Broadband recommendations please.

[whiskywill]

I am looking at getting a new broadband provider at home, having been without for about 18 months after Tiscali kept falling off the planet.

Any definitely yes or definitely avoid options please?

 

[marcros]

i would avoid talktalk. cheap but slow in my area.

 

[Hardwood66]

Just got bt infinity works just fine no problems so far

 

[henton49er]

I assume that you have a BT telephone line to your house. If you therefore get your broadband from BT, you will avoid the line owner saying that is the broadband service provider (and vice versa) if you get any problems. We have been with BT for over 6 years, and only had a problem with the service when the nearest BT cabinet got snowed in. They are not the cheapest however, and things in rural mid-Wales are a bit slow (2 - 3 Mbits/sec, about 25% of the speed available in town only 2 miles away).

 

[Dibs-h]

Been with Virgin for years & no issues of any kind. They've recently doubled the speed to something stupid - at no charge.

Dibs

 

[RogerP]

Been with Virgin for years & no issues of any kind. They've recently doubled the speed to something stupid - at no charge.
Dibs

If you're in a cabled area then it's the best answer. I now get a genuine 30mbs at all times. If I had the need and paid the extra I could have 100mbs but 30mbs is enough for my usage.

 

[whiskywill]

If you therefore get your broadband from BT, you will avoid the line owner saying that is the broadband service provider (and vice versa) if you get any problems.

That is a very good point which I had not even thought about.

 

[whiskywill]

If you're in a cabled area then it's the best answer.

Just checked. No cable and I can expect a broadband speed of 0.75Mb.

 

[Harbo]

I've got BT Infinity 2 after years of chasing by our village - 70mbs!
Bliss

Rod

 

[Peter T]

I assume that you have a BT telephone line to your house. If you therefore get your broadband from BT, you will avoid the line owner saying that is the broadband service provider (and vice versa) if you get any problems. We have been with BT for over 6 years, and only had a problem with the service when the nearest BT cabinet got snowed in. They are not the cheapest however, and things in rural mid-Wales are a bit slow (2 - 3 Mbits/sec, about 25% of the speed available in town only 2 miles away).

Also, if you pay the line rental 12 months in advance, you get it for £10/ month

 

[DrPhill]

I am running on TalkTalk. When I swapped to them I got a huge speed increase, and a noticeable price decrease. Reliability has been reasonable, and support when I needed it was ok (though you need to understand accented english, and be prepared to do things their scripted way - but it is their phone bill).

Not an unreserved recommend, but neither is it a definitely avoid. we generally get approx 15+-3gbps.

 

[newt]

I am running on TalkTalk. When I swapped to them I got a huge speed increase, and a noticeable price decrease. Reliability has been reasonable, and support when I needed it was ok (though you need to understand accented english, and be prepared to do things their scripted way - but it is their phone bill).

Not an unreserved recommend, but neither is it a definitely avoid. we generally get approx 15+-3gbps.

Gaga bits really, I assume you mean megabits.

 

[Anima]

- If you've got cable then I would go with virgin. Fast secure and you can get pretty good tv services from the connection.

- if you're in a fibre optic area get BT infinity. Play hard ball on the phone and they will give you some pretty good deals.

- if you've got a normal telephone line get BT broadband.

Avoid sky. Impossible to get hold of when things go wrong and Murdoch is a ****.

The thing with BT is that they have a feature called FON. If you tick the box to say you want this feature it partitions part of your connection when you're not using it so that other users can login. In return you can login to everyone else's. as there aren't many places in the UK where no one has a BT wireless router it means you get unlimited (sensible usage etc) almost everywhere.

Now I can imagine some people grumbling about security or teenagers hacking your bank, taking over your life or stealing your wife's underwear by connecting to your router. You keep your own login and the portion of your connection given over to someone else is approx 5% and you always have primacy on the connection. If you need more speed/bandwidth then it just boots anyone else off. As of yet I am not aware of anyone hacking through the FON scheme. In simple terms it is completely separate.

 

[nev]

I am in SA14 at the end of the line down a country lane (average 0.85mb) and use Plusnet. 6.49 a month, uk call centre, very very efficient when sorting out problems (which turned out to be down to the BT line). From my experience - Recommended!

 

[RogerS]

Zen

I'm not too enamoured with things like FON. When some paedophile does a drive-by and uses my 5% to access some child porn site then I'd rather someone else's IP address was associated with that.

To be a member of FON, you don't need to sign up to BT either http://www.fon.com/en/info/whatsFon and my thanks to those who suggested Fon! Seeing as how I live in the middle of fields, I now realise that I can buy a Fon dooberry, no-one is going to be accessing my Fon connection - unless the sheep have wi-fi - but it does mean that I can save my 3G bandwidth when out and about.

Skype, a smartphone and a Fon connection means that I can speak to anyone free of charge from that little cafe on the Left Bank while sipping a cool beer. 8)

 

[Anima]

The peodos are welcome to come and use my connection. As I understand it they get a different IP address and my house has 3 security cameras opposite just to help the police with their inquiries.

As you say though, it does free you up to sit in cafes with a smug look on your face watching other people struggle with 3G.

Oh, and every time I ring BT they seem to find an excuse to put a discount on my account.

 

[wombar]

Might be worth checking what kind of mobile signal you can get and run off a dongle? On the odd occasion my broadband goes down the pan, I connect my PC to my phone and use that. Not the speediest, but absolutely fine for emergencies and I can even use Skype on it. 3 do unlimited packages (though there's bound to be a fair use policy) that might be worth a look.

I've had both BT broadband and Virgin cable in the past. I'd definitely choose cable over broadband as they seem to give you a more consistent speed. Just a shame it's not available everywhere. I'm meant to be getting a free upgrade at some point to 20Mb, but I've been absolutely happy with 10mb to date.

 

[Dusty]

Avoid Orange , full of promises but really full off S--T .. we moved from BT as the line is unreliable , constantly in and out of connection and got sick of foreign call centres telling me to do another speed check etc , palming me off that my laptop was to old and when I told them it was only a month old they tried blaming it on my reuter , and I would have buy a new one !! when they only just sent it two months earlier ......

So moved off to Orange and promised me no lag in the line , no speed reductions at peak time etc etc ...6 months on and it is just the same . Got to phone them soon and give them some grief , last time I did threaten to leave as they were not upholding their end of the deal , all of a sudden the line improved for about a month . . . T O S S E R S

. I am one mile from the exchange , but about 5 miles the way the poles ( telegraph ) run . No super fast anything until 2020 , and a dingle dongle wont work where I am .......banjo time ...

Cheers

 

[newt]

My son recently had sky broadband installed and it did not work, BT arrived to fix the line problem. Had a chat with him he said does not matter who you are with BT run the exchange, road side junction boxes, poles and lines, so if there is an issue it's usually BT that has the problem. I assume the other providers hire from BT. If this is correct you just as well be with BT.

 

[jpt]

My son recently had sky broadband installed and it did not work, BT arrived to fix the line problem. Had a chat with him he said does not matter who you are with BT run the exchange, road side junction boxes, poles and lines, so if there is an issue it's usually BT that has the problem. I assume the other providers hire from BT. If this is correct you just as well be with BT.

There are only 2 providers of networks in the UK, cable companies and BT so if you are not with a cable company you are with BT just with additional bits bolted on which can and quite often do cause problems.

The only exception to this is sky in areas where cable is available now offer a cable option.

john