsheet, when the contract expires, switch.

Oops! Yup, 50Mb/sec. That's pretty much our situation. No Sky dish (never been a customer) and no access to Virgin fibre. Just checking that it is pretty much the same as power providers - Same service, different middle man.

verylonglegs

Seeing as you mention energy providers..I went from BT to SSE in July after I decided I had had enough of BT's regular price hikes and I halved my bill, now paying £30 for the highest speed fibre broadband available. I opted for SSE as it has no contract term, you can leave whenever provided you send the router back. Can't comment on customer service as I have not had cause to call it yet.

Only consitently mentioned negative thing I found out when looking into who to switch too was some comments about the supplied router from SSE giving poor wi-fi but as they were comments from people with multiple wi-fi devices in the house and I'm the only one living here I ignored them, I only have my mobile connected and nothing else so it has run ok so far.

joe2008

50mbps the stuff of dreams. Where we live we get by on this, which is better than dial up

pblakeney

I just did test out of curiosity. 56.89 Mb/s download, 12.90 Mb/s upload so all is good. High speed required as both myself and I are regularly streaming different programmes at the same time. Different tastes and all that...

thegreatdivide

oxoman wrote:

Used to be BT phone and super fast broadband and dumped them recently and have gone to sky for landline and broadband service the same reduced substancely, however we use the mobiles for all outgoing calls as unlimited free minutes on them. Pretty much use the sky landline for broadband service connection and incoming calls. Kids both game on Xbox live at the same time as well as me and OH surfing the net with no problems with speeds. Just be aware EE is owned by BT

The only consumer broadband provider not using the BT network is Virgin. EE, Plusnet, Sky, BT, etc, etc. All the same. The only difference is a box with lights that flashes in your living room and the person who picks up you call when you ring in with a fault.

pblakeney

thegreatdivide wrote:

The only consumer broadband provider not using the BT network is Virgin. EE, Plusnet, Sky, BT, etc, etc. All the same. The only difference is a box with lights that flashes in your living room and the person who picks up you call when you ring in with a fault.

That's pretty much what I thought, and hoped. Pick the cheapest middle man.
It is a relief that no service provider's service has been slated. I thought some may throttle down.

FishFish

I've changed providers and played games with them to get a better deal. Whilst BT are expensive they upgraded me to a much higher speed - 14 to > 40 MB/s for the same price - in fact they did not even tell me. I pay £33 for ll and unlimited BB. They do throttle the speed - but you can hassle them on BB speed that you are contracted with them for - but to be honest it does not make a noticable difference.I discovered a useful trick to change contract before it ends to tell them you are going abroad and cancel - they don't charge you a cancellation fee.

BT had my mobile contract on a discount - tied to my landline but changed to Plusnet / EE. Forgot to switch off roaming when I landed in China a couple of weeks ago and racked up a bill of £33 roaming for about 5 mins as the plane went to the gate. But they are ok.

My recommendation remains BT unless you have fibre to the home - then Virgin and EE is fine for mobile - cheapest and no cancellation fee. Be careful that some providers such as talk talk will not allow a VPN - although there are work rounds.

pblakeney

We are currently with BT but other providers are offering the same service at £15-£20/month cheaper. BT do not offer current customers deals. Muppets.

pblakeney

Well, just signed up with EE saving £15/month plus unlimited anywhere calls (UK), plus 5Gb allowance added to my mobile. 8) Hope it works like my mobile where my direct debit is £20/month less than my contract.

Tashman

Ive just switched to fibre with Plusnet from standard with Talktalk. In 5 weeks I've not yet had an uninterupted day of service. I know Openreach are the people who actually supply the lines and they're caught in the middle but the whole inflexibility in the system is ridiculous. If it works it doesn't matter who you're with.

ballysmate

Sorry to resurrect an old thread but just to let people know that migrating like for like isn't a given.
My BB is with Sky, fibre to the cabinet. When my contract was coming to an end, I looked around for the cheapest deal, bearing in mind that the service would be using the same infrastructure. Went through all the providers, doing the speed check and found that the speed would be well down if I migrated. The reason being that there are only so many fttc slots and if you migrate, you have to go to another slot. If there are no other slots available, you lose your existing slot.
I had to stay with Sky but did manage a hefty loyalty discount.

Tashman

As an update to my situation, I've still not got a reliable connection. Openreach are making their 4th visit tomorrow to look at where possible inteference might be coming from. It's all becoming a little trying

Pross

I just got upgraded by BT free (by chance when we called about my daughter's mobile contract). We've ended up with their new smart hub and one the mini hub extenders and we now have Broadband Plus that guarantees your wi-fi throughout the house. I work from home quite a lot through a VPN to the office accessing some fairly big files and previously my signal was iffy but since we had the new system it has worked fine even while my daughter is streaming Netflix. If it does get an issue then its UK call centres they also increase your 4G allowance. It has made a big difference so far but I guess if there's an issue with the speed from your exchange it won't help much.

N0bodyOfTheGoat

Don't forget to check direct contract prices to Internet Service Providers when you switch against doing the switch via Quidco/Topcashback and getting a cashback reward.

Sometimes it is cheaper to sign up directly via the ISP, signing up through a cashback site can sometimes worsen the deal, more than offsetting the cashback reward.