Wot Broadband Package?

[gregers]

ok peeps need some input plz,my broadband is up in the next 2 months,didnt realize ive just had a phone call from bt to tell me,they have also offered to lower the price by ......wait for it...........2 quid a month :lol:

now ive got unlimited broadband with them,and am also option 3 anytime for the phone,total price p/month is about

[mk2vr6]

tell bt to F' off if your happy with your connection? if not go for it and suffer a crap level of service while they swap you over to adsl max and screw up your connection! then talk to some clueless muppet in a call center in India :lol: who will send you a new router each time you ring to complain about the low connection speed (I have 5 so far!) and then who cant test your line as their system is down and cant understand the most simplist of insults when you finally loose your rag with them and call them a bunch of W###kers

and then when you try to ring to make a complaint in the UK you have to ring a number that also used for 7 other bt sections and every time you ring it you only get three options and none of them is customer complaints but sales, billing or tech help in India! so tell bt to go screw themselve and tell them I said so :lol:

[gregers]

cheers for the feed back VR i must be a bit tired???but am i reading your post right are you saying stay with bt?or go with sky?think you must have had a few too many :lol: :lol:

[bj2004]

stay with bt unless you can change your phon provider if you get broadband off one firm and phone line off another they just pass the blame over if its all with bt its there problem completly

[mk2vr6]

if your happy with your present connection? then stay with bt and spend the extra

[Scorpiorefugee]

I've been looking at various offers lateley, both for home and for a Student let I have in Plymouth. Basically, believe that they are all competing on price and a target lowest seems to be 12 Megs unlimited, free calls anytime and line rental included for about

[jkspoff]

I pay

[Bigjeeze]

In terms of reliability all of the above use BT service - The difference is in the helpdesk and pricing etc. If you want a different service provider than BT you need to have a cabled service where you live - If not it WILL be BT service.

 

TalkTalk - Totally BT

 

Tiscali - Totally BT

 

Sky - Totally BT unless you are in a cable area

 

Virgin - Only Cabled Areas

 

 

You pays your money you takes your choice

[Scorpiorefugee]

I agree Bigjeeze on all points. I had a good offer from talk talk but Tiscali matched it when I took into account the limitations of the exchange and would also match the offer onece the exchange was updated. Also, when I did some research I could find no-one with anything good to say about talk talk.

 

I had the Virgin (Telewest) service in Plymouth until this Summer but the Sky package was about

[gregers]

arrrrrrrrrgh my head hurts, :lol:

 

been talking to some peeps today at work and the majority have all joined sky,

we cant get virgin where we are,unless WE PAY FOR THE CABLE.......yeah right.

 

cheers so far peeps.

[seatkid]

There is some misinformation here....

 

Virgin is cable but it also has an ADSL service for people outside the cable network.

 

All ADSL services are carried by BT lines from the exchange to the phone. These lines can be "unbundled" (sold to other ISPs). What happens in the exchange depends on the exchange location, some lines are routed via the BT network (but often though the ISP's equipment) others are routed on the ISP's or partners networks......its all rather vague and complicated.

 

Many things to consider......

 

What (unbundled) ISPs are available in your area (ISPs that uses "BT access" will always be available - assuming you are in a BT area)

 

ISP network performance - not to be confused with line speed or exchange level performance

 

Packages on offer (Price/Speed/monthly limits)

 

Whether hitting a monthly limit costs you or you lose service or get severly restricted for a period.

 

Minimum Contract Length (often 12 month - 24 months)

 

Set up cost

 

Get out costs if not satisfied

 

Whether you can move it with you when you move

 

Distance from exchange/ line quality and so real line speed

 

Some ISPs restrict or completely block certain types of traffic and access to certain websites/domains

 

What the true capacity/contention ratio is at your exchange. If there are loads of users in your area using the same ISP, the service may be crap.

 

Beware, if you "leave" the BT network, i.e. get unbundled line e.g. Talktalk, Sky etc then if you want to change to another ISP or go back to BT, its likely to cost you dearly, reconnection is same as a new BT line

Edited October 30, 2008 by seatkid

[seatkid]

Just to reiterate, if you "unbundle" and leave BT, then later your only option is usually to rejoin BT at

[gregers]

cheers seatkid.

[Goofygolfer]

Funnily enough i have just rejoined BT after 4 yrs with virgin media cable, there was no reconnection fee to pay as all was needed was phone line to "go live" from exchange.the

[seatkid]

Funnily enough i have just rejoined BT after 4 yrs with virgin media cable, there was no reconnection fee to pay as all was needed was phone line to "go live" from exchange.the

[v_leesy2k1]

i work for virgin media and i know u wont get charged to go back to bt but once u have sampled virgin b/band you will never go back bt b/band is a degraded service sent down a line that was designed to take voice calls

thats y its slow vv slow i am an install engineer so i know what im talking about no1 else can offer 20meg as good as ours

and soon 50meg will be hear so we will blow bt out ov the water

and our b/band system was built for the job no changed like bt,s

[seatkid]

i work for virgin media and i know u wont get charged to go back to bt but once u have sampled virgin b/band you will never go back bt b/band is a degraded service sent down a line that was designed to take voice calls

thats y its slow vv slow i am an install engineer so i know what im talking about no1 else can offer 20meg as good as ours

and soon 50meg will be hear so we will blow bt out ov the water

and our b/band system was built for the job no changed like bt,s

Virgin cable and BT products are PHYSICALLY 2 completely seperate things that work in completely different ways. The wires even run in seperate ducts (i.e they have as much in common as your electricity cable and the gas main)

 

You can have virgin cable and BT at the same time if you want. - Whats this rubbish about virgin not charging you to go back to BT???? Of course not, Virgin doesnt do unbundled local loop.

 

They do do nasty small print though.

 

Sorry v_leesy but youre just a virgin brainwashed guy. Virgin cable ex NTL /Telewest/Diamond was originally a television distribution system and much of the infrastructure (i.e. cabling) is as old as the hills. You can "upto" 200gb/sec internet for all I care, but Virgins DNS servers cant even look up a website address 50% of the time. Its not line speed that counts at those speed but real network thoughput, FUPs etc .....I know firsthand.

 

Gregers doesnt have access to Virgin cable anyway - he has to choose an ADSL product.

 

Dont make pitches for Virgin based on grossly untrue information.......

Edited November 1, 2008 by seatkid

[Bigjeeze]

i work for virgin media and i know u wont get charged to go back to bt but once u have sampled virgin b/band you will never go back bt b/band is a degraded service sent down a line that was designed to take voice calls

thats y its slow vv slow i am an install engineer so i know what im talking about no1 else can offer 20meg as good as ours

and soon 50meg will be hear so we will blow bt out ov the water

and our b/band system was built for the job no changed like bt,s

 

 

Virgin is supplied over a fibre network because it bought the NTL/Telewest cable Network which was installed as a fibre network about 20 years ago. BT's network has been in the ground for around 100 years - obviously the main trunk network has been upgraded to Fibre but until the government allows BT to upgrade the local loop without having to let the rest of the world make a profit on then it will likely stay that way for a long time to come. If Virgin's network wasn't so small it would definitely blow BT's out of the water - Thats what a universal service obligation does for you. (Only Kingston Comms and BT Have to provide service - not one other provider has any obligations whatsoever).

 

BT provides over 100,000 jobs in the UK - that in turn probably support another 2-300,000 jobs - Virgin employs a total of 13,000. and most of them are in call centres.

[seatkid]

Virgin is supplied over a fibre network because it bought the NTL/Telewest cable Network which was installed as a fibre network about 20 years ago.

You dont have fibre coming into your home......

 

BT's network has been in the ground for around 100 years

Thats just a totally misleading and fundamentally untrue statement

 

Lets face it - both Virgin and BT are BAD and grossly overpriced.

Virgin call costs are :rolleyes: see here 7p connection charge! 4p per minute local call rounded up to the next minute!

Call an O2 mobile on Virgin, 22p minimum charge! (e.g. if it flips to voicemail)

Edited November 1, 2008 by seatkid

[simonashley]

I'm in Hull and we dont have a choice its kingston comms only here ive just upgraded to there new packages and for

[v_leesy2k1]

f/optic doesnt come to your home but it comes to a street near you and no1 was saying that virgin would charge u to go back to bt we were saying that bt dont charge u to switch back unless an engineer haz to be called out and who cares bout the price ov call charges most people use mobiles anyway

 

 

but if you want a decent b/band service you should be with virgin its the best about

[v_leesy2k1]

and im on 20 meg and i run 2 laptops a pc and a ps3 on mine with no lag and no probs

[tiny]

BT provides over 100,000 jobs in the UK -

 

 

Any probably more oversea's. They dont call them Bombay Telecom for nothing. :rolleyes:

 

Seriously though, without getting into this broadband argument, BT have the worst customer service out of any company I have ever dealt with.

[jkspoff]

Most ISP's nowadays have to run to a certain 'code of conduct', no matter who you get, you will receive broadband, so what if its not the fastest in the world, you still get fast internet browsing which is all that most people do anyway, there is no difference in page load speeds of average browsing speed anyway, this only becomes apparent when downloading large files. Go with the best priced package in your area, your speed will be dependant on the distance to the exchange anyway. Unless you have fibre optic cable in your area, which I don't. :rolleyes: Edited November 3, 2008 by jkspoff