Broadband Recommendations

[lane]

I am with virgin. They own the cable round here so I assume - but never been really sure - I have to be with Virgin to use it? Otherwise it is the inferior BT cables. Virgin is allegedly very fast but not cheap. I do use the landline due to poor mobile signal.

 

[Smokin Joe]

I never tie my email account to the broadband provider, much better to keep it separate.

 

[ianrauk]

Virgin. Not expensive and always reliable.

 

[ColinJ]

As with insurance where they hook you with a low price then hike up the premium next year hoping you won't notice or won't bother, just phone and tell them you won't accept an increase and if they insist, you will take your business elsewhere. The call-centre person will pretend to go away and talk with a manager then come back and agree not to increase the charge.

I've done it twice with Plusnet... When my 18 month contract finishes, they try to put the price up by £6-8/month. I tell them that I will probably switch to TalkTalk, and then they give me another 18 months at the old price.

Plusnet do a deal where if you recommend a new customer you can get a discount on your bill for as long as they remain customers. As a result of signing up 2 or 3 people I now get my line rental and unlimited 16 Mb/s broadband for about £16.50 a month.

 

[aferris2]

Plus, the amount of internet shopping I do, I would need to update so many sites with a new email address which would be a right pain.

If you get your own domain name then you can use this with any broadband provider. For example mo1959.co.uk is coming up as 99p on 123reg.co.uk at the moment. Then you find a free hosting company (ive used NetNerd in the past but there are many others out there). Providing you stick with free hosting, the only ongoing costs are the domain registration which works out about £10 per year.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

As somebody upthread stated unless it's their own fibre/cable network ultimately it runs on BT's network, or more correctly Open Reach's network up until recently Open Reach was a wholly owned subsidiary of BT, but Ofcom ruled it has to be an independent operator. Think of it as Railtrack owning & running the infrastructure track/stations & then Virgin, East Coast mainline, Hull trains etc using the track/infrastructure. So going forward Open Reach will look after the exchanges & cable to your door & BT, Virgin, Sky, Plusnet etc. will provide the service to you.

TBH there is very little between tem all, it's down to price & what they will offer you, I was with Plusnet since before it was Plusnet, great company with some very clever people, however since selling out to BT they have just become a downmarket provider, their CS now stinks, they are not allowed to be intuitive in forcing market changes. I'm currently with Vodafone as they were the cheapest when I wanted to leave Plusnet, I only use the broadband as I make all my calls via VoIP or Mobile.

Things to look for, speed they are offering, what they will do if you don't get it, what the inclusive call package includes, the call connection charge is a big one, Talk Talk charge 16p (I think) to connect a call, so even if you get 5 seconds on an answering machine before putting the phone down that's 16p. Consider not having the inclusive package & signing up with a VoIP company to make your calls, you'll need a VoIP device to do this, but Siemens & Panasonic do some nice cordless VoIP/DECT ones not a lot more expensive than standard DECT.

 

[lane]

It was me that mentioned it upthread. What I have never beeen sure of is if other providers can use Virgin's cable network or are they restricted to Virgin customers?

 

[vickster]

I am with virgin. They own the cable round here so I assume - but never been really sure - I have to be with Virgin to use it? Otherwise it is the inferior BT cables. Virgin is allegedly very fast but not cheap. I do use the landline due to poor mobile signal.

As far as I know if you want to use Virgin's cabling you have to be with Virgin. Otherwise it's BTs less good fibre with any other supplier (like Sky)

https://www.cable.co.uk/providers/guides/virgin-vs-sky/

Virgin £42 a month, 110mbps (if not quicker), line rental and a TV box in the bedroom. I work from home so it's a business expense anyhow

I went to BT for a bit, utter crap, dropped constantly

 

[Deleted member 26715]

It was me that mentioned it upthread. What I have never beeen sure of is if other providers can use Virgin's cable network or are they restricted to Virgin customers?

Virgin have their own fibre network, if you're not in their catchment area then you can't have them, they have to physically put a fibre cable into your building. We have Virgin in our office & tbh they are crap as a business product, their support have no idea, they force you to use they pathetic router which operating our own public facing IP's a pain, it's not reliable, it's been down in the office since 2am Saturday so we have no access to any of the servers in the office. I'll be at 7am in the morning but I suspect it will be 10am before I can actually start work.

 

[Venod]

I have been paying £25 a month for fibre, it looks like I can get the same for service for £23.99 if I stick with TalkTalk or change to Plusnet, I thought an email address from an IP was no longer useable when you leave.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

I have been paying £25 a month for fibre, it looks like I can get the same for service for £23.99 if I stick with TalkTalk or change to Plusnet, I thought an email address from an IP was no longer useable when you leave.

All depends on the provider, as above I was with Plusnet & F9 before I adopted the plus.com email in mid 90's it's my main one & have had it ever since. You just have to be careful when you leave a company to ensure that they offer a 'web only' email service.

 

[vickster]

I have been paying £25 a month for fibre, it looks like I can get the same for service for £23.99 if I stick with TalkTalk or change to Plusnet, I thought an email address from an IP was no longer useable when you leave.

Talk Talk have webmail but it's appalling (my parents insist on continuing to use it, they have an old Tiscali email from the pre TalkTalk days)

I was with wanadoo years ago, which then became Freeserve, then became Orange and then got disbanded after the EE merger. I was still using an old fsmail email which got taken down completely with a couple of months notice, I managed to import most emails to Gmail but there are some online providers I can no longer access as I can't change the email as I have to validate via the now dead address

I'd swap to gmail asap while you can still access accounts and change email addresses

 

[Venod]

Talk Talk have webmail but it's appalling

I have used this when outlook fails, and your right its not very good.

 

[Venod]

I'd swap to gmail asap while you can still access accounts and change email addresses

I spent yesterday afternoon changing everything to gmail, I am bound to have forgot some.

 

[Tail End Charlie]

What I don't understand is, where I live, I only have the option of BT. I live about four miles from a sizeable town, so not the middle of nowhere. And I get 1.5 (whatever unit) download speed.