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Broadband?
JimM - 6/2/13 at 10:59 PM

BT Internet contract about to expire ....

Should I renew BT or go for SKY, Virgin ?

wicket - 6/2/13 at 11:04 PM

Plusnet are recommended, been with them for several years now no complaints with service etc

PS I think this would have been better inthe 'Non car Chat' section

[Edited on 6/2/13 by wicket]

Wheels244 - 6/2/13 at 11:55 PM

quote:
Originally posted by wicket
Plusnet are recommended, been with them for several years now no complaints with service etc

PS I think this would have been better inthe 'Non car Chat' section

[Edited on 6/2/13 by wicket]


+1

And they're based in Yorkshire - doesn't get much better than that.

britishtrident - 7/2/13 at 07:45 AM

Plusnet --- good price & service, when things go wrong they don't hesitate to call BT in

T66 - 7/2/13 at 07:49 AM

Friend was telling me that Plusnet are related to BT in some way, better deal on the price, with the BT backup.


Im Sky - service is reasonable, it copes with 3 adults and the wifi demands we create - just...


My dads Virgin cable is mega fast ! not heard him complain about their service.

Slimy38 - 7/2/13 at 07:54 AM

quote:
Originally posted by T66
Friend was telling me that Plusnet are related to BT in some way, better deal on the price, with the BT backup.


Most broadband companies use BT in some way, for example my Sky connection is done by Sky renting a fibre connection from BT. And it was a BT engineer that activated and tested the line. Although I'm not sure how they can undercut BT for the same product...

If I was going for purely broadband, I'd also go with Plusnet. I only stay with sky because we wanted TV and phone as well, and it's a fair bit cheaper to have all three in a package. Plusnet have won far too many awards and accolades to be ignored, you don't get consistently high ratings without doing something right!

[Edited on 7/2/13 by Slimy38]

britishtrident - 7/2/13 at 07:58 AM

BT bought over Plusnet about 7 years ago, but Plusnet runs as a completely separate operation.

ChrisL - 7/2/13 at 11:38 AM

I'm happy with Virgin and I'll never use Sky again, OK so long as it's all working but when you get problems you get abusive service, was told at one point that I was lying ( I wasn't) and when I pointed out the fine print in their contract, in my favour was ignored. Eventually the ended up getting the debt collectors in. Realising that it was going to be significantly more effort that the money I paid up, but delight in telling anyone who'll listen what I think of them. In short AVOID SKY

mads - 7/2/13 at 12:40 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Slimy38
Most broadband companies use BT in some way, for example my Sky connection is done by Sky renting a fibre connection from BT. And it was a BT engineer that activated and tested the line. Although I'm not sure how they can undercut BT for the same product...


BT have to rent their lines to other providers and they can only charge £1 - £2 / month for it.

AndyW - 7/2/13 at 01:15 PM

quote:
Originally posted by ChrisL
I'm happy with Virgin and I'll never use Sky again, OK so long as it's all working but when you get problems you get abusive service, was told at one point that I was lying ( I wasn't) and when I pointed out the fine print in their contract, in my favour was ignored. Eventually the ended up getting the debt collectors in. Realising that it was going to be significantly more effort that the money I paid up, but delight in telling anyone who'll listen what I think of them. In short AVOID SKY


+1

I would rather go without than ever use sky again.

with Virgin, never had a problem and I cut the fibre optic cables that were coming in through my garden, phoned them (via mobile as I cut phone, broadband and TV), they came out to fix the next day at no charge.

Pdlewis - 7/2/13 at 04:22 PM

if its virgin cable not virgin over the phone line then 100% go for virgin!! its rapid and quite cheap

ironside - 7/2/13 at 05:03 PM

If you're not in a Virgin cable area and/or BT haven't enabled FTTC (Infinity) on your cabinet then check if your exchange is also on the O2/Be network.

The sync speed is usually faster than the equivalent BT-based DSL, you can fiddle with your line profile yourself directly and their network doesn't have the capacity/traffic shaping behaviour that BT circuits can do. You can even bond multiple DSL lines to double your speed. For me, it's faster than BT-based DSL because I can't get ADSL2+ (up to 24Mbps) on BT but I can with O2/Be. Note that they have no plans for upgrading to fibre though, so bear this in mind before signing up for to a long term contract if BT Infinity is round the corner for you.

You can find out if you are on O2/Be's network, or anyone else's for that matter, by putting your details in here:
http://www.samknows.com/broadband/broadband_checker

You'll also be able to get an estimated date for fibre if there are plans to upgrade you.
I've been a happy O2/Be customer for about 3 years now. It's only gone down once in that time for less than half an hour.

You can get it at:
http://www.bethere.co.uk/ or http://www.o2.co.uk/broadband
Some of the traditional ISPs also provide ADSL over the O2/Be network such as http://www.aaisp.com/ and http://www.goscomb.net/ although probably for more money than going direct.

sdh2903 - 7/2/13 at 05:39 PM

Been on o2 for a few years now and very happy, customer service very good too. I have taken the landline package and line rental too as I get discount due to being a mobile customer aswell. Just to give a comparison last month my combined landline/line rental/broadband bill was 22 quid.

gremlin1234 - 7/2/13 at 07:14 PM

phone the bt retentions dept. and see what they can offer.

virgin cable is usually ok, but don't go for virgin adsl,

sky adsl is good value if you want their tv, (but they dont discount a fibre connection)

britishtrident - 7/2/13 at 08:07 PM

Plusnet have a major advantage in they give you proper email facilities with multiple mailboxes which are fully configurable re-directs or aliases are included in cost, this is a hidden cost with BE & O2 (same company really). Plus net spam and virus filters are pretty good.

britishtrident - 7/2/13 at 08:22 PM

quote:
Originally posted by sdh2903
Been on O2 for a few years now and very happy, customer service very good too. I have taken the landline package and line rental too as I get discount due to being a mobile customer aswell. Just to give a comparison last month my combined landline/line rental/broadband bill was 22 quid.


In 2006 Having had a really bad experience with Zen (shockingly poor service and massive cost) We installed a second landline ADSL. Originally the new one was on Be and the original switched from Zen to Plusnet -- this was purely to ensure continuity of service if one ADSL line went down.

Having been with Be found them pretty good but then they p***** me off with a change in T&C which downgraded my line speed unless we switched to a higher cost package. Searching around for a better deal I switched to the sister company O2 which at the time offered a better value deal. We had good reliable service from both brands.

When cellular phone broadband dongles became available we reverted to only one ADSL we kept the Plusnet rather than O2 connection mainly because of the better email and support.



[Edited on 7/2/13 by britishtrident]

se7en - 7/2/13 at 09:21 PM

The lines are rented from BT Wholesale by the 1000