Just received a letter from Virgin telling me that they’re putting their prices up by £5 a month. I’ve been with them since about 1997 and not really had any problems with them. BT seem to have a decent offer on at the mo – a reduced price for the next 18 months. We haven’t got fibre / cable, so are there any decent suppliers I should consider or should I save myself some research time and go straight for BT? Ta.

Avoid like the plague.

I’ve always used BT, think the broadband has dropped once in about 10 years? We’ve moved about 4 times, and it’s always been perfect where ever i go. No complaints from me.

C_G. Why avoid?

I have no choice but BT – they are average. I had to call and argue that the speed was crap, and amazingly since then the speed is much improved, despite the fact that they claimed not to throttle it back…

I also called, said I was leaving (I can’t unless it is satellite broadband) and so they reduced the cost to £7.50 per month, permanently, for unlimited…. 🙂

I was paying for broadband but did not get broadband speed. Each month they sent me e-mails saying I had almost reached my download limit – I probably watched i-player once a month, didn’t download films or albums.

Their call centre is overseas, their staff are useless and have no understanding of the English language, if you can understand them in the first place that is.

They once helped themselves to a large amount of money via direct debit despite the account having been settled a year previously.

Have now switched both telephone and broadband to another ISP.

Interesting Matt, ta. Performance with virgin hasn’t really been an issue – we’re stuck with a copper ADSL connection so its never going to be quick.

Ah! Doesn’t sound like fun C_G. Who are you with now?

I’d recommend Plusnet, on normal adsl and getting on average 10mb speeds (my phoneline’s rated to 15..)

Cheapish, and very good customer service.

It seems to be cheaper to have telephone/broadband/satellite tv bundled together.

I’ve now moved so broadband speed is considerably faster, landline with same provider. As I have mobile with them, it all works out a lot less – this is with 02. UK based call centre who are extremely helpful although they did screw up with getting me online.

Have you checked moneysupermarket etc?

BT Broadband seem okay for me, although I only ever got a reliable connection once I dumped the supplied Home Hub and used a proper ADSL MODEM and router.

Rachel

O2 or Be Internet if they’re available in your area; consistently high speed, excellent uk-based customer service and pretty cheap (esp. if you’re an O2 mobile customer).

Haven’t tried moneysupermarket, I thought I’d ask the all-knowing STW first.

Thanks for the pointers folks.

PlusNet = BT
Virgin = BT backbone
Others* = BT backbone (*well, most)

So, it all comes down to customer service.

If you have a poor connection and nothing gets done then your ISP (incl. BT) is the worst thing since the worst thing ever.

Otherwise everything else is much the same.

BT Business from work @ home = 4MB/s Never had a problem.
Virgin cable for personal use = up to 30MB/s Never had a problem.

Both the above with 10 yrs experience.

Pays money, takes choice. Fingers crossed you don’t have problems.

Cheers Andrew.

I haven’t had any problems either, just a bit cheesed off with a 35% increase.

Stay away from O2 in my experience. We were with them for a year (mobile phone customer for 8 years too) and we constantly had problems with them. My experience was that they were sweetness and light whilst they tried to sell you the package but then the customer service went out the window as soon as you’d signed up.

Broadband kept dropping out, Direct debits kept being taken on random dates. Final straw was when we moved house and, having given them 3 weeks notice, they proceeded to tell us that it would take 1 month to get the broadband up and running at the new place. After 2 days off work with no shows from the engineer, he eventually came out, said he didn’t have the right things with him to do it and we’d need another appointment, when we called to make this appointment we were told that it would be a further 35 days until someone was available.

We phoned BT who set us up within 1 week of the call and it hasn’t dropped out since (10 months so far)

Not that I’m bitter about it or anything

I wanted O2, but my exchanges doesnt have it, so i’d be saddled with a BT based service anyway.
Try and get an LLU based service (Talk Talk erm ok’ish). Im now with sky and have no complaints at all.

Phone up Virgin, say you want to leave, find out what new deal they will offer you to stay. (and they will)

Same as mobile phones contracts, energy suppliers, car insurers, RAC etc. It’s a chore but you almost always get a discount whilst the loyal customers get milked…

report back 🙂

BT are utterly dreadful if anything goes wrong, in my experience. I would not recommend them for home broadband.

I was planning on doing that Jeff, until I got to the bottom of the letter where they stated that they would make leaving as simple as possible, if that was what I wanted to do!

as said above

bt has been good never dropped once, speed as advertised
however it took them 3 weeks and was a real ballache to get connected the call centres are a nightmare, they did give us a month free as compensation but it took some marathon whinging

BT were absolutely appalling for us when we moved house. Phone and Broadband problems.

The one key problem is their Indian call centres. If you have a slightly convoluted problem it is impossible to make yourself understood.
They have a script and if your problem isn’t on there you’ve had it.

We eventually got handed on to the “Special Care” Customer Service Team in Rugby or somewhere. They were great.

However, you’re only allowed to call them for 30 days after the problem has been resolved. Then you’re back to the appalling service of the overseas call centres.

I would make the move in an instant to ANY company that guarantees UK call centres for all their services.

BT are pretty good, new Home Hub 3 is very reliable and if its available in your area Infinity is fast

Call centres can be a trial, but most of the engineers are decent enough if there is a problem

go to http://www.samknows.com

plug in your details, find an LLU provider.

terrible imo hated being with them for the whole contract.

BT customer service sucks. Look at Eclipse. Very good. Not the cheapest.

Cheers folks. Much obliged.

I have been with BT for a couple of years, had a problem about a year ago and initial customer service sucked big time. They sent someone out who was very helpful and all good since then. Service itself seems reliable and much better than plusnet that I used previously. Pity the call centre for BT is so bad, as already said unless its something very straight forward they are way worse than useless.

Think you’ll find BT are the ones how put in fibre cable many years ago

What Bigyinn and Cougar say!!!!
You need to find the supplier in your area who have their own LLU gubbins at the local exchange.

I’ve done just that, at 4.20pm today I switched from Tesco Broadband to Orange Broadband. I did the research as per cougars link^ and orange had their own LLU kit installed at the local exchange (sorry, don’t know the technical terms). Just gone from 1meg download speed to 13meg, I’m a very happy bunny right now. maybe look for the supplier who can offer you the Broadband + phone bundle, I think it’ll be cheaper (unless you’re on a good phone deal already).

I agree with cinnamon_girl, I had BT “broadband” 512kbps if I was lucky for £20 per month. I said I was leaving and they said they would do it for £5 per month… Mmmm not impressed!

I have Vfast now and it’s great, not had any problems at all and if I did I’d talk to someone that understands me in England.

Wish I’d known about this LLU shizzle because BT are poor and their support really sucks 🙁

BT are hopeless. And since ‘upgrading’ our broadband it’s now slower and frequently drops out.

I was planning on doing that Jeff, until I got to the bottom of the letter where they stated that they would make leaving as simple as possible, if that was what I wanted to do!

They’ll have an “anti-churn” dept – explore the options and see what happens. BT dropped my monthly costs a lot when I said I was leaving.

Mind you, they didn’t actually implement a load of the promised discounts and I had to check the next bill and phone up to complain to get a refund + fees corrected!

BT have been ok for me, got a few things swapped and fixed FoC like a new modern master socket fitted which would not have happened with another BB provider without a load of hassle.

If you’ve got a stable service then shop around.

Not much choice for me on my exchange though. I miss the telewest/virgin cable service I had when I lived in London 🙁

plusnet are good, used to be amazing, call centres went overseas and it wasn’t so good, but back in the UK now I think and much better.

BT are a total disaster, they insisted the house I was living in didn’t exist, and when we did finally get them to send an engineer out to investigate and get us a connection, they disconnected our neighbour and plugged the line into our house instead. then when our neighbour complained they said her house didn’t exist… I hate them with a passion and can’t believe they are allowed to operate like this.

We’re on the older adsl network which limits the deals you can get. Used to be with bt for the old house, but now with plusnet. Bt were an absolute nightmare to deal with. The call centre operative couldn’t function outside of the script, quite a few time they would ask you what the problem was after 8mins into the call. I managed to get them to put me through to uk, who was really helpful. The engineers were fairly useless too.

No problems with BT whatsoever here and our local exchange has a pretty low score on the connection rating..

I consistently get 10 Mb/s with Virgin, unlimited download which is great – I’d stick with them.

NB Orange didn’t like me very much:

Too much porn… by brf, on Flickr

We’re on a non-LLU exchange so running through BT infrastructure whether we like it or not. The differentiator of course is on the customer service side, and on that score I can hugely recommend Zen. I’ve had a few issues with the line over the past couple of years but they’ve always dealt with it efficiently.

Bit scared now as I’m moving to a new place with a crappy line speed (1.5 meg). Will be installing a second line so I can shotgun two ADSL connections together. First will be with Zen, second with BT as they waive the £130 line installation fee if you take up their broadband.

Anyone else with BT noticed that the service works without fault until the end of the period you sign up for, then you get problem after problem until you upgrade to there latest modem/router package and then it all works well again.
I’ve just ended my period with BT and now my modem drops out all the time and it’s getting a pain.
Also if there is a problem it’s always with your kit or the line in the house, and to get an enginer out costs you money if the faults on your property, even when the whole street have the same problem, cocks. I’d get rid of the landline in a shot but the wife insists we have it, and as we live in the country theres no cable.