Moving back to Newcastle and considering our options.

We had a good internet supplier in NZ. It was expensive (no cheap Internet there) but was fast, reliable and the customer service was great (local phone number, answered quickly and helpful).

I don’t think Gosforth has cable laid in the streets so cable isn’t an option. Will the ISP make that much of a difference?

We don’t need a land line but it’s pretty hard to avoid it.

1st year or 6 month offers make comparison of tariffs near impossible using the normal comparison sites.

Zen Internet is even more pricey but are there any customers who would recommend?

Also, who’s definitely worth avoiding? If I have a BT as my ISP does that let me connect to all the BT Openzone wifi networks that have appeared all over the place?

BT are excellent and yes you get access to the wifi spots, the App will run in the background on your phone and connect to any it finds.

I’m with Zen – no problems, great tech and customer support. Pricey but worth it IMO.

Avoid TalkTalk and Plus.net in my experience. Eclipse used to be good, but they’re turned their focus to business customers.

I have used Plusnet for 10+ years and am very happy with the service I get – just wish Openreach would fibre enable my cabinet!

Just switched to Plusnet fibre from Madasafish (owned by plusnet but more expensive). Very happy so far.

At work we were moving to zen but ended up going with plusnet because the zen bloke didn’t turn up when expected. In fact this was probably OpenReach screwing up.

Other half has Virgin and they have been pretty good too.

I’m with Zen. Very happy so far. You may or may not care / be aware that they don’t block the sites that the big ISPs block when requested to for breach of copyright reasons (see 2nd para here: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-05/27/high-court-blocks-pirate-ebook-sites as an example).

Haven’t looked recently, but when we moved back PLusnet were the cheapest one without a download limit. Useful if you do lots of iPlayer and the like.

Don’t know about availability but I’m with Virgin and in 10 years I’ve had one problem (email client out for about an hour that I knew about, everything else including webmail ok).
ex-OH was with BT in a rural location and they were a joke. Crappy service both customer and connectivity.

i used to work for Zen a few years back – it was a good company and of all the places i’ve done customer services for, stood head and shoulders above in terms of actually giving a crap. It is a bit pricey but worth it if you need to call them for anything!

Thanks all. I saw the ofcom ratings of the suppliers (Zen/Plusnet/Virgin/Sky best 4 in that order) and the Which ratings (Zen and Plusnet top), which helps.

Talktalk, BT, AOL, EB, think I’ll be steering clear.

http://www.choose.net/media/guide/faqs/best-broadband-providers-customer-service.html

Utility Warehouse and John Lewis also appear worth a look.

I’m with utility warehouse and a +1 for me
I do not regret binning Virgin

Zen are excellent but pricey. I was with them for 10yrs + but recently moved Fibre service and phone to PlusNet. I used Zen for 12months to make sure that Fibre worked and they sorted the issues and then moved to PlusNet to make savings.

I’d follow the same process again if I moved. Zen customer service is great.

BT are excellent

They are bloody well not! They are the biggest shambles I have ever had the mis-pleasure of dealing with. If it was them or no-one I’d be using carrier pigeons.

See my thread from about 3 months ago for the saga, but 4 months later I’m still waiting for a line to be connected as they have to do the physical work even though I’m using a different supplier for my contract. But at least I deal with sympathetic people who answer the phone and deal with these idiots on my behalf…

We’ve just moved back to the UK and signed up with BT. OK it’s only been 3 weeks but I would agree with “BT are excellent”. The stuff arrived when they said it would, and when I plugged it in it all worked, the download speed is what it I signed up for and I don’t get any dropouts. And it’s massively cheaper than an equivalent package in Holland.

I’ve been really impressed with the mobile connectivity, where I am (Oxford) I can walk down the street and be connected to WIFI almost constantly.

I’m with Zen – no problems, great tech and customer support. Pricey but worth it IMO.

+1

Plusnet are OK, seem to drop connection quite a bit though, anything but BT though!

Been with Plus (force 9 before they were taken over) for 20 odd years, not a bad word to say about their service. Could probably save a bit by provider hopping, but I don’t mind paying a little extra for the security. Their customer services were great last time I had to use them.

they don’t block the sites that the big ISPs block when requested to for breach of copyright reasons

I think this is the BIGGEST reason to avoid the big ISP’s in my opinion. Unmoderated access to the internet. Rather than letting them decide what you can and can’t access.

See my thread from about 3 months ago for the saga, but 4 months later I’m still waiting for a line to be connected as they have to do the physical work even though I’m using a different supplier for my contract. But at least I deal with sympathetic people who answer the phone and deal with these idiots on my behalf..

When I’ve had issues they’ve been fixed within a couple of days and always been full of apologies.

When I’ve had issues they’ve been fixed within a couple of days and (BT) always been full of apologies.

Good on ya. However the percentages seem to say you’re in a minority who think so highly of them.

Good on ya. However the percentages seem to say you’re in a minority who think so highly of them.

The problem is though good service people expect so don’t vote, when they get bad service they shout and scream spitting their dummies out.

Plusnet and BT are one and the same aren’t they?

I went with plusnet, after 2 months, I eventually called them up to find out WTF was going on (for the umpteenth time) to be told it was going to cost me another £250 to have a cable re-connected on the pylon (I told them to do one and they refunded the original connection fee). In fairness that’s a BT/openreach problem, but it still hacked me off.

Got a dongle from 3 for £15/month.

Depends how much streaming, grot and downloading you want to consume. For just using the internet and a few hours of iplayer each week I only used the included monthly allowance and kept an emergency PAYG sim with a few GB on it for those months when the Miss’us didn’t come up and see me and it ran out a few days early :-p

Plusnet and BT are one and the same aren’t they?

Plusnet plc is a British internet service provider (ISP). The company was founded in 1997 in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, and became a public limited company in July 2004 when it was floated on the Alternative Investment Market. On 30 January 2007 Plusnet was acquired by BT Group, but it continues to operate as a separate business. By December 2013, it had over 750,000 customers across the UK

Wiki

I guess there’s a chance that plusnet customers might at some point get turned in to BT customers and at that point I’d reconsider my options.

Zen here too.
As everyone else has said; expensive but you get the service you pay for.
Would recommend 10/10.