38 replies to this topic

[DeanAdamFry]

Re: my last post, the reason it was so bad is that fibre optics are shared by an entire area, so if there's oversubscription and/or very heavy usage by a lot of people, you'll have a terrible time. In less populated areas .. suburbs etc.. fibre optic is far superior. We switched to an ADSL provider after Virgin and it was so, so much better (Virgin was basically unusable).

 

The main problem I've found is the router/modem they send you, which can make things really bad - especially if more than 2 heavy users are connecting to the same device. The connection itself will be basically the same across providers, subject to the above.

 

What router would you recommend to compliment Sky or Talk Talk or whatever else there is near me?

 

EDIT: Right I can only get where I live Sky, TalkTalk, Plusnet and TenTel.

 

Which one wont throttle my dl/ul speeds and can actually deliver the speeds I want for pc gaming?

Edited by DeanAdamFry, 25 August 2015 - 03:10 pm.

[Darkademic]

What router would you recommend to compliment Sky or Talk Talk or whatever else there is near me?

 

EDIT: Right I can only get where I live Sky, TalkTalk, Plusnet and TenTel.

 

Which one wont throttle my dl/ul speeds and can actually deliver the speeds I want for pc gaming?

 

Not sure specifically for those providers, most should be fine though - see if you can find results on Google for which routers people tend to use as replacements. I got an Asus RT-66NU, but it's quite pricey.

[dannygoz9]

speed and reliability

 

bt > sky, talk talk, plusnet.

 

 

customer service

 

sky, talk talk, plusnet, my cat, next doors cat, the cat down the road, and your mams left flap > bt.

 

 

have fun choosing!

[Demondim]

Virgin if fibre, hands down, but you reckon you can't get that

 

As for speed, that's not really an issue for gaming as even the lower-end packages are going to provide plenty of bandwidth.

You should be mostly concerned with latency (ping)

 

Couple of potentially useful links for you :

 

https://www.cable.co...for-ps4-gaming/

 

http://www.ispreview...tency-Broadband

[Fozzies]

speed and reliability

bt > sky, talk talk, plusnet.


customer service

sky, talk talk, plusnet, my cat, next doors cat, the cat down the road, and your mams left flap > bt.


have fun choosing!

^^ so true

Just one point, bt infinity upload speed beat hell out of virgin, I was on 80/20 with bt, my virgin connection is 105/5, so if u upload a lot, bt/others on bt's backend win

One plus I've found with virgin is that an equipment failure doesn't necessarily take out the service completely. They seem to transmit the data on different multiplexes, and every fail I've had so far at least one has remained active, giving me about a 1.5/256b connection

[DiBBz]

Hey lads I want your opinion on this as I'm going to be getting my own flat soon and wanted to get the best internet provider since BT is complete and utter shit.

 

I live in the south near Brighton so what do you guys think? I'm thinking either Virgin or Sky but not 100% sure, searching on Google didn't do crap for me so I'm hoping you guys can help me.

 

Thank you in advance

there is honestly no "Best internet provider in the UK" because each provider are good or better in certain areas..

 

personally for me Sky is fantastic... no problems or constant disconnects... other than after shortly getting internet my phone line just stopped working and download speeds dropped by 60% and got constant DC's 

 

but that's been fixed for a while now and with 3-4 years of no problems i can safely say they are a great service.. at least for central scotland that is... affordable as well... IMHO BT and virgin require a stupid amount of money for fiber.

[Vaspa]

Sky have always been good for me as well. Throughout August my connection speed had been erratic, so they sent engineers out. The guy spent a day and a half replacing all equipment above ground at my end, including a cable to the house the squirrels had began to chew!

Have always been able to get reasonable deals from them at the end of my contracts as well. Previous deal for whole package just expired, so last week negotiated a £36 a month discount for 10 of next 12 month contract

[windra]

Ive had virgin,sky and BT in the past. All three are overpriced virgin was the best in Nottingham but in Sheffield BT fibre to the cabinet was decent as Virgin wasn't available. If you have the option though i'd use neither, both have terrible customer service I had some issues with Virgin and their staff are offshore which is excruciating to get anywhere when you need them. Sky was just awful and they started billing me again 2 months after id switched provider and it took a long time to sort it out.

 

I've moved house a year ago and went with Plusnet which use BT's lines fibre to the cabinet. Their customer services are based in the UK and are top notch and they are one of best priced for unlimited service without the need to take TV packages that bump the price. So you get the speeds BT fibre to the cabinet would give you but decent customer service and no caps.

 

The speed is dependent on your location, we get 79m/b, it can be much better or worse depending on how close the cabinet is so best to check. 

Edited by windra, 05 September 2015 - 09:43 am.

[DeanAdamFry]

Thank you all lads for your advice, after looking around myself and compared your advice I've decided to go with Sky.

 

Will be moving in with my mate early October so fingers crossed that Sky is good to me.

[Vaspa]

If you haven't already bought it, then it'd be worth checking out quidco.com before you sign up. Basically a site where if you link from it to whichever online retailer you can get a % or set amount as cash back. With the likes of Expedia I usually get around 10% back from final bill.

When I got full package from Sky last year I got in the region of £200 back. Obviously only applies to new customers, but that covers you. It takes different time frames to get cash back from different companies, usually around 3 months.

From memory they take the first £5 cash back each year as the fee, but it can save you a lot over time. Think me and the wife are around £1400 back from past 4 years or so

[Insathius]

Ironically I just switched from TalkTalk to BT.

 

My internet service died last night to my utter dismay, thought I'd have to wait days for it to come back....but wooop! all online this morning.

 

Couldn't be happier with it so far! (apart from not having actual fiber in my area).

[Xaphan]

** IMPORTANT**

 

Well after all attempts to get Virgin to sort out the con that led to changing my contract I decided to swap to Talk Talk,

 

Currently,

 

38mb BB with 2mb UL

Anytime phones

TV with basic Sky packages

Free sim that gives 100 min, 250 text etc

£100 LTS voucher

 

You have a day or two on the voucher and it's online order only.

 

£32.70 pm

 

Virgin pre empted my call to cancel and they amazingly pulled out a counter £30 offer keeping my 50mb / 2mb, TV & Anytime phone. This after telling us repeatedly they can't do any better than circa £50.

 

** ALL providers should have sent mails by now about increases in February **

This breaks your contract and allows you 30 days from receipt of the mail to change without early get out clauses.

 

So if you are currently looking, TT beats everyone hands down really. 

If you are a Virgin customer and want a serious reduction, place the order with TT and Virgin will call you. calling them will get you the generic retention team who can't do jack.

After that it's your choice, but you can pull out of any order in the legal cooling off period (2 weeks usually, so long as you don't book the engineer right away).

[Salamol]

If you are a Virgin customer and want a serious reduction, place the order with TT and Virgin will call you.

 

While this can work, don't rely on it working. It's common practice as a provider to call customers who are leaving, or offer the best deals to customers who call wanting to cancel. But they don't always. When I worked in the retention section for one company, we'd have days where we absolutely could not lower prices any further. Similarly, depending on the campaign being run, there may not be anyone to call you after you've decided to cancel, so make sure you're OK with moving to a new provider just in case.

 

Also, the number one thing that catches people out is offer length and contract length. They are very rarely the same. It's usually something like 6 months of a great price for an 18 month contract... however do call at the end of the offer to see if they can bring it down again.

[Omimace]

It is getting to the point now that I am getting a little fed up with Virgin Media, for the first time in a long time I am looking at other options. I currently live in the Birmingham area and my main focus is broadband. I currently have 2 computers and a media center patched to my router as well as 5 mobiles, 2 laptops, 1 tablet and 1 console connected wireless of which most of these device stream video or music.

 

I have always concentrated on continuous connection and speed which I have often got from Virgin, with there 200 meg connection (usually getting around 170 to be honest). What I am curious for broadband and phone line is there anyone especially in the Birmingham area anyone would recommend? I have already looked at BT but they are saying the max speed they can give is 75 meg which averages at 50 and should never drop below 35 and this seems a significant decrease on my virgin service?

 

Main reason for wanting to move is poor customer service and ridiculous miss selling and lack of clarity on packages. When I removed TV packages and a box from my property they told me my bill would drop by X it actually doubled?!?! When I asked for the price to cancel everything and just have Top broadband and phone only there customer adviser had the audacity to tell me that would not be possible as they do not have a package for it on her list.

 

I never mind paying over the odds for anything but in my eyes what I am paying for is customer service and a lack of it will see me walk everytime its the reason I left SKY 8 years ago.

[Salamol]

Of the big ISPs Virgin is hands down the fastest for DL. Without looking into it I don't know if they're available in your area, but some smaller ISPs have better services elsewhere in the country, but only serve small areas. The price can be a little higher but some do have speeds of up to 1000Mbps (Gigaclear/Hyperoptic).

It's very rare that standard TV / Phone / BB is cheaper than just BB, most of the time they sell cut-price contracts for limited terms, and by calling often you can renegotiate to get the best deal for you.

One thing worth noting... SKY charges for repairs/callouts to fix problems whereas Virgin is always free and usually very fast. Worth checking with your new provider if they do the same.

[blackice8r]

I had virgin and I didn't have a lot of issues BUT when i did have - their IT support was shit , at the time they would cap my download after my first 1-2GB (they would cap it by 75%), also they put their prices up several times right after I joined - had to complain to get a  fair deal - so - fuck Virgin

 

I've been with sky for the last 4 years: best IT troubleshooting service I had (competent and friendly technicians) , haven't had problems often fortunately, I got discounts every time I called (last time to ask them to price match Virgin), no data caps. I'm close to the exchange so I get more than the speed I should somehow (I also changed the sky router with an  Asus rt-n66u (to take away their controll , get a VPN up and  free dynamic dns service via asus)

 

I guess it almost goes without saying but get fibre on whichever supplier you decide on, it's a huge difference to ADSL

Edited by blackice8r, 08 June 2016 - 11:03 am.