Broadband & phone help

[dan_b]

For reasons too boring to explain now, I'm going to be on the hunt for a new broadband supplier, ideally ADSL and ideally with a bundle for telephone line rental. I am having a very big arguement with VirginMedia and need an escape route!

Does anyone have any suggestions/recommendations? I'm basically trying to keep costs down at the end of the day.

[BRY]

Watch out for limited packages. I used my 1 month limit in a week.
I think Virgin is "unlimited". When you don't have a limit you don't notice how much you are using, but, I couldn't get on with having to think "How much is this click of the button going to use of my monthly allowance?"

[Fat Audi 80]

Watch out for limited packages. I used my 1 month limit in a week.
I think Virgin is "unlimited". When you don't have a limit you don't notice how much you are using, but, I couldn't get on with having to think "How much is this click of the button going to use of my monthly allowance?"

Plus, it would seriously limit your ability to "swoop" on ebay!

[Animal Mother]

I have Sky+ with Sky broadband and I find it very quick with zero, nada, zilch problems so far.

Cheap too.

I had Tiscali prior, with no end of problems.

[BRY]

I signed up for the Sky all in one package @ £17 / month for tv, phone and internet.
They installed the dish / tv and I asked about the internet and was told to ring for the internet install date. When I rang for the internet install date, I was informed that internet would be an Extra £17 / month.
As it was within 7 days of the install, I told them where to stick their package. I don't have Sky anymore, I still have a nice new dish

[S2central.net]

I hate Sky... but some people rave about them - they sometimes have very compelling offers.

Then theres Talk-Talk - heard nuthin but nightmares about them - despite good sounding prices. Service is lacking.

There are a couple of very good DSL comparison sites about - independent ones - they can find the best deal for you... Lots of companies you wont have heard of. The world is mad now when you get this from the likes of Tesco.

I had a great few years with Pipex - they are solid IME, but changed back to BT for an offer that was suitable for me. Don't ignore BT - their prices aren't that bad, and they have an amazing network - nearly everyone else just leases that so its no bad thing to cut out the middle man sometimes.

Most of the cheapy Voice services now are IP based - so bear that in mind - normally fine, but sometimes quality is poor from smaller / over-congested providers. Some sites keep a track of voice quality with a scheme called 'MOS' - worth a google fro that.

[dan_b]

I was previously using Virgin.net ADSL, had been for 5 years, but got lured into switching to a combined Virgin Cable package for broadband and phoneline rental which should be about £120 a year cheaper - worth doing I thought. However, it's been a total customer-service disaster so far, culminating in them switching off my active email accounts with no warning and I've been given no replacement email accounts.

The thing I was most concerned to keep was my old email address as I've had it for so long and I use it daily. I had been led to believe that it was a simple turn-key process to switch, but as it turns out, Virgin.net (ADSL) is still a completely separate operating company to VirginMedia (Cable), and infact the cable service is still registered as Blueyonder! Not to mention I couldn't re-configure my wireless router to run on Cable, so had to buy a new Cable router (£70). Oh and I spent the best part of 2 hours on the phone to various Virgin people yesterday, all of whom said "oh that's not my department you need to call x/y/z". Absolute CACK. I've even been getting conflicting stories - the blueyonder tech guy said that I COULD have my old email working but I had to phone ADSL tech support to get them to change the smtp settings. So I phone ADSL tech guy and they say it's absolutely impossible and there's nothing they can do. Oh and they charge 25p a min to call them too. Meantime my old BT phone number is in the process of being transferred to cable phone, except Virgin ADSL told me I had to phone BT to request a Number Port, but when I phoned BT, they said it had to come from Virgin, so I phone Virgin and they don't even have a record of my Account! To this day I still haven't received an Account Number.

I'm so angry at the moment it's untrue. I was promised a call back from a "Customer Service Manager" If they don't call today I'm going to throw the book at them. Laughably, they said they couldn't guarantee a call back today as it can be as long as 48 hours!

VirginMedia appears to the outside world to be a single integrated company, but the reality is that is is made up of separate operating companies directly competing against themselves for customers and their systems are not even linked up.

As I work in PR I am very tempted to contact some of the Tech journalists as this whole process is a disgrace.

[alg]

Dan, give these guys a call, they get rave reviews and remain a true independent http://www.zen.co.uk/

I will be switching to them when we move this spring

[S2central.net]

My last employer was with zen - NOT without problems I have to say... Nobody is perfect in this game.

Virgin is a mess - great branding and shiney white teeth from the big man at the top, but the layers of red tape and different disconnected biz units in there would make a grown man cry. They've absorbed NTL & Telewest infamous customer service people - no offense to anyone connected here, but they have a well known bad rep with the public over many years.

[richslay]

I has virgin for a month and then cancelled it when their 'throttling' policy got ridiculous. It was faster on dial-up. If you are looking for a way out you could say that the service is too slow, they will then give you some bull about sharing a connection etc. etc. What you then need to do is use an ADSL speedstester to get evidence of poor performance over a number of days) take screenshots of the results and ring them up saying you want to leave. Initially they said they would need to see the screen dumps but in the end I read them down the phone at them and that was that, money back no more contract.

I have recently moves to tiscali and they are equally bad, the speeds are good but during 'peak' hours i.e. all weekend and the evening you can forget using any download software, they say they limit it for fair usage but actually they just cull th4 services and they don't work.

Another thing to be aware of is that if you leave BT and have been with them under a year they will sting you for £70 - something they don't tell you when they re-activate the line.

My advice, if you are a 'power user' forget the call & data bundles - they are cheap and you get what you pay for. An excellent broadband supplier is plusnet get that and then do the phone separately - Just my opinion!

[waad_uk]

Have a look @ http://www.metronet.co.uk/

Very flexible. Prices start low, and depending on use (Mb downloaded) will hit a capped upper limit.

So one month you could pay £11, the next £18

[Markarina]

Personally I am with Zen, I switched from BT because I got fed up with their overseas call centre, who could not understand basic English, when I switched to Zen they identified the root cause of the problem in one phonecall (crappy internal wiring), the only dis-advantage with Zen is that they don't have 24 hour tech support.

You might want to checkout Think Broadband who are an independent broadband rating service and give a lot of package information.

[s2avant]

I am with Virginmedia although I signed up back when they were NTL. Currently on a 20Mb cable connection which regularly hits 18-19Mb speeds due to the fact that not a lot of people use cable in my area. Virgin have introduced traffic shaping that limits your connection if you download too much between 4pm and 12pm. IIRC the limit is 3Gb but that's easily got round by limiting downloads till after midnight.

Have to agree with the comments about customer service. NTL were bad enough but Virginmedia are even worse.

Ben

[Greg_S]

I use www.plus.net and have had no issues with them at all, good prices and have my phone with them too

[S2central.net]

I forgot about them, but I haven't heard any nightmare stories about plusnet...