Best Broadband?

[Mavster]

I am looking for the best Broadband only deal. Ideally a network that doesn't grind to a near halt from 2pm..and also has good customer service when you need to call them. Can anyone recommend a good provider that doesn't cost a bomb?

By the way, avoid Tiscali, they are pants

Cheers

Steve

 

[Howard]

Swapped to Plusnet a few months back , been excellent so far.

No outages , and when we have had to talk to them , they are easy to get hold of.

 

[npuk]

You need to check what is in your area. Bt Infinity and Virgin Media will offer the fastest service if available. If you cant get them or want to spend less then look at a LLU ADSL2+ provider like SKY, Bethere or o2.

 

[@MARK]

I can't recommend BE highly enough.

My connection has currently been up for 144 days. I get 8mbit/s on my "up to 24mbit/s" service however BT only ever managed 1.5mbit/s so I am happy with that considering my distance from the exchange.

Customer service is good as well

 

[davethemus]

BT fiber-optic is far and away the best.

i had an issue and they sent a technician out promtly, the download speeds are awesome and i had a follow up call a few days after the problem was rectified to make sure everything was ok and i was happy with the service. i get my home phone through it and it's £35-£40 per month.

my parents are with virgin and they aren't terrible but they aren't great either, also a friend of mine worked for the company that virgin outsource there technical support to and he says there were times when he and maybe one other guy were responsible for fixing any technical issues with virgin broadband in the UK, he said they were underpaid and under-staffed.

 

[Deleted member 37751]

BT fiber-optic is far and away the best.

i had an issue and they sent a technician out promtly, the download speeds are awesome and i had a follow up call a few days after the problem was rectified to make sure everything was ok and i was happy with the service. i get my home phone through it and it's £35-£40 per month.

my parents are with virgin and they aren't terrible but they aren't great either, also a friend of mine worked for the company that virgin outsource there technical support to and he says there were times when he and maybe one other guy were responsible for fixing any technical issues with virgin broadband in the UK, he said they were underpaid and under-staffed.

We had nothing but trouble with BT; the 'Hub' was useless, we went through about four in six months.
The customer service was terrible, when I threatened to leave because of the worthless junk that is the Hub, they said we couldn't, we are in a twelve month contract. My reply was that they were breaking that contract because I could never get on the Internet because the thing was unreliable.

I got my way in the end and took out my broadband with Sky, which in the six month we've had it, has been no bother at all. Customer service is good on the one occasion I've had to call them.

 

[oldcro]

Speaking as you find, BT Internet has been first-class for me. In fact our local exchange is old and all broadband is provided by BT Wholesale, so whoever is your provider the service is via BT. My neighbour is with Virgin and gets exactly the same speeds as me despite promises of fast broadband.

How broadband providers love the claim "up to..." which covers a multitude of advertising sins.

 

[oldcro]

Speaking as you find, BT Internet has been first-class for me. In fact our local exchange is old and all broadband is provided by BT Wholesale, so whoever is your provider the service is via BT. My neighbour is with Virgin and gets exactly the same speeds as me despite promises of fast broadband.

How broadband providers love the claim "up to..." which covers a multitude of advertising sins.

Twice I have suffered loss of phone connection (before broadband) and the longest I waited for an engineer to come and fix was 1/2 hour.

 

[dulayj]

we have Virgin media broadband(cable)-its generally good-but the routers are poor on 3rd one and customer service a bit hit and miss

 

[Mavster]

I can't recommend BE highly enough.

My connection has currently been up for 144 days. I get 8mbit/s on my "up to 24mbit/s" service however BT only ever managed 1.5mbit/s so I am happy with that considering my distance from the exchange.

Customer service is good as well

Who is BE Mark?

 

[Dryce]

BT fiber-optic is far and away the best.

'far and away the best'.

How on earth do you justify that?

So you get their nice fibre based broadband - will your existing (decent) ADSL routers work with it? Nope - you're stuck with their router.

So are they cheap? Not really. Their unlimited price is twice what I'm paying at the moment for 20Mb/s.

What about support? Well for simple stuff they can be quite good but given that it's their bl**dy network they can spend a long time messing about dealing with problems while you take time off work for them not to turn up.

And that lovely 40Mb/s fibre broadband isn't available everywhere.

And then there's the little issue of a fixed IP. ISTR that BT don't do that option on non-business broadband.

So not necessarily 'far and away the best' and in fact not necessarily available either.

 

[BTB 500]

Who is BE Mark?

BE Unlimited, this is the same as O2 broadband (who bought them out).

My contract is with O2, reliability is great and service is outstanding. I needed to set up a VPN connection for my work laptop at home ... rang the support line, answered within a couple of rings, guy didn't know what to do so I thought 'here we go'. But after asking me to hold for a couple of minutes he came back on and talked me through the process - worked first time. After experiencing so-called customer support from a couple of other service providers (both outsourced to overseas call centres where the staff could barely speak English and appeared to know nothing about computers or networks) I was VERY impressed.

I pay £9.50 per month for unlimited download, speed is nominally 20? megs but I get 3-4 due to my rubbish line.

 

[tali]

Yeah Virgin Media - a bit hit and miss- been with them ages due to the bundle packages ( £30 per month ) and hassle of changing phone number
Big claims about their super duper Fibre optic b/b - but if that is the best - i hate to see the worst!

 

[Dryce]

My contract is with O2, reliability is great and service is outstanding.

Having just laid into BT above - I have fess up and say that O2 are not without niggles.

They use a slightly different form of ADSL traffic handling that means not all third party routers are compatible (or if they are the setup can be obscure).

The costs vary depending on where you are. If O2 have equipment in the exchange the deals are competitive. If not then they're not so attractive and lower spec.

They were (at least recently) offering good introductory deals to customers who've had mobile contracts with them for at least 2 years. That was in addition to the regulat discounts if you're already an O2 customer.

I've had some DNS glitches a while back - and looking on the net at the time these had been occuring for various customers intermittently for the previous couple of years.

And outbound RDP protocol only works intermittently for me. I'm pretty sure it's some sort of unexplained port blocking.

For an existing O2 mobile customer in an area where they can supply 20mb/s they're worth considering.

 

[@MARK]

Who is BE Mark?

www.bethere.co.uk

 

[Mavster]

Thanks everyone. I think the winner is O2.

Cheers

Steve

 

[clever dicky]

But wont O2 be dependant on the BT line ?
Aside from the line rental charges you still might get a crap service.

Are virgin the only alternative to supply a (sort of) dedicated data line?

 

[@MARK]

But wont O2 be dependant on the BT line ?
Aside from the line rental charges you still might get a crap service.

Are virgin the only alternative to supply a (sort of) dedicated data line?

No

I can only speak for the BE service (both BE and O2 are owned by Telefonica)

I pay my line rental of £10 per month to BE - For this I get a basic phone line (you don't have to do this to get BE Broadband though)

I pay my broadband to BE

What happens (and this is dependant on your local exchange and is heavily simplified) is that BE go to the local exchange, unplug the copper wire that runs from your house to the exchange from the BT rack and plug it into their equipment instead.

So you are not reliant on BT

 

[moonloops]

I switched to plusnet over a year ago after suffering with both talktalk and sky broadband.

Plusnet was a revelation. They have products to suit most budgets and as their TV adverts "promise" they have good customer services.

 

[neilz]

I've looked very deeply into all the aforementioned companies, bad reviews for all of them. I ended up signing up with a company I had never heard of (IDNet). They are the most reliable ISP I have ever used (and I've been with Freeserve AKA Wanadoo AKA Orange, BT and AOL). Sure I've never used Plusnet or companies like that but I've read bad things about them. IDNet give you free webspace, a free photo gallery and a free blog, and a free backup dial up number with your internet. They also give you several (unlimited?) free email addresses with web access. My speeds are currently at my line's absolute maximum (8mbps, I had tests done and I physically can't get more) but they also now do 40mbps fibre optic internet. I had an issue which turned out to be with BT, but I called IDNet on a Sunday morning (7am), nobody was in yet so I left a message. Just before 8 one of their staff called me back. You don't get service like that, their support line isn't automated - you get through to someone in the UK.

I don't work for them, I was a long suffering victim of AOL (Always Off-Line) and having working broadband after that is a godsend.

Seriously, give them a try or at least go to their website. They are relatively pricy but you get what you pay for!