Home Broadband – Full Fibre providers

Looks like for us the current best theoretical price/speed ratio is either Vodafone or PlusNet.  We’ve had PlusNet regular FTTC before and it was fine with some decent initial support to get the OpenReach master socket replaced.

Does anyone have any strong feelings either way esp. with Vodafone service/support if required?

They’re all (as you’re with Vodafone and Plusnet) using the same Openreach FTTP infrastructure, so I just worked down the list here, reading reviews and comparing prices.

https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband/fttp-providers

FWIW, I’ve gone from BT 1Gb, to Sky 1Gb, to Plusnet 300Mb over the last four years and not really noticed the difference, other than the price halving. I’ve never needed their support and I plug my own router straight into the ONT.

I’ve just changed from Sky to Vodafone and no complaints.

Beware You Fibre if they are in your area. Very pushy sales staff and apparently more reviews than actual customers. Go figure!

We’ve been with You Fibre for a couple of months now and have had no issues so far.

Not fibre just standard 36mbps broadband, but we got out of a vodafone 5 months in to a 24 month contract because they were absolutely shocking. 4 outages in that time. Most for about 24hrs but one for 3 days. Customer service standard response is “we will get back to you in 24hrs”. Then when you do get a response it’s a vague “we’re looking in to it”. Avoid vodafone at all costs is my advice.

Talk Talk been OK for me so far, £28/month seems reasonable – but not had to use their CS yet.

They do a £50 each referral deal if you know someone who uses them already. If not, step into my office 🙂

As above, they are all using the same pipe if its Openreach, so just play off BT/Sky/Plusnet etc til you get the best deal. I’ve had little noticeable difference when switching between them all.

As above, they are all using the same pipe if its Openreach

Same pipe at the consumer end. Their backhaul differs. Which may or may not matter to you depending on how often you’re hitting the limits of the connection (unlikely on wifi).

EE/BT/Plusnet are all the same company mind…though IIRC PN used to have separate backhaul but I might be misremembering.

One thing I have noticed is as more people get FTTP the lower my top speeds get practically (I was an early adopter). Used to be I could regularly get the full 1Gbps from AWS/Azure but lately seem to top out about 6-800 Mbps.

Does anyone have any experience of the new EE WiFi 7 pro hub and mesh?

Go on Uswitch, enter your postcode and see what providers are in your area. Had BT for 3 years – they offered an EE contract for £57/month (broadband + TV). Called to cancel and the offered me it for £42/month.

YouFibre here for the last 2 years with no issues other than my static IP being released a few times early on and it went off for a few hours once. Support is OK, Eero boxes are good.

Switched last month to Vodafone from virgin cable.  Very easy installation.   I didn’t need to use the support yet but they were good with all the Comms around setup of hardware and account.

with Vodafone too, as they were the first to offer full fibre. Been fine, reliable, and their mesh kit included with the contract has been great.

Not had to use support other than a time at the end of Covid when the fibre went down, and they sent a 4g thingy to keep us going. Now a 5g thingy is part of the router as a backup.

only issues was when we signed up, and they booked the engineer to come fit the fibre from the road to the house and plug everything in, so they sent a box with all the kit in it. The first appt got cancelled and moved by Vodafone, and then another box of al the kit arrived. Second appt was also cancelled called and moved and, yes, another box of kit arrived. 3rd reschedule? You guessed it! We called up and asked how to return the spares, and they said just give the engineers the most recent box, but don;t send anything back as the system will think we’ve cancelled/left Vodafone 🙂

As a normal home user, why should I want full fibre?

As a normal home user, why should I want full fibre?

Because it’s generally cheaper* and faster than the alternatives

*you don’t need to pay for a landline

As a normal home user, why should I want full fibre?

Pretty much the only option these days. FTTC is more expensive for us

I’ve just saved £20 month because of this thread, thanks all!

anyone got a recommendation for VOIP provider that isn’t outrageously expensive (I’m looking at you BT!) to replace my landline?

*Yes, I know I don’t need a landline because I have a mobile, whatapp, MS Teams, Skype, Zoom and a multitude other ways of being contacted. By try telling that to my 85 year old mother in law.

As a normal home user, why should I want full fibre?

Copper lines are also being phased out… so I imagine the options will become fewer and more expensive.

Its kind of annoying in some ways, as a one person househld I have no need at all for 100mb or more – mean it’s nice to have when I’m downloading a 100gb game, but otherwise it doesn’t really matter whether I have a 40mb or 400mb connection – it makes no practical difference day to day.

For example about £25pcm seems to be the going rate for me after a quick check, for 150mbps.

Can I get a deal for 80mbps for say £15pcm? nope…!!! the pricing structure is pretty unfair if you don’t really need the speed, bit of a stitch up if you ask me.

In fact its a mega stich up – I’ve got 11 months remaining of my plusnet 74mbps 24 month contrac, @£28.04pcm

looking on Uswitch new customers pay  £25 -£26, with say plusnet or BRSK for 140/150mbps.

If I log into my plusnet account I can upgrade to 140mbps for drum roll… £30 per month for a reseted 2 year contract, rising to £33 come march 2025…

It’s an absolute racket.

try telling that to my 85 year old mother in law.

I don’t understand this argument, someone else said something similar recently. “Hey ma, we’ve got a new number.” It’s as easy to dial 07… as 01… What would she do if you moved home, insist on ringing the old house? Change it for her on her phone memory, she needn’t even know it’s different.

Or do you mean she’s living with you?

I don’t understand this argument,

Doesn’t it cost more to phone mobiles than landlines? No idea if it still does, haven’t had a landline since forever.

So why does every Fibre company except Community Fibre tell me I can’t get Fibre at my house?

Surely there’s one connection, not every company puts their own cable into the street to serve many customers using different providers?

Doesn’t it cost more to phone mobiles than landlines?

For many years now all phone contracts have an amount of free minutes and whilst being competitive for your business, in the main all providers now provide so many free minutes it’s essentially free to  call, just the monthly subscription to pay.

Doesn’t it cost more to phone mobiles than landlines?

Not usually. And in any case, that’s someone else’s problem. Paying £25/month so that someone else can save 50p is lunacy. If it’s that much of a concern, “hang up ma and I’ll call you back.”

I don’t understand this argument,

Nor me. I never use the landline unless I have a pressing desire to be sold double glazing.

However, the parties involved won’t turn on their mobile phones when not using them , one because its a work phone and the other because they have a PAYG contract and are worried about the bills.

and past experience has shown that using a mobile at either end makes it harder to hear the conversation.

they have a PAYG contract and are worried about the bills.

That’s nonsensical too. You don’t pay to receive calls.

In the case of my mother-in-law who likes her rip-off EE contract landfill-Android mobiles, “phone me back on the landline, the line quality is better than on mobile”. We rarely point out that we only have mobiles at our end, so her problem probably isn’t the mobile network. I’m guessing her landline is probably VOIP by now too, and she’ll just be getting reamed by Virgin Media for it.

Surely there’s one connection, not every company puts their own cable into the street to serve many customers using different providers?

Depends on the supplier. Many use the Openreach network. Those that don’t put their own fibre in. If I switched to YouFibre then they’d put a new cable into my house even though I already have FTTP. Sounds like Openreach haven’t currently got fibre where you are hence the limited options.

I’m guessing her landline is probably VOIP by now too, and she’ll just be getting reamed by Virgin Media for it.

If she’s got VM with cable Internet and TV package, it’s likely cheaper to have the VoIP phone as part of the package then just cable on its own. It makes absolutely no sense but that’s how they bundle it.

I asked the sales guy why when I ordered it, he initially span me some BS or other, then said “well, you might use it” to which I said it’s unlikely as I took my landline phone to the charity shop several years ago,(*) before he finally said what he should have said in the first place which was the had no idea and that was just how it was packaged.

(* – I do actually have a BT engineer’s test handset, but that’s not the point!)

As a normal home user, why should I want full fibre?

Contention or in VM speak “traffic shaping”.

My ISP offer landline number forwarding to the mobile.

Therefore, the landline number can be retained without a landline phone, but I need to find out how they charge for outgoing calls though.

Surely outbound calls are just normal outbound calls?

VM probably hope to increase the “stickiness” of their service by allocating phone numbers, reducing customer churn despite their extortionate price rise business practices.