Time for a new phone and ISP package and I'm looking for some recommendations, please. I'm paying £32/month with BT line/Orange BB and have been for about a decade! I've recently experienced many drop-outs in service. I live in the countryside so no fibre available here, and my line download speed tops out at about 3.3Mbps. I don't game online, but I watch a lot of TV thorough IPlayer and the like, so will probably go for an 'unlimited' package. I've read so many reviews and comparison sites that my head hurts. I was going to go with BEthere based on some PCPro reader annual polls, but then I read they had been bought by 02 and are now being brought down to their level. Nobody seems to be satisfied on these review sites, so the other school of thought is just to go for the cheapest, currently TalkTalk @13.24/month rising to 16.49/month.
Have you checked if BT infinity is coming to your area? If not I can recommend Virgin, whilst I'm currently on one of their fibre optic deals (which is ridiculously fast) they used to do decent phone line internet, which I had at an old house.
Being out in the middle of no-where is a pain in the ass for finding a good ISP. I wouldn't necessarily expect you to be able to find a deal much cheaper than what you're currently paying. The problem being a lot of the time the connection to you is owned by some other company, meaning your ISP has to effectively rent it off them. Have a look here to see what other ISPs can offer: http://www.uswitch.com/broadband/postcode_checker/ I would honestly say avoid Talk Talk (and their many minions) and Virgin. What's 3G coverage like in your area?
4G is coming later in the year, moving ADSL provider isn't going to give you any faster speeds. My advise it to wait for 4G
Bethere if they are in your area, they are hassle free and have no download caps. £17 a month bt telephone is like £12 on top. If you want all in ones. Bt themselves is cheapest but not unlimited download / upload.
BE...Can't recommend them enough, they have a forum for christ sake...who even has that? You can talk to them and not be played around with...*Cough* virgin media* Cough*
I would second Zen. I've been with them for the last 18 months or so, and their service is excellent (especially their Tech Support if you need them). I too live in the country and BT line test says I should get a max of 2 Meg. Zen manages to get me a shade under 6 They don't do any traffic shaping on your bandwidth. Andy
I've had the same problem as you in the past. I've tried out Sky - they were the worst. Practically no customer support. Next I went with o2 who were helpful but there was little change in my internet connectivity. Currently I'm with Virgin brilliant connectivity, it's super fast and never drops out. Good customer support but mainly quality internet.
Op is in the countryside and the first 4G services will be in the Urban centres of the UK first- wont see rural deployment till mid to late 2013- completed by late 2014. Virgin national and sky connect are very poor services and are best to avoid on asdl as if BT 21CN or LLU are avaliable they are the better options. As for the Op what exchange are you on as we need to know what options are avalaible otherewise all the suggestions made above will not matter if the service is not installed at the exchange.
Lately BT for me has been really flakey. Home hub 3 has shorter range than HH2 and infinity speeds range from 1MB/s to 36MB/s on random days. Seem to be working on the green box every other day which could be the problem. Cousin uses Virgin which they havent had any problems with apart from one outage (due to some kind roadworks) Best friend uses Orange and despite all pledges and promises he rarely gets close to 2MB/s. Mostly see his in the low 1MB/s. Orange has "promised" him 5MB/s. Other than those I don't know anyone on any other provider in the last 2 years.
Be has been owned for O2 for ages, never had any issues and when I did, they were great, did it all over online chat, they then called me day after to make sure I was all ok still! Until I have an issue I won't consider changing, even for a faster service. Zen is good but maybe overpriced, you do get download usages but you can track easily and service is A+ Tech support is decent, but seeing as I'm on a stag do with alot of them soon, don't except much with their hangovers!!!
Ages have passed since this thread was active - I know! I wanted to thank those that offered advice. Thanks! In the end I tried to go with BE, but their service is not available on my exchange. I then decided to go cheap, so have signed up with TalkTalk and I'm paying 9.25+3.25 (line rental &evening calls + 'unlimited' download BB) = £12.50 / month Four weeks in, so far so good - no problems. I'm getting the same typical 3 Mbps I was getting with BT/Orange while paying £32 / month. However, I have this nagging feeling that 'you get what you pay for' and I'll report back if the service turns out to be rubbish. Anyway, the toal contract (12 months) cost is only £150 which, can be written off as experience if I need to swap provider before the end.
Nooooooooooo not talk talk, i just got out of a 2 year stint, i had numerous connection problems, when you call the Non-UK call centre for tech support, i can honestly say they are less than interested, i had constant drops of connections, completly intermittent, they wanted me to pay £60 to send an Engi round! FFS they are not providing the service why the hell am i paying! I have gone with O2 and the works, no traffic management, uk call centres, much better router, i dont go live until Fri to be fair but i have heard from on here and my mate that they are pretty good. I have to say talk talks low prices is what attracted me, back when i signed up it was £60 for talk talk to connect a line or £120 for BT, nowadays it seems cheapers (o2 are charging me £30 to go from a talk talk to the O2 approved line (i think its BT :S ). Plus im an o2 customer for over 2 yrs so i get it half price for a year.
Plusnet for me they've been pretty good, Wouldn't go with TalkTalk if they was the only ISP there was complete rubbish and would tell you lies just to get you to sign up
