ISP for Home

[Hightower]

I'm moving into my new house a week tomorrow, and am in the process of looking at an ISP. We were going to get a bundle (TV, Phone & BBand) but have since decided to leave the TV out until Virgin plumb in (about a year or two).

 

So, advice please.

 

We are wanting the following bundle:

 

1) Telephone line which includes line rental, and evening and weekend calls

2) BBand which never has problems (experiences people!) and includes and unlimited usage (obviously subject to fair use).

3) MOST IMPORTANT. The current line in the house is not in use. It would be ideal if the company we go with could activate this line for us (free would be even better).

 

Found a great deal with Orange but didn't want to go with them because they said we would have to get BT to activate the line.

[jamesb]

From my own experience, I cannot recommend BT enough. After spending the entire twelve months of my contract with Tiscali trying to get them to fix my connection I switched to BT. The progress was then:

 

- Two minute phone call, they said they'd call back after some line tests

- Twenty minutes later a call back saying that they'd picked up a fault and would contact me shortly about resolution

- Twenty minutes more, engineer from BT calls saying they've fixed it at the exchange and could I test it. Speed had increased to 7Mbps but connection still dropped out every few hours, told them this.

- Next day engineer's sent out to check the line outside my house to the box.

[featured_spectre]

BT all the way.

 

I live only 500 yards from the nearest exchange.

 

A few weekends ago, we had a fault at the exchange at 1AM (I was doing my COD: MW2 butt kicking and it disconnected), BT sent an engineer to fix it (At 3AM he arrived!!) and it was fixed before 7AM.

 

Telephone support is very very good.

 

As for TV, Sky is the way to go, and haggle for the sky+ box for free (No point having HD as its extra £10 a month, and out of the channels that do use HD, only the sport ones are any good).

[Hightower]

From my own experience, I cannot recommend BT enough. After spending the entire twelve months of my contract with Tiscali trying to get them to fix my connection I switched to BT. The progress was then:

 

- Two minute phone call, they said they'd call back after some line tests

- Twenty minutes later a call back saying that they'd picked up a fault and would contact me shortly about resolution

- Twenty minutes more, engineer from BT calls saying they've fixed it at the exchange and could I test it. Speed had increased to 7Mbps but connection still dropped out every few hours, told them this.

- Next day engineer's sent out to check the line outside my house to the box.

 

I use BT at my parents house now, and have absolutely no problems with them except the price. £35 for line rental, unlimited broadband, and calls is a lot of money when I can get it from Orange for £20.

[adhutton]

You can get a BT line re-connected for free at the moment (special offer to 31st Jan):

 

£125 saving!

 

Get a free BT line installed

 

Notices 2009 06/09 Calling Plans - Line Connection Special Offer

 

Andrew

 

EDIT: - It looks like it may also apply to new lines as well.

[featured_spectre]

The connection with Orange is nowhere near as fast as it is with BT, and with Orange, it likes to be down more than up (I know from experience as I was on it for 2 years before switching to Virgin, and then to BT)

[Grommit]

BT all the way.

 

I live only 500 yards from the nearest exchange.

 

A few weekends ago, we had a fault at the exchange at 1AM (I was doing my COD: MW2 butt kicking and it disconnected), BT sent an engineer to fix it (At 3AM he arrived!!) and it was fixed before 7AM.

 

Telephone support is very very good.

 

As for TV, Sky is the way to go, and haggle for the sky+ box for free (No point having HD as its extra £10 a month, and out of the channels that do use HD, only the sport ones are any good).

 

If you get Sky TV (which is the Best by far) then you might as well get Sky BB 16meg unlimited for £10 per month on a BT line (best and cheapest by far)

[Hightower]

You can get a BT line re-connected for free at the moment (special offer to 31st Jan):

 

£125 saving!

 

Get a free BT line installed

 

Notices 2009 06/09 Calling Plans - Line Connection Special Offer

 

Andrew

 

EDIT: - It looks like it may also apply to new lines as well.

 

Subject to signing up to an 18 month contract with BT. I'd rather pay £100 to have the line connected and then pay less per month for the service I receive.

 

Apparently TalkTalk will do it for £60, and their unlimited service is £25 per month (inc line rental) and also includes anytime calls, not just weekend calls like BT.

[teky]

Abit off post but looks like BT is the way to go, they have just released their pricing for the fibre rollout.

 

"BT Retail will start selling up to 40Mbits/sec fibre broadband from £20 per month, the company has announced.

 

The company will offer two packages to customers: the £20 per month deal will see upload speeds limited to up to 2Mbits/sec and will impose a 20GB monthly download cap. It also attracts a £50 connection charge.

 

The £25 per month deal abolishes the connection charge and the data cap, and raises the maximum upload speed to a relatively impressive 10Mbits/sec"

 

BT announces first fibre broadband prices | News | PC Pro

Edited January 21, 2010 by teky

[tmcd35]

 

BT announces first fibre broadband prices | News | PC Pro

 

I can't make my mind up about thist story. Part of me feels BT are a bit behind the times here. Other countries have 100mbps already, 40mbps seems a little stingy. Especially since Virgin have had 50mbps for some time now.

 

On the other hand I'm wondering how much speeds beyond 20mbps are really needed. Okay a little short sighted, in time we will have uses for the speed. But to be honest I've not long downgraded my Virgin Media broadband from 20mbps to 10mbps because I just wasn't using it and really can't see the difference in general day to day use.

[Mako]

A lot of talk about Unlimited usage. Don't forget that's always subject to the small-printed "fair use" policy. I'm with orange and have an "unlimited package", and they sent me a letter over Christmas saying that I'd downloaded 8.01 GB during peak hours over the last month which breached their fair use policy, which isn't too far off seing as I'd downloaded CoD:MW2 (at approx 10GB) and some other games from Steam. I read their fair use policy and couldn't find any specifics on how much exceeds "fair". They said they'd cap my speed, but I don't receive the full speed I should anyway. They've probably put a cap on but I don't reach that limit in the first place so there's as-yet no change.

 

I used to like Orange, but recently I'm disconnecting a lot, failing to connect in the first place, and I'm disliking being monitored for probably going 0.1gb over their fair usage policy. I'm considering a change. The comments about BT are helpful...

[Hightower]

A lot of talk about Unlimited usage. Don't forget that's always subject to the small-printed "fair use" policy.

 

See point 2 of my original post:

 

2) BBand which never has problems (experiences people!) and includes and unlimited usage (obviously subject to fair use).

[LosOjos]

I had to have my phone line re-activated and was told a great trick: get the post office to do it! They activate it for free then you get your phone through them, but there's no contract so you can switch provider at any time, the next day if you want. Saved me a few quid.

[Mako]

See point 2 of my original post:

 

Sorry Hightower, I was reading too quickly. With regards to your OP and the Orange deal, though, even though you'd need to contact BT, if my experience is anything to go by... steer clear from them. Recently they're slipping far too low in my opinion.

[bossman]

@Hightower:

 

Do you know who has their equipment in at the local exchange as this could be a governing factor.

 

If for instance like me you have such as talk talk who have enabled LLU at the exchange then you can get free unlimited (fair usage policy) tagged with your phone calls at a fair price and I must admit for me living in the sticks it has been fantastic as I live quite a few kilometres form the exchange and get 3Mb download and 640Kb upload bandwidth.

 

I don't know what their tie in period amounts too as I have been using them for the past 2 years problem free and I have another 3 people in the house including 2 grown up youths who are constantly on the net with XBox, laptops, phones, PDAs etc and it just works. :)

[adhutton]

@Hightower:

 

Do you know who has their equipment in at the local exchange as this could be a governing factor.

 

If for instance like me you have such as talk talk who have enabled LLU at the exchange then you can get free unlimited (fair usage policy) tagged with your phone calls at a fair price and I must admit for me living in the sticks it has been fantastic as I live quite a few kilometres form the exchange and get 3Mb download and 640Kb upload bandwidth.

 

The facilities at your local exchange can be checked here:

SamKnows Broadband - Availability - Exchange Search

 

A

[IanT]

Be* Internet (on LLU enabled exchange)

[SpuffMonkey]

Even though I see a lot of moaning - I have personally found Virgin's cable BB to be very solid - the TV & phone is well overpriced though

[Hightower]

Has anybody used the Post Office for phone/broadband? If so what's it like? Prices don't seem too bad.

[Andycat]

I can't recommend SKY enough at the moment. I have been with BT from day one, but recently switched to SKY as BT couldn't get as high a speed as SKY from my Exchange (Weird eh?).

 

Any way, it's £18 a month less than BT for me for BB, all inclusive calls and line rental, I'm getting 13mb downloads with no traffic shaping, and truly unlimited use, with 1.2mb up.

 

I was only getting 9mb down at first, so I rang TS and they did everything they could (including a new free router) to get me up to the maximum speed my line would take. Great CS. I was supposedly on unlimited with BT as a 10 yr 7yr customer, but my connection is far better and more reliable now.

[Hightower]

Do Sky offer just phone & bband, or do you have to take TV too?

[Andycat]

No you don't need TV I don't think.

[K.C.Leblanc]

I've just signed up to o2. If you have one of their mobile phones you can get broadband for £7.50 a month.

 

You also get two months free and a £50 rebate via Where Savvy Shoppers Save - Cashback - Quidco (who will take the first £5 of earning for a year).

 

All in all my broadband will be costing about £30 this year.

 

Oh and the performance is better then plus.net. I';ve never had BT broadband on my line so I can't comment on it. I the past however I've found the expensive and not that special.

 

Having broadband on your phone bill should in theory make it easier but in practice caused me all sorts of problems.

[MYK-IT]

I highly recommend O2 Broadband (If available in your area /exchange).

 

 

Standard Package

£7.50 per month

for O2 customers

 

£12.50 per month

for all other customers

 

Up to 8 meg download speed (subject to location)

McAfee security software

100 free web texts per month

 

Premium Package

£10 per month

for O2 customers

 

£15 per month

for all other customers

 

Up to 20 meg download speed (subject to location)

McAfee security software (for up to 3 computers)

200 free web texts per month

 

Pro Package

£17.50 per month

for O2 customers

 

£22.50 per month

for all other customers

 

Up to 20 meg download speed (subject to location)

Dedicated Customer Service Number

McAfee security software (for up to 5 computers)

500 free web texts per month

 

 

I've been with them for over 2 years, and the service and Free (from landline, or O2 Mobile which is handy when they say unplug the landline ) UK Technical Support is fantastic.

If you have an O2 Contract Mobile (or O2 PAYG, topping up £10 per 3 months) you will get £5 off a month.

 

They are currently offering 2 Months free PLUS If you order via Quidco or TopCashback you can get upto £125 Cashback. (TopCashBack don't take the first £5 off your earnings per annum like Quidco).

 

In addition O2 are launching O2 Home Phone from March, prices starting from £9.50 per month with unlimited evening and weekend calls, or £12.50 per month with unlimited anytime calls including 20 International countries. You may want to hold off until then incase they do opening offers for combining Broadband and Home Phone (or O2 Home Phone appears on Quidco / TopCashBack so more savings to be made!).

 

I know that every ISP claims (incorrectly) unlimited downloads, but O2 is amongst the best (as with BE) with no traffic shaping / restriction at certain times etc.

 

To maximise your internet connection, try and connect your router to the Master Socket, and disconnect the bell (ring) wire. See here plus if you must have extensions, use CAT5E cable!

Edited January 21, 2010 by MYK-IT

[powdarrmonkey]

I'm not convinced about O2. I recently recommended someone else to somebody who was with O2 at the time, and getting poor traffic rates in both directions. Since his neighbour didn't, we suspected back-haul at the provider and sure enough, it got a million times better with a provider change.

 

He was out in the sticks which may have been a factor, but so is his neighbour obviously. So whether O2 have just over-sold capacity in that area, I don't know. But I recommended Goscomb, who are small but that does at least mean you speak to someone with a clue (and friendly, and English, and so on). No scripts in sight