Which Broadband Provider is Best (Value)?

[PrestburyJack]

Up until now I've only had internet access through work - luckily my current role has some down time where I can't leave the building even when there's nothing to do, so I can surf the web with my employer's permission.

 

At the request of SWMBO and daughter I bought our first laptop this week, and am now looking at Internet connection so that they can join RMWeb as well .....

 

Talk Talk appears the best deal, £22 month for 24/7 calls, Broadband and line rental - BT is £32 for the same, Virgin even more. I only want a basic broadband, 40GB download appears quite enough, 24/7 free calls is needed. Local linespeed is only 2.5 MB/s, so I don't want to pay for a faster connection that I can't get anyway. I'm happy with TV from Freeview, so don't want a "free" package if that means paying for digital TV.

 

But are Talk Talk any good - does anyone have any experiences of them, or any other landline broadband that they would advise for or against please?

 

Cheers

 

Gary

[Tom Bayford]

Up until now I've only had internet access through work - luckily my current role has some down time where I can't leave the building even when there's nothing to do, so I can surf the web with my employer's permission.

 

At the request of SWMBO and daughter I bought our first laptop this week, and am now looking at Internet connection so that they can join RMWeb as well .....

 

Talk Talk appears the best deal, £22 month for 24/7 calls, Broadband and line rental - BT is £32 for the same, Virgin even more. I only want a basic broadband, 40GB download appears quite enough, 24/7 free calls is needed. Local linespeed is only 2.5 MB/s, so I don't want to pay for a faster connection that I can't get anyway. I'm happy with TV from Freeview, so don't want a "free" package if that means paying for digital TV.

 

But are Talk Talk any good - does anyone have any experiences of them, or any other landline broadband that they would advise for or against please?

 

Cheers

 

Gary

 

Were with talk talk its ok but it drops the connection and becomes a little sillyat times but you get what you pay for

[Bernard Lamb]

Talk Talk had a bad reputation at first but they seem to have overcome their teething troubles. The package with international calls is very good value for money. I believe that they rent the lines from BT and this has been the source of a couple of recent local outrages when somebody attacked the BT system. Once by tow rags and once by accident.

Bernard

[Andy Y]

Hi Gary,

 

Talk Talk are part of the Carphone Warehouse empire and I'm making an active choice to move away from them. See - http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php/topic/13773-o2-home-broadband-references-sought/

 

Currently we're experienced severely throttled speeds at peak periods down to overstretched resources at the AOL end (they'll all be using the same Opal network/servers) so I'd use a site such as http://www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk/ to check what speeds nearby residents are getting from particular providers. The chances are if someone is testing their speed on that site they're unhappy with performance.

 

I can also recommend the Iplate mentioned in the topic above.

 

 

[Roddy Angus]

Gary

 

We've been with Talktalk for 3 or more years now on the £22 all in package. It was a bit difficult getting connected originally but that was when they had just brought out the package and were overwhelmed with the takeup, I am sure that they have improved now. Since then, we've never had any difficulty with the service, apart from a problem due to water in one of the street boxes owned by BT, and it has always met our needs. You do have to pay extra for 0845 calls but if you don't use them a lot it is not expensive. We have no difficulty with the download speed, sometimes it takes a few seconds to get a new page but that's no problem to us. However, I am in Edinburgh so we probably have a better network than some parts of the country, so if you are worried about speed, as suggested above, check with some of your neighbours to see who they use and what they think of the local service.

 

Roddy

[Ron Ron Ron]

Orange Home Ultra

 

Unlimited usage allowance

Line rental included

 

Second phone line - free internet phone calls

Free Anytime phone calls to UK landlines

Free Anytime International phone calls to 30 countries.

 

£24 a month (includes line rental)

£21 a month if you have an Orange pay monthly mobile phone/SIM

 

Our contract was signed more than a year ago and we pay £14.63 a month for all that.

 

Despite some intermittent problems with connection and line speed a few years ago, in the last couple of years it has been very reliable and more recently lightening fast, since work at the local exchange.

Line speed is only 2.5 meg, but we are able to stream internet radio all day, play X-Box online, watch BBC iPlayer and surf the net simultaneously with no decernable degradation of service.

 

 

.

[Kris]

I've had a very negative experience of Talk Talk (more like Lie Lie). When we could get on line (towards the end this was less than 50% of the time) the speeds were throttled significantly. We were advised by the staff that this was down to the line however after much complaining they admitted that our connection had been set to a maximum speed of 2mb, even so we did not achieve anything like this speed. After months of complaining about this poor service and the inconstant or downright rude staff that we dealt with we left paying off the remaining 3 or 4 months of the contract. We then joined Virgin and using the same router achieved 99% connection time and speeds consistently of 3mb+ peaking at 5mb. Nothing had changed except the ISP.

This was towards the beginning of their attempts at broad band but I would never consider going back to them even if they were paying me such was the experience I received and frustration caused.

[David Rickard]

If you are in a Virgin cabled area, I'd say go for Virgin. If you're in an area served by Be or O2, then I'd say go with those.

 

ADSL is a very hit-and-miss system. You can try half a dozen ISPs, and you'll get much the same speed and reliability in terms of the link from you to the exchange - it's all BT's infrastructure. The real 'value' comes with the network of the ISP (i.e. how congested it is) and how good their support is. I've heard nothing but bad things about Talk Talk's support. They read off cards, and don't have particularly technical people on first-line support. The end result is you can go round and round in circles. I had many an ADSL issue, but when I was on Zen, and Be, and their support departments were very good. The issue was my line is simply too long, and too noisy to support ADSL reliably enough for me, and BT wouldn't do much about it because every time they ran tests, they saw no fault. I even sat with the engineers and watched them test, and had others tell me that statistically, my line was excellent for the length. It just had bouts of intermittent connectivity. Zen and Be, to their credit, were enormously helpful, as were the BT engineers who visited but because they couldn't see the errors they needed to see, they couldn't do any more. I knew full well that changing to another ADSL supplier wouldn't help me any, so I had to switch to cable.

 

People always used to complain bitterly about Virgin's support being dire, but I've had no problems with them - I had issues with connectivity dropping out due to the signal being too strong, but again, they fixed it quickly and I was on my way.

 

The thing these providers have in common, however, is that they cost a bit more. Talk Talk and their ilk are cheap, but that comes at a price. Namely that they have poor support, and really bad billing departments, as they are under-staffed, poorly trained, and that causes problems. There's a whole raft of customers out there who have installed their service, and had no issues, and probably never will, and would recommend the service. The worrisome thing for me is that those who HAVE had issues, have had dire service.

 

I pay £30 a month for 20Mb broadband (and I GET 20Mb), and the basic phone service which is free weekend local calls as I recall. TV I get via Sky anyway (their HD package is far superior, and it works out cheaper buying it from Sky - Sky Movies on Virgin is expensive, mainly because Sky charge others a premium for it).

 

Like they say, you pays your money and takes your choice!

 

Good sources of info for Broadband are these two:

 

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/ - good to find out which providers operate in your area

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ - for finding reviews. They measure various metrics, including support.

[coachmann]

Been with Tiscali for years. There were issues when TalkTalk took Tiscali over that really hacked me off but they were eventually resolved. Also BT had carried out work on their lines around here in March and TalkTalk has gotten even better with no sluggish times in the evening any more.

 

My package includes broadband, free telephone calls day & night and line-rental. TalkTalk suits my situation.

[Kenton]

I was with TT for one of our home phone broadband packages until early last year.

The line developed an intermittent fault which their customer service team failed to acknowledge.

They offered to have an engineer look at the line at a large unlimited cost to us for each repeat visit. Obviously an intermittent fault is difficult to catch.

 

(Several neighbours have previously experienced this same fault - also with different providers - and it seems to happen when an engineer "tinkers" with the line box - their seems to be too few lines available at the exchange and the consensus is that they "weaken" one to see who complains the most)

 

Anyway we refused to sign an unlimited and blank cheque to TT and after getting nowhere through their complaints/customer service/management we changed providers "back to BT" in March 2009.

The account was closed in April 09 and the DD facility canceled.

 

In September (and again in February 10) again we experienced the line fault (you can be in a call and the line just crackles and drops). So a call to BT customer service. An engineer comes out - tells us there was a fault at the line box into the development - on both occasions and fixes it - no charge +++++ve service

 

In December (Xmas eve), we receive a demand from a debt collection agency for an unpaid bill from TT (remember they had a DD facility) no invoice from TT and no phone call.

Obviously an error. So, taking advice from our solicitors, we contact TT by letter (we were advised not to telephone) We also sent our solicitor's standard letter to the debt collection agency.

 

The saga continues, following the matter being referred to two other debt collection agencies and one rather dubious solicitor by TT a series of very poor correspondence from different people at TT.

All our letters have been sent by recorded post. The first letter remains unanswered, one letter was replied to 8 weeks after our letter, and none of the letters from TT giving an explanation.

 

The amount in dispute £41 - We have already spent that trying to resolve the matter, but I think it is wrong to be bullied into making a payment to any company that is unable to provide some evidence that a payment is due. It is a bit like walking down the high street and being threatened by some knife wielding thug demanding the contents of your wallet.

 

Would I recommend them? - Well what do you think?

 

Note: I accept that this may be a one off, or just the unfortunate 1% of 1000's of experiencing poor customer service from TT ....... but how would you feel?

I also have to say for the 2+ years prior to March 09 the service was fault free.

[meple]

PlusNet. Been with them for years, never a problem except for line faults which are down to BT.

 

You have to have a BT line however.

[TheSnapper]

Gary

 

If you have Sky TV, or considering it, its worth investigating their offers. I had a really good deal, which includes phone/Sky+ (now HD) & broadband. Total cost depends on your viewing package of course.

 

I moved from Freedom2Surf last year; the service had really deteriorated since Tiscali took it over and even worse when Talk Talk took over Tiscali.

 

Incidentally, as mentioned above, recently improved the download speed by about 2-3Mb by installing an iPlate.

 

Cheers

 

Tim

[David Rickard]

------- 8<---------

Note: I accept that this may be a one off, or just the unfortunate 1% of 1000's of experiencing poor customer service from TT ....... but how would you feel?

------- 8<---------

 

Nope. Unless you have posted that particular saga to multiple forums, under multiple guises, then that's not the first time I've seen that sort of complaint about TT. I had no such problems extricating myself from Zen or Be's contracts. Heck, when I started on Broadband, I was with BTOpenworld, and they were a doddle to part company with (this was before they became BTYahoo, and then went weird). I know people have had issues with many other providers in the same way, however. Seems to be de rigueur these days when it comes to parting company with providers.

 

 

 

[Red Devil]

Another vote for Sky, much against my feelings for a Murdoch company, they have proved to be very good if you bundle everything together, phone line is cheaper than BT, inclusive calls package is excellent especially if you call abroad (Europe/ US etc for me) and the actual Broadband service is very good, I've had no major problems in 18 months+ I have the middle £5 per month (base is £0 top £10 if you have Skytalk) and is used quite heavily (streaming movies/sport etc) and have never hit a 'you have used all your monthly usage cap'. Only minor irritation is SKy's use of 0870 nos for their call centres which are chargeable on their call package, so just use 'say no to 0870'

[Kenton]

Nope. Unless you have posted that particular saga to multiple forums, under multiple guises, then that's not the first time I've seen that sort of complaint about TT. I had no such problems extricating myself from Zen or Be's contracts.

No first time, but it is not a problem with the contract. I have a copy of all the routine monthly billing and matching payments, the contract was outside the original lock-in terms.

I think it was just a mistake (I don't think it was mischief) - the real issue has been the total lack of TT to engage with the issue and send either an apology or evidence/justification to support the claim, as well as the matter arising out of the blue eight months after account closure.

I think it is a result of automated systems and the way TT employs arms length customer service. My solicitor has now written to them closing the matter due this lack of engagement so I either expect the matter to end or automated letters which will be ignored.

 

What concerned me most - and it doesn't only apply to TT - many people would feel threatened by this sort of tactic and would simply pay up. The fact that none of the debt collection agencies persued the matter beyond the initial letter further indicates to me that there is no evidence to produce.

[Coombe Barton]

I'm on Virgin over phone lines. I can think of three evenings in four years when things were fuzzy or stopped working and a few Sunday afternoons when it proved troublesome to upload to work, but regularly 6 meg on an 8 meg line - that's evenings too. When I joined them I was with Tesco who ncopuld then offer only half a meg broadband using the same phone line.

 

Why no cable? We're sufficiently rural to not have that option. And what about the neighbours? If I detect networks I get a choice of 8 apart from my own (all protected). Every house round here is broadband active and phone line connected.

 

More of my university colleagues have moved away from Talk-Talk than are currently on it.

[beast66606]

Up until last Wednesday I would have recommended Virgin - never again. They have done something at the data centre (not an opinion, this is fact btw) which means my broadband has stopped - it will be off until next Friday at the earliest, because I now need a modem ("we dont support your set top box anymore) - err no I need my service restoring but they won't treat it as a fault because the modem is an upgrade so I will be without the service for 10 day, even their UK guy (when I eventually, after 1.5 hours on the phone) admitted this was utter danglies. Prior to this my service has been fine - but then I've never had problems before and I'm afraid that when a problem arises the way in which the company deal with it is a true indicator as to how good they are - and Virgin have let me down badly on this.

[Enterprisingwestern]

PlusNet. Been with them for years, never a problem except for line faults which are down to BT.

 

You have to have a BT line however.

 

Seconded.

[David Bigcheeseplant]

As I have an orange mobile phone on contract, I get free broadband with a wireless router, free calls on my mobile to landlines and free text for £20 per month

 

David

[Trebor]

Virgin media here, 50Mbit package, 99.9% uptime with no throttling and I am getting at least 49Mbit all the time, but then there also is the two tv boxes, one HD one not, the phone line, three pc's and a laptop connected to it as well. I am quite happy with it. Been with them for years blueyonder before that and telewest before that.

 

I have always had exceptional service, the only downtime was due to theives breaking in to the NOC and pinching some equipment . Got a credit for that downtime aswell.

[gordon s]

As no one has mentioned BT themselves, I have to give them a vote of support. I had a problem towards the end of last year and had several engineer visits which ultimately ended with relacement of several overhead cables. Yes, it took just over a month to finally resolve, but once I was dealing with the Executive Complaints team the service was brilliant. They even compensated me for the poor internet connection I had experienced. I'm on the 8mb package and line speed rarely drops below 7mb. They've just reduced their rate by another £3 so now will be paying £19.95 per month for their unlimited package.

 

...and you don't get that problem of the ISP provider blaming BT and vice versa.

[Colin]

We left TalkTalk earlier this year and went over to Virgin (fibre optic TV/Broadband package), yes it's more expensive but to date we've had just one loss of connection which was speedily resolved with no charge.

TalkTalk nearly drove us nuts with frequent failures and a hopelessly slow connection speed (less than 1meg a lot of the time). Downloading a music file took an eternity, and YouTube videos rarely played without repeated stopping. The helpline was truly hopeless (helpless?) When I called to cancel the subscription the guy tried his best to make me reconsider - as soon as I told him I'd signed up to another provider he became very rude and then rang off.

Yes it's cheap, but I agree with those who've already made the point - you really do get what you pay for.

[Guest]

Virgin media here, 50Mbit package, 99.9% uptime with no throttling and I am getting at least 49Mbit all the time,

Not strctly on the topic of broadband, but later this year Virgin are releasing a HDD recorder running software licenced from TiVo.

That alone would get me as a customer if I lived in a cabled area.

[Bernard Lamb]

Have a look at this.

http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/26042010/389/uk-s-worst-broadband-provider.html

Bernard

[Kenton]

Have a look at this.

http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/26042010/389/uk-s-worst-broadband-provider.html

Bernard

I would treat any survey by uSwitch (or any similar) with a pinch of salt.

It is bound to have a bias. Very few people visit these switch sites unless they are either thinking of changing or are dissatisfied with their existing provider. Even then not everyone goes to their site.

Equally a survey of who is best on similar sites is highly likely to be influenced by whih provider is sponsoring. They have hardly shown themselves to be independent. This could also influence the results of who is worse.

 

 

One of the other things to note is that the broadband speed is heavily influenced by the equipment at and your distance from the local exchange (when on copper wire) Broadband speeds of all my neighbours rarely get above 1Mb no matter which provider. There is no cable nearby and satellite links struggle to work through the trees. So do be careful when taking other's claims of speed into account (providers and other users).

 

But experiences on customer service (or lack of) can be a fair indication of what you will get.