Moving to new flat...tips for getting broadband asap?

[Flatpackhamster]

Moving to a new flat next Saturday, and being a geek (plus I need it for work) I want broadband as soon as is humanly possible. We've been in contact with the current tenants a bit, and they are currently with Sky. I have the phone number and they are moving out this Saturday - presumably their Sky account will be cancelled from then.

 

I did think that would make it easy to go with Sky but from a bit of quick googling it sounds like it could still take weeks. But I am assuming that if the line is rented from Sky, it would take time and money to get it back to BT, and thus be able to use other providers? I am assuming that other ISPs only deal with BT lines?

 

Is there a way to check whether a phone number is Sky's or BT's?

 

And if it is Sky's, anyone done something similar and have any tips for getting it done as fast as possible?

 

In my old house I had phone provided by BT and broadband provided by IDNet. We moved house and had arranged with BT for them to move the phone number. A week before move, we got an email from BT saying "There's a problem, call this number." We spent a week phoning the number which was always engaged.

 

At 4pm on Friday afternoon I phoned IDNet and explained the problem. They suggested I switch the phones from BT to them. The phone line was live on the Monday morning, and although the broadband was supposed to be live a week later, it was working on Friday morning.

 

So - that's my tale of getting broadband ASAP. IDNet are super.

[kevbaz]

+1 for Sky, even tweaked my connection via email when i had apparent slow downs, was boosted from 3mb to 7mb never had an issue with them. will never go back to virgin, terrible company and even worse support.

[browolf]

The two best isps I've ever had are: currently UKFSN and previously Zen Internet. They cost more but service is ultra reliable.

[bondbill2k2]

I'd go with virgin having had experience with Sky and im now with virgin just don't go for the low rates as they suck with very low data caps, around 1.5GB over a several hour period download qualifies you to a 75% speed cut, its a way to make you upgrade really as I did last week but im loving the 30MB connection for £15 a month with a much higher evening data cap of 10GB and im seeing 4-5MBs when downloading on steam with other computers on the network using skype and online games at the same time.

 

I've ran the ookla speed tests several times of a morning eveninig and night with no real noticable difference, ping tends to be 25ms highest I had was 30, downloads never dipped below 30MBs often above and upload has never dropped below 3MBs.

[Brucy]

currently UKFSN

 

We are with them as well, have been very impressed - plus only a one month contract

[difinity]

Virgin have just announced everyone is getting a free speed upgrade.

 

Virgin Media to push out nimble new broadband speeds ? The Register

 

I'm a big fan of Virgin, consistent speeds and quality.

[nsherin]

https://www.bethere.co.uk/web/beportal/homepage

 

Not the cheapest but so worth it. Never had a problem with the line, support was excellent when my modem died, speeds are fast and consistent and a truly unlimited connection. If they're doing maintenance, they let you know in advance. If the service goes down, they let you know by text message. Be are about as good as you can get for DSL in my experience!

 

Agreed - moved to Be from BT Business, who became expensive and I suspect started to implement some traffic shaping. At £22 a month - including a static IP, they're excellent value for money!

Edited January 14, 2012 by nsherin

[sidewinder]

Ok...we have actually moved in now.

 

I connected a phone to the line and there is nothing, no dial tone, no noise. So I'm assuming it has been disconnected at the Exchange.

 

I phoned up Be to try and order hoping they could instruct BT to do the line activation but apparantly no they cant, I have to phone BT. But will BT just re-activate the line and not make me take out line rental with them?

[Brucy]

[offtopic] Had an e-mail today to say that my exchange is becoming ADSL 2, w00t.

[SkywOrca]

When I moved into my flat 5 years ago, I had to phone BT to get the line activated. At that time I was with BT for line rental and going elsewhere for my Phone and Broadband (have since moved everything to O2), but I'm sure I remember bring able to instruct them to just connect the phone line and not take over the contract on it, even though I didn't need that option. As they are the primary company that still maintains the cabling and the exchanges (via Open Reach), they are should be honour bound to activate lines for other companies. A quick call to them should be able to confirm either way, but I would be surprised if they tied you in to a line rental contract with them on reconnection.

[denzal2k4]

plusnet can do all this for you, I had a deactivated line and within 2 weeks it was up and they had sorted broadband too!

[MatthewL]

Another one for PlusNet. Cannot fault them - only use them for internet but any problem is soon sorted.

[sidewinder]

Well Plusnet have been very helpful, but they have done a check and a new line would be needed They say it is an MPF line at the flat and so can only be used with Sky, unless an engineer comes out.

 

So I think I may as well just go with Sky now if that's the only way to not get an engineer out. This shouldnt be so complicated!

 

Edit: actually just remembered speaking with Sky last week and even they said they would need to put a new line in! This is ridiculous

Edited January 26, 2012 by sidewinder

[ConTheITGuy]

I know is probably too late now for you, but just wanted to add my experience. I moved house over the weekend. I was in a cabled area and on VM. Moved to a property that isn't. Rang VM just over 2 weeks ago to let them know we were moving. Switched us to Virgin 'National' (ie through the phone lines). The old BT line was activated last Tuesday and Yodel left the router with the neighbours. Got there Saturday and was online that night. Would've been sooner but for the small matter of moving 3 van loads of stuff!

 

[SkywOrca]

Switched us to Virgin 'National' (ie through the phone lines).

 

Eeep! I went with Virgin ADSL (at that time called virgin.net) when I moved into my flat (on the naïve assumption that I would be able to convince Virgin to hook me up to cable at a later date) and they were shockingly poor. I had a period of over a month without any net access at all, and I only eventually got it resolved by moving to another ISP. During that time I racked up about £30 of call charges to their helpline attempting to get resolutions to the issues. Each call would last well over an hour, most of that being held in a call queue, and often as not I'd get through to a moron that would assume I was on cable and have to put me back on hold getting through to a different department. In fairness to them, they did agree to credit me back for the call charges, and they also didn't bill me for the last month, given that I had no access, however I would much rather have had my access during that period. I would strongly recommend that you avoid their ADSL provision at all costs based on my experience - YMMV.

 

Having switched to O2 I've had two occasions where my internet went flaky, and on both occasions they resolved it very promptly, even managing to arrange for an Open Reach engineer to visit the following day (which was a Saturday) in order to fix the last issue which turned out to be a nerfed copper cable.

[pcstru]

I moved a week last Friday (never again!!) and have been quite enjoying NOT having broadband.