It's that time of year again to switch broadband and this year I'm struggling. There doesn't seem to be one standout winner between price and features. Also been with Virgin since moving to this location so don't know the state of the BT socket if the one in the study is the main one or a spur or if it is even working. Also likely some faff with getting fiber installed if I go down that route Looking at 67-150mb speeds (could probably get away with less and slower speeds are more expensive in some cases). Work from home and will on occasion be a young child streaming at the same time. Virgin: Currently with so none of their new customer offers apply tho do look pretty good value compared to others. Also renewed last year and vowed not to go with them again due to it taking 4 days of phones calls to multiple agents to try and get them to even accept the package they offered me and even then they messed up the order. Biggest current gripe is being stuck with the POS Hub 3 Router. They were suppose to upgrade it last year but point blank refused to send one unless the old one was broken so in the end gave up. Speeds largely fine tho every so often completely tank. Their tools report everything as fine and customer service will gaslight you despite multiple other pieces of evidence to the contrary because their tools report as fine. NOW: No thrills, speed seems fine for what I need tho reviews say the router is dog turd. Two Ethernet ports is a problem. Can be easily remedied by picking up another router. Reviews seem down the middle on reliability and support and can't find anything about installation process if we need an engineer out. Vodafone: Working out the best value. Ofcom scores have them doing quite well in some areas but generally middle of the pack. Router gets mix reviews, some say it's great, on par with BT others say its old and outdated. 73mb is only slightly more expensive than now but their 100mb seems great value. Was all for just going with them but reviews have made me pause BT: Expensive but have had previous very good experience with them. Wouldn't mind picking up their wifi coverage guarantee but £5 extra a month puts them over in terms of reasonable price. Hub is touted as the best on the market for out of box experience. Seem to sit highest in satisfaction and decent customer support and retention offers being mentioned. Few family members with them on cracking deals. Plusnet: Been with them twice before. Been pretty reliable, good customer service, Router was turd and don't seem to be good value anymore. Sky: On the fence to even look at their offers. Few comparison sites have thrown them up in the mix. Previous bad experience - Gave a months notice that I was leaving at which speed tanked to sub 1mb plus continued charging after I left. As account was deactivated they were a pain to deal with. Kinda don't want to deal with those ass hats TalkTalk: Might as well post my personal details on the forum here. Simply don't trust them Hyperoptic: Sit between Vodafone and BT's offerings speed and price wise meaning not having a direct comparison but everything seems in line. On par with Plusnet within a few pence. People seem to be fairly positive about them but Can't find much apart from the usual trusted reviews Ofcom data that doesn't really scream good or bad. Can't get much on their router either Shell Energy: More expensive than BT. Only offering broadband here so other discounts and promotions aren't even a factor Onestream: Popped up on comparison sites and seem good value. Need to investigate them more Cuckoo: Never heard of them before but have popped up a couple of times. Need to dig into them more Any big players I'm missing or anything to add to the above? ATM torn between letting Virgin screw me another year or going with NOW, BT or Vodafone. I guess I should just pick up a better router and go with no thrills NOW or Vodafone.
I'm currently with Vodaphone and haven't really had any issues that I can remember, other than my ip keeps changing which is annoying for work when trying to connect to the production db Just checked and I'm on the superfast 2 connection apparently, thought I was on the slower one as I think my speeds are never near 76mb. Just ran a speedtest: DOWNLOAD Mbps 44.96 UPLOAD Mbps 14.59 Ping ms 15 So not 'bad' really, only time I notice the internet is when I want to download a game or something and I have to plan ahead, other than that it's been fine, I work from home and don't think I've had any outages really, router had to be reset once or twice maybe. I am looking to change when my contract is up purely because it seems fibre has been installed and so am potentially going to change to youfibre I think as faster for the same money so why not.
I'm leaving Vodaphone as had multiple price hikes, couple of outages and all they did was offer me data if I had a mobile. Off to Plusnet as they are doing Fibre to the premises and it's cheaper than my broadband with Vodaphone
Sky were pretty good when I was with them, good line and reliability using G.Fast 150/30 Now, put my mum on these as they were the only provider to provide a phone line and good price, her needs are low, they suggested a 60Mb line, we only ever got 30 and despite numerous calls they did not want to send some one out, a case of it is what it is, they were responsive though and called back when they said they were just wouldn't do a lot. She is still with them and happy though because it is cheap. VM, I am with these, CS is poor and I have an number of very small outages due to 'updates to the network' but they have been communitcated so I am not to bother plus I have 5G back up that is as fast as my hard line so...I was all prepared to do the switcheroo to someone else when I came out of deal (70/month for every package, home phone plus mobile and two boxes) after a 10min call they put me in another new customer deal, for £10 quid more plus Neflix and anytime calls, so I stayed, though the new mobile provider 02 for me is worse than the old Virgin provider who was also bad (EE/Voda mismash) It is also split into two different bills now versus the old all in one which can lead to a misunderstanding on price, or perhap a little misleading for CS team. They do send out the new hub5 now as a matter of course, I was offered one but had alsready got one. Virgins performance is area dependent, mine is busy but I always get the 1100/100, my TBBQM [/FONT] Generally happy with VM, only 100Mb upload and a bit inconsistent with the latency but I do a lot of remote interactive CAD work on high res screens streamed across the world and I've never found it an issue but certainly notice and increase in ping versus FTTP numerically even if I could not feel it. For me my options are really switching between Sky and VM as all I really want is good internet and F1
Never had an issue with scheduling downloads. Guess that's a generational thing that getting fast internet to download a game once a year in 3mins rather than 30min is a big must have selling point. Steam also seems limited by the servers or my computer anyway. Will check out youfibre. Never even came across them before Sky where solid when I was with them too. Don't think there were any problems and customer service was when I tried to renew. They had a few new customer offers that were good and enough to keep me with them but refused to compete beyond pay more than rivals and we will throw in a discounted TV service I don't want or will ever use. When they cut the speeds living with a month of completely unusable internet I vowed never to go back. Since I help other relatives pick their deals it has cost them customers. I'm starting to wonder if enough time has passed with Sky. The experience your mum has is similar to many other providers. Seems last mile of copper is the limiting factor so I wouldn't even blame sky for that. If anything it may be an openreach problem. Virgin are similar in the sense you could have no internet but their tools say everything is fine so do you want to roll the dice and pay £150 call out fee to find out if you are insane or being gaslighted? Virgin have notified of work in the area but had no issues each time. Been more than a few times of degraded service tho. In terms of service it's been all over the place, We got put on the 250M last upgrade cycle as it was the same price as the M50 we where on previously. Degraded service has been alright with those speeds. There was a period last summer we where getting between 15-70mb and kept getting told their tool was reporting no issues and speedtest app was saying I "should" be getting whatever the range is. I used 3-4 different speed test apps and emailed them screenshots from a weeks period of speeds that I was getting. Biggest issue now is wifi will drop between after 6pm. A handful of wifi devices will go from streaming 4k video to just having no connection what-so-ever. On a few devices that haven't disconnected Speed test is showing full speed but can't access web pages. Wired devices behave as if nothing is happening. Reseting the router solves the issue for a few weeks then it occurs again. Wife is with 02 as it gives good signal here. It's also the only network she can get in her work. I wouldn't mind the 02 sim but will have to break down the offer to see as it didn't look amazing value. More a way to upsell a sim with 250M rather than get an upgrade from 50M or 100M. I've had my own problems with 02 (Wife encountered the same problems still 10years later) so doesn't surprise me the overlap in CS is a mess. Virgin certainly would be the hassle free upgrade. If they do send out the hub5 it might be worth considering as I think the large portion of the issues is coming from the hub itself
Sorry I wasn't clear, my mum is on Now Broadband which is a seperate provider from Sky although you'd think they were the same as even the modem looks like a sky box. I guess it is a spunout from Sky service. Sounds like you have Wifi issues though rather than VM issues which would t rack if they test the line and it is fine but internally it does not work for you. The new hub5 comes with a new set of repeaters for free if like me you are on Gig1.
Not even that, it's literally Sky - launched back in 2012 as a way to pull in punters who don't want to shell out for Sky proper, streaming over 'tinterwebs instead of using a dish. Cheaper than Sky, and you used to be able to buy a month by itself without tying yourself in to long contracts - dunno if that's still true. Now Broadband's the same - it's just Sky Broadband with a different label and a cheaper price.
I went Now and just bought a cheap gigabit switch. It is true, BTW. It is Sky, and it is cheap AF, and you can pay £60 for the router up front and be month to month. Or, take it free and have a 12 month contract. Just switched mum to it also. More info. So I won't lie, mum's switch was painful. However, it was not Sky's fault. They crossed her line. But, no matter who you go with for that kind of fibre it will be BT doing the work (Or Openreach, if you will). Thankfully because mum is disabled they came out the next day. Still took them two visits to get it right, though. CS was a mixed bag. Some were awesome, the others kept throwing up red tape and being sticklers to not speaking to me. Poor old mum could not have sorted it. However, my switch at my flat was peasy, and I had no issues whatsoever.
I'm pretty much in the same space right now - with VM, our connection recently has been poor, regular drop outs and connection issues, as VM say - all fine even though I have evidence to say otherwise ( I have been running Jeff Geering's 'NetPi' for a year now collecting data). I'm pretty stuck as the only 'decent' speed internet I can get is VM - although Zen and NOW have said they can offer me 45Mb - everyone else is pretty much 10Mb. Does anyone have any experience with Zen?
If you like who you're with it's worth finding examples of what you can get and then giving them a friendly call. Our Vodafone came to its end and a quick call, an example of a competitor, and they gave us pretty much a new customer deal, less than what we were paying towards the end of the last contract.
FWIW - Sky are finally about to begin supplying a Wifi 6 enabled router. BUT their contract has been voted "most confusing" by Uswitch
Just looking at Virgin's offerings has made me have a mini stroke. Their M250 has a 6month for £15 then £33 after, 18month for £32.50 and 18 month for £31.99 plus O2 sim. Not one provider is mentioning installation fees which will be the case for Switching form Virgin. BT waive on some packages and not others. None are mentioning end of contract fees upfront. So i'm assuming it's the discounted price (not always the case) Seems a bit of a minefield working out costs this go around Wouldn't mind hearing more about ZEN too. Everyone ranted and raved about them but they didn't serve here or I couldn't afford them when they did. Haven't heard anyone speak of them in a good few years. At the point I'm pretty much ready to leave Virgin I think. Will have to call them anyway so will have what I want in line before doing that but they are looking the cheapest to renew with anyway. Would need guarantee new router and maybe a good O2 sim to consider them but what @cobalt6700 describes is pretty much what I've been experiencing. YouFibre: Does one town over but doesn't seem to have anything for here. Zen: researching Fibrus: Doesn't do here Might give Vodafone a call since I have a mobile contract with them and se if they will do a deal but it's looking like I'm torn between BT and Now. Now are fantastic value and been looking up some routers. BT aren't that much more expensive when I break it all down. Starting to get decision paralysis tho I know if I get it wrong the missus will hurt more than anything financial wise
I will, once again, sing Zen's praises. A couple of quid more expensive than competitors but rock solid connection, human beings who can actually offer support and I've never had a mid contract price hike (or any price hike for that matter). It's all via openreach so your speed will depend on that but I've got their FTTP and its great. The routers they send out are decent enough (Fritz!Box) that you won't want to smash it to pieces.
I will be honest, if you are using fibre lines they will all be the same. IE, they will all be rented Openreach from BT. I have had everything now. Plusnet, Sky, Talktalk, Zen and Now. I bet I have had others too. They have all been exactly the bleeding same, with the same speed and reliability. Because like I said, they are all the same. As such if you can live with the router and don't want the fastest wifi speed? go with Now. Quite simply because they are the cheapest. At the time I decided to finally F wifi and powerline adapters off and convert my entire living area to CAT 6 wired (hence the wall sockets, that is to feed the server and my gaming rig) and I haven't looked back. Only thing I use on WIFI now is my phone. I even got the wired adapter for my Fire TV, and the gaming PC I use at the TV is also wired.
Yes. When I moved home in 2008 I tried every one. At this time they only had copper in my area, and none were unlimited. I was paying £55 a month for Zen, and it was unlimited, but whilst their customer service was the best I have ever had they could not get around the lines being total poop. Like I said, they are all renting lines from BT. Unless it is Virgin of course. So it is all openreach, no matter who you go with. So just get the cheapest, if you know your way around a router.
Virgin here at my parents place, have had it at most of the places I have lived and generally been fine. The super hub is a turd, but I generally turn it into modem mode and use my own WiFi solution. (Ubiquity/ Eero / omada). Had / Have at my place (not living there atm... Long story) 900Mb up and down, 35 quid a month from community fibre. For the 4 months I got to use it been excellent, only one down time in the 2 years and they communicated it well.
Been waiting close to 4 hours on live chat and 30mins on hold on the phone, I'm starting to remember why it was a multiday affair trying to renew last time and why I vowed not to renew with them. @Vault-Tec What connection is NOW using? Just researching routers and not 100% sure what I need. Preferably a one box solution rather than having a separate modem. Also how is the likes of FTTP handled? It seems each company has a separate Router for their FTTC and FTTP offerings
Yeah, the two are very different. FTTC uses POTS copper (or aluminium, if you're unlucky) between you and the cabinet, typically via a VDSL modem - usually integrated into the bundled router, but not always. FTTP terminates the glass fibre literally inside your wall, and there's no modem. Instead, you get an ONT - Optical Network Terminal. It's a little box that sits on your wall, plugged in to a power brick: the fibre goes in and the ONT turns the light into electricity to spit out of an RJ45 Ethernet socket. This then connects to your router, which is basically what we used to call a "cable router" - no integrated modem, just an RJ45 WAN socket. In either case, you can usually chuck what the ISP gives you and use your own. My FTTP connection is hanging off an Asus mesh router thing, works fine.
Feels like with the death of fourms this information just isn't as readily available as it was in the past. Barely any publications are reviewing broadband or comparing routers etc. Even youtube there is a dire lack of quality information. It is also possible I am now just an old man with no Yahoo/Altavista Fu anymore That simplifies things. Been looking at what connection I need incase it was like the old days of Modem and router being separate boxes. Just off a chat with BT and the agent just seemed to use terms willy nilly. Rough translation seems to be Modem = ONT box, Wifi = Router. Couldn't give any details how they connected or any information on the installation process. I get the feeling that FTTP installation will be them rocking up, sticking the box in an awkward location and then having to put the router somewhere I don't want it rather than in the study beside my horde of PC's
The router doesn't have to sit next to the ONT - They connect together using a normal ethernet cable.
