Broadband - Options

My woeful Plusnet contract is finally coming to an end and I need to get something a little quicker.

There are lots of reviews online, but never sure if they are real so thought I would ask here.

What have you got and what do you like/hate about it?

I need at least 50mb and that is about it.

Currently enjoy freeview (No sky or Virgin) so broadband only is fine and we don't use our landlie at all.

Fire away

http://www.three.co.uk/Discover/Devices/Huawei/E5573bs-322_4G_Mobile_Wi-Fi?memory=0&colour=White

Unlimited 4g Internet at £22 a month and no phone line to worry about or pay for. Only issue is signal in your area , may nee to try first.

I'm on sky and have been great , have had issues but really all because of woeful open reach. Speed is often line dependant so need to be considered with any asdl broadband unfortunately hence the above suggestion.


Virgin from my experience and family's, lying and deceitful company which would be better off without.

Yup - Virgin are the spawn of the Devil and worship at the altar of Onan. I’ve never come across a company that are so focused on themselves at the explicit expense of their customers.

And yet... I've not had an issue in twenty years with Virgin. Which is probably just as well, since anything coming via a BT co-host (whatever they call themselves this year) is coming along five miles of 1970s telephone wiring which stops working whenever it rains, and only managed half a megabit when it worked.

While the Virgin cabinet is at the end of my garden. Not cheap, though.

And that’s where you are lucky - because when there’s a problem, it all goes to rats!

Completely agree with MRS... No responsibility taken when issues arises and no inclination to resolve stating i must keep paying them. Brother had just signed up with virgin, 2 months later no install and continue asking for payment despite no service.

My narrowband spawn of the devil vote would be torn between BT/EE and I think there's could be a bit of a postcode lottery with regards to Virgin cable service. I had Virgin cable for the best part of 20 years (until recently moving to a new estate that they don't serve) and never had any serious problems. The odd technical glitch was dealt with quickly and efficiently, far better than anything I've experienced with ADSL based services (and the liars that provide them, mentioned at the start). Saying that however, I've also read that in areas where Virgin's network has issues it can be a pretty awful experience. Personally I can't wait to get back on cable (not likely here) or move house to a cable covered area.

From my experience of ADSL based services (looking after work, albeit a few years ago now, and the last 4 years in this house), I don't see it as a fit for purpose technology. My cable connection over the years has always been noticeably stable in comparison the very variable ADSL. I also see outage issues getting worse with the splitting of the infrastructure and provider as there is a huge opportunity to pass the buck between provider and Openreach. I've already had that happen here once and being passed between two companies (neither of whom give a monkeys and only one of whom you can actually speak to) is pretty painful especially given that I rely on the service to work from home 3 days per week. At least Virgin own both the customer service and infrastructure aspects (for better of for worse).

Another vote for Virgin - I've been with them since it was NTL and the only real issue I've had was weak wi-fi performance from their router (partly caused by it being installed in an office extension, which is outside the main shell of the house). I switched it to modem mode and put a Netgear wi-fi router in the middle of the house and it has been fine since. Solid 100Mb/s download speeds, although the upload speeds are low.

Second that awfull company to deal with

I am lucky to have 80 download, 20 upload - with BT - Full FTTP connection - paying £26 per month including line rental. Top speed package available is 300 download but I no way do I need that. And yes I know its BT - but they have been reliable - plus with a FTTP connection you get to speak to a British callcentre (FTTC connection customers have their callcentre calls routed to overseas call centres).

[image]https://scontent.flhr2-1.fna.fbcdn....91d3c144df306c9c0858ac8f&oe=5D7769D5[/image]

Another Virgin user for over 20 years and no issues or disputes, always found them willing to haggle as well.

Not been on here for ages so firstly hello to y’all. Ironic that I come in and find this post. Be been with Virgin a long time -30 years or so I reckon. They’ve been good until you need something then they are the pits! I am very soon going to bin them. That’s TV, landline, internet and two mobile accounts. They have the worst customer service in the world. They sent me a mail shot inviting me to upgrade my
Phone early. Good deal an an I phone too so I thought “go on then” took about 30 minutes on the phone before they said right your order is in but it’s on hold. Someone will call you tomorrow to complete the order. Long story short, they never did. After several calls over
Several days they told me the order had been cancelled. No explanation. I was fuming and was going to cancel when they sent me another mail shot with an invite to upgrade early. I went through exactly the same process except this time it lasted two weeks and involved numerous lengthy phone calls. I. Mean like maybe 6 hours speaking to different pestle all with very strong Indian accents and a habit of asking a question then starting to speak again as you started to answer. Turned out there is ahold on my account a black flag against it is what one guy said. One of them even sis I think there has been arrears on the account! I gave him what for, ive been a customer for more than 20 ya Es and pay by direct debit there have never been arrears! I’ve even Been into the local store. They can see me conversation notes on their computer but cannot see whey my account is blocked. They face me a link to a complaints email address and I’ve sent a complaint and requested a copy of all the data they hold for me. That was over a week ago and they have not even acknowledged receipt of the email yet. I’m just waiting for a response then I intend to cancel everything and get one of the Three internet hubs that someone refers to above. Virgin - spawn of the devil is right. Don’t go there

I have been using the BT business hub (6a) and an alternative (google) DNS. Everything feels quicker and there are fewer hangs than using the older plusnet and bt hubs.

You can buy the business hubs in flea bay for about £20

Been with Sky for 12 years. Previous NTL. Using Sky Fibre and averaging 55mb/s down load speed and 30mb/s upload speed on £25 a month unlimited.

Guess it must be luck of the draw with Virgin because im another one who gives them my vote. Been with them about 15 years and never had a problem. When I moved house THEY pointed out that my equipment was a little old and upgraded/replaced it all free of charge.

I think there’s a few lucky (and long term) Virgin customers on here.

They score 0.8 ex 10 on Trustpilot (as Virgin) - various Virgin Media companies score as low as 0.5

https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.virgin.com

I know companies offer ultra mega super hyper turbo lightening fast speeds, but what is a realistic download speed one can expect when connected to wifi? Half of the advertised speed? A third?

Assuming you just put your smartphone right next to the router, (as opposed to standing outside, at the end of the end of the garden, with several closed doors and walls in between) what figures would you expect to see?

I've been with Virgin since they took over from telewest. I've had 3 complete outages in the last month, and very iffy performance outside of that. Even had their support chaps telling me service was working because I could access a webpage on my phone, but had upload speed of 0.2mb. They've been really poor at sorting it all out.

they're online service portal has only once owned up to their being a service outage - they clearly have a problem they've been trying to to own up to.

it's prompted me to look at what I'm actually getting from a 20MB contract - the answer is anything from 5MB to 30MB+ download speed....and upload similarly varies. There is almost no difference if I'm using a cable of wi-fi.

Because actual broadband performance can vary so much from area to area, I suppose one way to find out how (at the very least, some) broadband providers are doing in your area, would be to perhaps ask the neighbours?

Tested mine yesterday evening - 70MB down, 2MB up...... really varies a great deal from minute to minute.

This is a very good idea which I'd never thought of doing before (previous moves have always been to somewhere with solid cable so had never been an issue) especially as we are house hunting in rural areas at the moment.

If anyone would like laugh at my expense then I've just tested ours and got 1.96Mbps down and 0.39Mbps up. I think I'd have to go back 15 years to when I last a connection of that speed with Comcast/NTL/Virgin.

If it makes you feel any better I was only getting an absolute max of 6.8 upload in Edinburgh until 6 months ago when I forked out another few quid for about 25-30...