Board logo

can anyone recommend fibre broadband & call deals? I'm baffled...
fha772 - 14/7/14 at 10:40 PM

Hi all,

My free broadband from Orange/EE, gets cut off in a few days time.
So I'm thinking it's time to upgrade to fibre broadband.

But I'm stumped which to go for, can you guys recommend any?

I'm not a heavy user, so I don't know if I need unlimited, or not.
I go on a few car forums, Facebook, and eBay, my son watches a lot of gaming videos on YouTube.
We don't download lots of music, or films, but if we had faster broadband we might consider signing up to Netflix or similar.

I keep looking at the limited deals, but I have no idea what a gb is, so I'm not really sure how much we use.

Cheers Frank.

Agriv8 - 15/7/14 at 06:54 AM

I have used http://www.comparethemarket.com/phone-and-broadband/ to get some ideas of costs and who provides in my area.

I am sure there are others

ATB agriv8

britishtrident - 15/7/14 at 07:09 AM

Plusnet.not only a good price but they respond effectively when things go wrong.
Also they have good spam/virus filtering and good user control of mailboxes.

spegru - 15/7/14 at 07:23 AM

I'd say go for fibre. The main suppliers of that are Virgin (but only if you are in their cable coverage area), Talktalk, BT Infinity and Sky.
If you have Sky TV already then from what Ive seen of their pricing it's a no-brainer. Coverage for Sky TV is almost universal
Same apples to Virgin or TalkTalk if you are in their coverage
Personally I use BT Infinity which is great almost all of the time

As to what a Gb is, that's a Gigabit, (or 1000 Megabits, or 1,000,000 kilobits or 1,000,000,000 bits) per second.
For reference a typical rip of a movie DVD (or a strea of the same thing) is about 750MBytes (a Byte is 8 Bits - for historic reasons that I won't go into). So that would take 750*8/1000 = 6 seconds to download - in ideal conditions. However you wont probably see ideal conditions very often. I generally get about 60Mb/s on mine so that would be 750*8/60 = 100 secs

You can do the maths on the slower speeds
If you are on non fibre broadband you are likely to be on 512 kilobit/s which is about half a Gigabit/sec.
If you remember dial up internet, that was probably 56kb/s - which is about a 20th of a Gigabit

What is that like to use? Well I was recently away on hols with non fibre broadband and I certainly noticed how slow it was to download pretty much anything especially videos
If you want to use BBC iplayer or netflix or do much gaming I'd say you really need fibre.

One thing to remember about streaming, as opposed to downloading (which is what most internet video is), is that the download speed has to match the watching speed otherwise you will get buffering which will make it unwatchable. So if the running time is about the same as the downloading time would be, it will be no good. So my 100sec download (above) is only just about ok and antthing less is no good. Faster is better



They all do introductory offers so just pick a cheap fibre package and go from there. If the download limit (the total amount downloaded as opposed to the speed) turns out to be not enough, you can always upgrade to a higher package later.

Good luck

[Edited on 15/7/14 by spegru]

Slimy38 - 15/7/14 at 07:23 AM

quote:
Originally posted by britishtrident
Plusnet.not only a good price but they respond effectively when things go wrong.
Also they have good spam/virus filtering and good user control of mailboxes.


+1 to plusnet. If we didn't want TV as well we'd have gone for plusnet.

The first thing you need to do is check who actually covers your area though, depending on where you are you might find your choices extremely limited.

killerferret666 - 15/7/14 at 07:24 AM

If your son is watching youtube, most likely it will be 1080p and youtube have updated their quality over last year.

So its roughly and this is rough, 600mb for every hour. My guess is over a month you'd probably be getting close to requiring an unlimited account.

go on to

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/broadband_checker

This will tell you whats offered in your area and by who. Fibre has some good offers nowadays and we've found a massive difference in terms of youtube 1080p buffering much quicker and able to use internet more freely when it is doing so.

Slimy38 - 15/7/14 at 07:29 AM

quote:
Originally posted by spegru

One thing to remember about streaming, as opposed to downloading (which is what most internet video is), is that the download speed has to match the watching speed otherwise you will get buffering which will make it unwatchable. So if the running time is about the same as the downloading time would be, it will be no good. So my 100sec download (above) is only just about ok and antthing less is no good. Faster is better


What you say is correct, but your maths is slightly out. Your first sentence (download speed has to match watching speed) means that you need to stream a 2 hour film in 2 hours or less. This can be done on a non fibre connection, it doesn't necessarily need fibre. BUT, in real world conditions, a 2 hour film ideally should download in about half that time, in order to eliminate stuttering. It still only needs a fraction of what a fibre connection can provide, and your 60 meg link is much more than just 'ok'!!

[Edited on 15/7/14 by Slimy38]

britishtrident - 15/7/14 at 11:12 AM

Once you get into on demand TV you will find you need a unlimited if only to take away the hassle of having to buy more top up bandwidth.

A decent copper connection just about deals with iPlayer, Netflix, Amazon Prime Instant and other on demand services without much buffering but an unlimited fibre connection is the way to go.

As you will probably end up paying a Netfix or Amazon Prime Instant subscription anyway, unless you particularly want BT Sport then a phone and fibre internet deal without a TV package is the way to go.

For watching US TV shows and movies Amazon Prime Instant or Netflix is the way to, we have both and spend most of our TV time on these --- usually increasingly Amazon more than Netfix.

A NowtTv subscription is really just a Sky brand and is way too expensive, although the £10 NowTv box is a great way to try out on demand TV.

tegwin - 15/7/14 at 02:38 PM

Another +1 for plusnet.

Always a pleasure to deal with and a pretty good price to boot!

Irony - 15/7/14 at 03:48 PM

Internet speeds depends massively on your location. Just go here are check what sort of speeds you can expect

http://www.broadbandchecker.co.uk

For basic surfing and such you don't need more than 10mb/s. I used to have a virgin basic cable package and I could stream HD video all day long, I was getting 30mb/s at the time.

For the life of me I don't understand at this moment in time for speeds up to and beyond 100mb/s. Unless you are streaming multiple HD movies at the same time why would you need that sort of speed?

I work in a busy design studio and we transfer very large files on a daily basis, transferred one today of 2.6gig. The entire business with 20 workstations and 5million turnover runs on our internet connection of around 8-10mb/s. The original poster says he not a heavy user so fibre is a expense he probably doesn't need.

I go for a reasonable speed and then go for unlimited downloads. The charges for going over will probably be huge.

Slimy38 - 15/7/14 at 05:30 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Irony
For the life of me I don't understand at this moment in time for speeds up to and beyond 100mb/s. Unless you are streaming multiple HD movies at the same time why would you need that sort of speed?


Agreed, apart from having nothing to download that fast, I don't have hardware that can actually keep up with that sort of speed!! I went from B to N wireless and saw a decent increase in speed, but switching to wired didn't get it much faster. So about 50Mb/s is about all I could effectively use? Even my next upgrade (40mb to 80mb) would be largely wasted unless I sorted out where my weak points were.

I do like being able to watch F1 while she's shopping for shoes, but I can do that with what I have now.

[Edited on 15/7/14 by Slimy38]

britishtrident - 15/7/14 at 06:42 PM

What you have to remember is that with on demand tv changes the way that you and your family use the internet completely, iPlayer, Netflix work OK on a decent ADSL but a lot better on fibre.
In a typical family with in weeks of getting a fast connection you will end up with more than one internet connected Hd TV device or online gaming device on line at the same time. Most on demand TV is HD increasingly full 1080 HD,

On demand TV isn't so much about watching movies but more about high quality US TV series that aren't on UK free to air.
Amazon. or Netflix have series such as Alcatraz, Blue Bloods, Fringe, Copper, Orange is the New Black and the latter series of Criminal Minds.

Probably the most cost effective simple way to get on demand TV or smart Blu-Ray is a Roku Stick or Roku box we have a Roku 1 and it works well and has most on demand channels however Roku devices don't yet have an app for Amazon. For Amazon we use a wired Ethernet connection to an inexpensive Sony Smart Blu-Ray player.

One smart tv device I bought that I wouldn't recommend is the Google Chromecast.

[Edited on 15/7/14 by britishtrident]

fha772 - 15/7/14 at 08:23 PM

Thanks for the input so far guys, I had pretty much narrowed it down to plusnet, or BT infinity.

I'm only looking for broadband and calls, I don't pay for tv, the free channels are enough for me.

1 thing that is quite important is a deal that includes calls to mobiles, as my wife's family are travelling most of the year on the fairground. So it'd be nice for my wife to call her mum more often without worrying about how much the bill is going to be.

stevebubs - 15/7/14 at 08:45 PM

quote:
Originally posted by fha772
Thanks for the input so far guys, I had pretty much narrowed it down to plusnet, or BT infinity.

I'm only looking for broadband and calls, I don't pay for tv, the free channels are enough for me.

1 thing that is quite important is a deal that includes calls to mobiles, as my wife's family are travelling most of the year on the fairground. So it'd be nice for my wife to call her mum more often without worrying about how much the bill is going to be.


If it helps, PlusNet is part of BT...

fha772 - 16/7/14 at 07:03 AM

Has anyone got EE fibre broadband?

I've noticed that they do a broadband and calls deal that includes calls to mobiles, whereas BT don't seem to offer a option that includes mobile numbers.

To be honest, if we could add my mother in law's mobile as a special number on it's own, that would be enough.

Irony - 16/7/14 at 07:15 AM

On Demand TV to me just sounds like more reasons not to get stuff done.

Slimy38 - 16/7/14 at 07:27 AM

quote:
Originally posted by fha772
Has anyone got EE fibre broadband?

I've noticed that they do a broadband and calls deal that includes calls to mobiles, whereas BT don't seem to offer a option that includes mobile numbers.

To be honest, if we could add my mother in law's mobile as a special number on it's own, that would be enough.


Don't ever do EE anything, they are awful. I started with them for my standard broadband, and they were an absolute nightmare from start to finish. Even the connection was throttled and traffic shaped despite it being 'unlimited'. Their support was verging on incompetent, even if you have the patience to sit through their automated call system to get to a person.

I was getting half a meg on a good day, dial up speeds in the evenings and weekends. I called them regularly to see if I could get it above half a meg and they had no interest in sorting it, blaming the distance from the exchange. When I switched to Sky they managed to give me 2 meg out of the same copper, and as far as I know I didn't move house.

For calls to mobiles, I'd maybe look into Skype? They seem to work out quite cheap for all calls. And you can get proper handsets that plug into the network, rather than having to use a PC.

britishtrident - 16/7/14 at 10:40 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Irony
On Demand TV to me just sounds like more reasons not to get stuff done.


There is major move in TV broadcasting away from satellite, cable and digital terrestrial towards on demand. He fact that existing terrestrial broadcasters are strapped for cash is greatly reducing the number of new quality programmes UK TV broadcasters are making. The BBC is under pressure over the licence fee it has. already announced moving one channel from Freview & Freesat to iPlayer only. The independent broadcasters are facing ever decreasing advertising reveneues and no longer have the resources to spend.
Sky having driven up the cost of broadcasting sport and Hollywood movies has been losing subscribers partly because of the recession and partly because nobody wants pay a large monthly was of cash for 1000 channels when they only actualy watch at most 10.



[Edited on 16/7/14 by britishtrident]