Auditors

[Burnie 2,084]

I'm after some advice.

I move house tomorrow so I'm looking to get a Phone and Broadband provider

This is the list of available providers in my area.

The house is already rigged up with both cable and telephone lines so thats not an issue.

What I am after is opinions on the providers re: reliability of provision, value for money, customer service, truthfullness (e.g. Bandwidth stated vs bandwidth received) etc. if anyone is able to suggest any based on experience.

[pottheed 50]

I worked for 2 years for BT in tech support and complex broadband complaints/faults.

Reliability - there will be very little inbetween them as they all use similar equipment and the same line at the end of the day.

Truthfullness - All ISP's will get their estimate speed from BT so whatever they all say to you they all should say to you.

Now this is the single most important thing - What the ISP does when things go wrong, Sky, talktalk, bt, virgin and tesco all have tech support in india and they have an extremely rigid script they follow which only fixes 75% of problems, not all of them.

Plus.net are the best in my opinion, yes they might be a little more expensive but they are upfront about costs and usage rather than being dishonest and saying "subject to a fair usage policy." you can also monitor your usage online and they also do telephone lines. All of their call centres are based in the UK as well and they have a guidance script but are very good when it fits outside of this, the only mainstream ISP I have come accross which is good with this.

[Guest]

Yep, I'd recommend Plusnet to anyone. And, I'm going to be absolutely shameless and say... If you go with plusnet by clicking my banner in my sig, I get a 50p/month discount off my bill.

Click it, Click it now

[JamesJG + 175]

It depends on what you want.

"Normal" broadband (up to 8Mb (ADSL) or 24Mb (ADSL2+) per second - depends on what your line can handle)... go with Plusnet. Perfectly reliable, call centre where you know exactly what's going on and there's no real possibility of not understanding the person on the other end of the line.

"Superfast" broadband (30Mb per second or more)... Virgin. Hands down.

My advice would be do a speed check using BT's website and Virgin's website (enter the postcode and door number), see what speeds they'll give you. The "up to" 8Mbps service for me yields a mere 3Mbps, for two gamers, no good; however with cable products you pretty much get the full 30/60/100Mbps.

Edited January 1, 2013 by JamesJG

[Amz-0 18]

O2 is pretty good despite the fact I sometimes get less than a 1 MB but if your after speed then VIRGIN :new_shades:

[Burnie 2,084]

Unfortunately my girlfriends mother has waded into the discussion and decided that apparently the wider community views are useless and only hers matter...

Apparently, despite all your inputs, "Plusnet are unreliable" and "cant be trusted", nor could talktalk, nor could BT...

This left us with O2 or Virgin so we're going with Virgin (as they have an offer on of 6 months free phone and broadband, only paying line rental)

Thanks for all your inputs though.

Edited January 2, 2013 by Burnie

[Guest]

Well, I sort of agree and disagree at the same time

If you can get Virgin cable broadband, then that's always going to be better than ADSL(2)(2+) and will 99% of the time, be faster than a comparative line speed on DSL.

However, if you're not in a 'cabled area' I'd not touch Virgin ADSL with a barge pole.

I'd agree with your girlfriends mother on talktalk (just for their customer services reputation), and to a lesser extent BT, slightly better. But, speaking as I find, and touch wood, I've been with Plusnet for just over a year now and I've never yet had any problems. The one time I was disconnected, I phoned Plusnet at 2am, the call was answered straight away by someone in Yorkshire, and the problem fixed within 15 minutes. You can't really knock that.


The one thing I will say about Virgin, is if you have their phone and cable broadband but not the TV, they see it as their right to bug the life out of you to take one of the TV packages as well.

Their line rental is on the high end as well.

[JamesJG + 175]

Not a single problem with Plusnet. Heck, they cap my bandwidth at 60GB per month, I phoned them up and asked if there was anything they could do with it... no problem, unlimited ADSL, just like that.

Also... isn't O2 a subsidiary of BT... ?

Ironically, the offers that Virgin are currently doing make it significantly cheaper over a 12 month period to take phone/line rental with the broadband (6 months free with both opposed to 3 months free).

[Guest]

Not a single problem with Plusnet. Heck, they cap my bandwidth at 60GB per month, I phoned them up and asked if there was anything they could do with it... no problem, unlimited ADSL, just like that.

Also... isn't O2 a subsidiary of BT... ?

Yep, I've just moved from a 250Gb cap to unlimited with Plusnet for the same price, so it's all good

O2 is owned by Telefonica. Though somewhat Ironically, Plusnet are owned by BT Group. Although it's run as a completely separate business.

[Jellybean 417]

This left us with O2 or Virgin so we're going with Virgin (as they have an offer on of 6 months free phone and broadband, only paying line rental)

Thanks for all your inputs though.

You have my deepest sympathies..

[Londonbased 1]

Also... isn't O2 a subsidiary of BT... ?

Not any longer.

It used to be.

[GMP_Lee 0]

Tesco has a UK support and you can also get clubcard points ;-)

Tesco use the equipment I manage in the exchange (ADSL) so if you have any problems just come straight to me

The company I work for also re-sells it's products onto Virgin, Tesco, Tiscali/bulldog/talktalk, Murphx, Global 4 Communications and many others. There is no bandwith limit or peak time capping as other companys do.