Broadband

[TechnicAl]

Just got notification that my Broadband + Phone Calls is going up from 25/month to 31/month if I sign a 12 month contract

Had a look on Uswitch etc and 31 seems a reasonable deal.........but since switching to NOW TV Ive had a few problems with connections......My Ring Doorbell for example

Anyone know if BT would be better?

 

[grim_d]

Been with BT for internet for about 8 years.

Can't fault them to be honest, not a single instance of prolonged downtime that I can recall.

The homehub router is far better than the junk you get from everyone else too.

I did try to switch to EE last year (who are owned by BT) because they were cheaper but as soon as I placed the order BT called me and beat that price.

So they compete with themselves!

 

[Rannsachair]

My dad is with BT, been a disaster, they allocated his telephone number to someone else in error and cut of his telephone and broadband, took weeks and multiple phonecalls to sort. Also took 3 different engineer visits to the house before one got it sorted.

His broadband constantly goes slow, so I cannot video call him, BT then say they have sorted it and it works fine for a few weeks/months then drops off again.

I would avoid BT based on his experience, I switched from BT to Sky by phoning sky to cancel and tell them I was switching everything to BT, they gave me a really cheap deal and had no issues.

 

[eLuSiVeMiTe]

Been with BT for internet for about 8 years.

Can't fault them to be honest, not a single instance of prolonged downtime that I can recall.

The homehub router is far better than the junk you get from everyone else too.

I did try to switch to EE last year (who are owned by BT) because they were cheaper but as soon as I placed the order BT called me and beat that price.

So they compete with themselves!

Snap. No issue with bt. Have two mobiles with them too.

 

[Maker]

They're all just as bad as each other.


We're on EE (Isn't that the same as BT?) at home and they upped the price from £28 to £31 a couple of weeks ago. Half an hour on the phone trying to leave and we got it down to £25 a month and a new router, still barely get 20 meg download speed though.

In my second year at uni we used John Lewis (It was the only option), that was about £38 a month for 40 meg download which would drop out all the time, as in several times a day on bad days. We tried to get them to send someone out to sort it but they said if they couldn't find a fault they'd bill us £240! At the end of the year the contract renewed and the housemate (Moron) who had set it all up didn't notice they'd put the price up to £45 a month for the same awful service! With that in mind I'd stay well away from John Lewis.

This year we've gone with Sky, £45 a month but they claim 516 Mbps download speed! They had lots of slower and cheaper plans that would be better suited to more normally sized households, we're six students who will be streaming digital lectures and Netflix all day so we wanted the absolute fastest we could get. I haven't moved in so I can't say if it's reliable or anything like the claimed download speed yet.

 

[Gragson]

Been with BT for internet for about 8 years.

Can't fault them to be honest, not a single instance of prolonged downtime that I can recall.

The homehub router is far better than the junk you get from everyone else too.

I did try to switch to EE last year (who are owned by BT) because they were cheaper but as soon as I placed the order BT called me and beat that price.

So they compete with themselves!

Same here, not sure if they are the very cheapest but just never have issues and the BT badged router is very good, last time my contract was coming up they alerted me to move to one of their better deals as well.

 

[armalites]

We are with Plusnet and the service is excellent, UK staff and support people are very good. Wife and kids have mobile sims from them too and they are very cheap.

The only thing I've changed is I run a BT Home Hub 6 as I read on the Plusnet forum that they are more stable and have better WiFi. Bought it for £15 on ebay.

When we first switched over to Plusnet I happened to be out till late that day and the router didn't self configure. Plusnet support chap talked my wife through connecting via ethernet and configuring the router. I genuinely couldn't imagine trying that with an offshore helpdesk.

 

[Seadog]

Been with BT for internet for about 8 years.

Can't fault them to be honest, not a single instance of prolonged downtime that I can recall.

Ditto, but with them for 25 years.

 

[Parm]

Plus net here too. No complaints and always 30 mb speed. Never ever fluctuates.

 

[Stueeee]

We are with Plusnet and the service is excellent, UK staff and support people are very good.

Like EE, Plusnet are also owned by BT.

I have been with BT since forever, I have copper broadband despite being constantly badgered to upgrade to a FTTC service. Copper is reasonably constant at 6m download, enough for the rare occasion we watch online television.

I understand that where there are continuing problems it can be due to the fact that BT still have Aluminium cable in the ground in some areas, this doesn't seem to reliably deliver broadband although it's OK for speech.

 

[8ob]

I was lured away from BT by another provider, all it did was cause grief whenever there was a problem because fault finding became a two tier event with the associated time delay. BT own the network and if you stay with them faults get sorted with one call, back with them now and will be staying there

Bob

 

[dyno-tron]

Been with BT for 30+ years, only had broadband issues at current house due to very old string connecting us to the exchange (semi rural) but BT always fixed the probs.
They recently ran FTTP to some of the homes on our road (including ours). Now we get a rock solid 1000mbps and 3 X halo2 WiFi discs for £65 per month including phone & line rental.

 

[skotl]

There will be examples of people who love and hate exactly the same provider in equal measure.

But, hey - in for a penny, in for a pound:

Love: Zen Internet, Sky Broadband (but they got expensive)
Hate: Vodafone

Contradicting views will be along in a moment, I'm sure

 

[armalites]

Like EE, Plusnet are also owned by BT.

Yes ironic that you can get a cheaper service with on shore helpdesk than you can with the parent company.

Nothing wrong with BT until you have a problem and are unlucky enough to get through to one of their offshore teams. I once spent 3hrs on and off talking to them to find out what the connection password was for my router. I was passed around several people and not one of them was able to tell me that it was default password that was the same on every single account.Google knew all about it.

We moved away from them when they kept telling us we couldn't have fibre even though our exchange was enabled and three other houses connected to the same pole on my land could get it.

If you never get any issues then quality of support is irrelevant.

 

[mike os]

My previous experience with bt means if they paid me 30 a day I'd have to give it careful consideration

 

[Olderisbetter]

BT was never good so i jumped to virgin media and its fairly good and even when we have an issue they sort it, at the moment the speed test on my old lap top is about 175 mb

 

[Wallace]

BT from 1986 until the end of last year with the phone and other suppliers for broadband then FTTC with BT. The BT price kept going up and the customer service is hit and miss so changed to Zen after reading good reports about their customer service on here. Zen is not the cheapest but £20 cheaper than the BT deal we had, all good so far currently 71.5 & 18.5Mbps on FTTC.

My worst broadband experience was Plusnet, they charged for going over the monthly allowance when we had not used anywhere near the data they told us. It took a couple of months to sort out why, I noticed usage when we had been away for the weekend and Plusnet had sent a cloned copy of our router to another user. When I asked to change providers I was put through to the most condescending, rude so called customer service agent I have ever encountered.

 

[Kayos]

Last time i used BT was dial up, we switched to Yorkshire Cable for 512k broadband, stuck with them through many itterations until it was 200 meg virgin media, living in Bradford meant we were close enough to the main building to never have a problem for more than 30 minutes.

Now i live in the East Riding we have Kcom lightstream, fibre to the house. Fastest most stable Internet ive ever had, one outage I can remember and thats it. In 4 years

 

[garethp]

They're all as bad as each other, only thing they focus on is being the cheapest as most consumers just look at the cheapest price on comparison websites....

Doesnt help when its in the small print that ISP's actually have no obligation to fix any issues with domestic internet connections