As much as everyone hates BT I’ve never had a more reliable connection and performance than when I was with them. They put their money where there mouth is - can’t fault them except for the prices
How about AOL? It does makes a funky sound when it dials up though .
More seriously, since I had to leave Virgin’s 300mb+ broadband (as my new house wasn’t in a Virgin area) for Sky’s 27mb broadband, it hasn’t been that bad. Not great, but not bad either. Awaiting Three 5G Home Broadband moving into my area… one day.
I would second this - it sounds as if the OP needs the kind of support that BT will provide them… and is quite a reliable service
My mum had awful service and high prices from BT. Moved to Vodafone 18 months ago, reliable 38Mb connection and unlimited UK calls including mobiles for £33 per month (less than half her BT bill for 4Mb). She uses her landlines extensively so the call package is great. I phoned them 2 days ago as the 18 month fix was coming to an end and they offered an 18 month fix on the same package for £26.95 per month. But it depends what you’re looking for, and the OP hasn’t really answered that question (other than presumably not being a fan of sandwiches).
I’m on Virgin cable and definitely don’t recommend it, looking to change now that FTTP is available here.
I had no issues with Virgin cable (aside from a it going down about a few times and another time when a cable broke) in 10+ years. Putting the price up all the time was a pain, but retentions was easy to knock it down. My (old) house was close an old NTL (precursor to Virgin) depot so maybe I was just in luck.
What issues are you having?
It’s the price thing. 17 months ago they tried to put it up by about 50% and I had to actually cancel the contract before they’d negotiate. They agreed an 18 month fix, then said they were increasing the price 12 months later and denied an 18 month agreement despite me having it in writing. Eventually out the price back down as a “goodwill” gesture. In the next 2 weeks I’m going to have the same argument again and I’m sick of it. I’ve been here 18 years and it’s every single time. At least if I have a line installed I can switch providers easily and still have the option to go back to the cable connection if Virgin make a good offer.
I was with Plusnet for a number of years and perfectly happy.
However I didn’t like the fact that I was being asked to pay an increase for a line rental, a line that was only ever used for broadband.
I looked around and decided to to use Three’s unlimited broadband offer via their cell network. Cost was just twenty pounds per month. Gave it a fair try but alas in the end Three agreed that their cell towers in my area was not adequate to provide a reliable service so they simply reversed the contract. They refunded my money and even paid £15 compensation.
Having discovered the joy of not needing to pay for a line rental ever again I decided to investigate other providers.
Eventually I settled on the 100 gb /£30 month offer from Vodafone. I have a 5g Router and my actual useage per month is nearer 50 gb but I am happy with that.
It does mean that the system is portable so if I travel to an area with 5g, they do exist, I can take my router with me, plug it in to a power supply and I am good to go.
I know it is not the cheapest deal but for me it is fine and I know that after a two year period if a better deal is available or Three has improved in my area I can just get the appropriate Sim.
After trying most of the providers, I’ve just started with talk talk. Remember all of them (apart from virgin) use BT open reach infrastructure, But talk talk get me speeds I need 36mps for £21.99 a month. I live in a rural Leeds village so I’m impressed. Bt were far the worst service ironic isn’t it?
Vodafone’s FTTC service has had well documented problems with speeds and issues with the modern they supply - also for a long time they refused to give you your username and password so you couldn’t connect your own modem.
Talk talk have had huge IT security problems in the past with customer details making it out into the wild.
No ISP is perfect and there are some customers who have had experiences with each.
Any provider is allowed to increase prices during a contract period as long as they give you advance notice. It’s not unique to Virgin Media. But when this happens you are also allowed to cancel contract without penalty fees (although increase might need to be higher than rate of inflation - I’m not entirely sure).
Does that apply when they say in writing “£X per month for the next 18 months” and then try to add over 20%?
You’ll find now that your Ts&Cs allow an inflation increase every year.
If the increase is more than the rate of inflation, you’re allowed to end your contract.
Voda do that with mobile contracts. But only by inflation, which I object to a little less. It still differs from the definition of “fixed” in the dictionary on my bookshelf though.
Virgin Media. Fast. Reliable.
Seconded. Their service is rock solid and when a company cut through the cables outside, they have me a temporary hub within 12 hours and fixed it in two days. And just a call centre in the UK. That’s good customer service, a reliable connection and a reasonable price.
I have been having Zen as my provider for many years. Never had any problems with them and extremely good customer service. Have a look from here https://www.zen.co.uk/
If you can get it installed.
I’d been waiting 5 months this time around (plus three months on a previous order attempt with them and 3 wasted days off when I desperately needed a connection. When I couldn’t wait any longer I cancelled it and bought a mobile broadband contract for a year which is nearly up).
After four on-the-day installation cancellations this time around, sometimes not until after the appointment time, I gave up. I swear they book appointments knowing they will fail to give the illusion that things are happening, especially as on Friday I managed to obtain evidence that the work they claimed to have finished, had in fact, not been done yet. Every time they booked a new appointment I’d ring and check that everything had been done outside the property and checked and we were good to go and they’d tell me yes.
It wasn’t how long it would take to get it install that did it for me, I was fine waiting. It was the casual attitude of wasting days I’d often have to take off work waiting in at home for a measly £25 compensation for the wasted days. They refuse to use the automatic compensation scheme because they can blame the council for delays, like it’s the councils fault that Virgin themselves are booking installation dates that cannot be met.
So with that, I sacked them off on Friday and BT has promised 2 weeks, and if they can’t do it (which I’d understand), they’d let me know well in advance as I called ahead and explained the installation issues they quoted me last time. Far slower speeds than Virgin, but it’s the principle at this point for me.
edit: formatting/wording
Well everyone apart from virgin use openreach so it’s all the same, just check your TandC’s for speed caps and price increases and check out customer service reviews. Other then that a lot complain about speeds when actually your using the same infrastructure same cables as the others so sometimes your just in an area with bad speeds not always the providers fault unless they have speed caps. The routers are all cheap but some are better than others. You can’t have cheap and have the best.
I’m not generally a fan of Virgin, but recently came across (on recommendation from a techie friend) Voom which is one of thier business services.
https://www.virginmediabusiness.co.uk/connectivity/internet-access/business-broadband/
Does not get contended with residential customers, but can be delivered to a residential address.
Great if you want fast, but not worried about cheapest.
David
This is so far from the truth. Yea they pretty much all use Openreach’s cables but providers have their own data centres and connections to the internet. Speeds and reliability can be massively different if you’ve got a provider who takes on too many people without the capacity etc.