A New ISP

[robert1305]

My contract with BT is due to end at the end of Feb, and I would like to change to a different ISP.

My requirements are.
1/....Unlimited down loads.
2/....24/7 phone calls
3/ .... An offer of a cheaper line rental.
4/ ....Stability.
5/.....A cheaper ISP than BT.

I wonder if any members would care to comment on the Pros and cons of their present and past ISPs. I know that this question is an oldie but ISPS do change and members opinion changes with experience.

So all advice will be greatly appreciated.

[Mad Penguin]

Hi, I used PlusNet from 2003-2009, generally I thought they were pretty good until BT bought them, then the service went downhill rapidly until I decided to switch. From 2009 to 2012 I used Zen, they provide essentially a business service, the quality of their product and support is excellent, but they do charge business prices.

In November I switched to BT infinity, the main reason being the "unlimited downloads" and the stupidly high speed.
- I'm now getting ~ 65M/sec down and 19M/sec up, for £26 per month.
- Although I would've paid twice that to Zen for, Zen don't do uncapped, for even twice the price.

Thus far, BT have been pretty good, not had occasion to call them. I know if I do I'll have "fun", and if I ever get a fault I'll also be in for some fun attempting to negotiate the Indian call centres, but I couldn't see anyone else offering a comparable option.

... I'm now doing off-site backups of all my DC hosted kit onto a server in my spare room, and I can stream HD from Lovefile.com while the backups are running with no adverse effects, so although I'd be the last person (on earth) to try to promote BT, the service I'm getting atm is going to take some beating (!)

[BkS]

I've been with multiple ISPs in the best, most notably Sky & Virgin.

Sky - Although they give you unlimited downloads, as well as the TV package and calls, customer service is terrible, and if you need an engineer, they charge you around £90 for a call-out charge because it's a BT engineer. 

Virgin - Although I was getting around 97/98 Mbps, on their fibre optic lines, they like to charge you more. They messed up our accounts, by around £200+ and so we had to change because the customer service was just crap, as well as the not-so-super "Superhub".

Currently I'm back with Sky again, but my connection is really stable at around 2Mbps download, and around 1.5Mbps upload, but again the customer service is crap despite having a customer help team on Twitter, they read from a script when it comes to technical support. Sky is pretty cheap, we're only paying around £60/70 a month. We got the first 6 months free too!

They have released a fibre optic package as well, which I need to phone about to see if I can upgrade to it.

Should BT ever bring their Infinity fibre optic lines round here though and I'll jump on them for contract.

[Mark Greaves (PCNetSpec)]

As Mad Penguin suggests, other than how crap support is with commodity ISP's (and obviously the speed difference between fibre/copper) .. they are all much of a muchness.

Decent support costs .. but then on the whole broadband is pretty reliable anyway.

I've been a year on Sky Talk Anytime + Unlimited Broadband (copper) .. and though I too dread having to resolve an issue via Indian call centres .. so far it's cheap, reliable (apart from twice in the last year when just broadband went down for 15 minutes, still dunno what that was about, and oddly both times at 00:30 exactly), and does what it says on the tin.

Prior to that I was with Pipex .. who were very reliable until taken over by Tiscali/TalkTalk, then broadband was down as much as up, and they always blamed BT's line .. funny how the problems only started when they took over

Proir to that I was with BT .. never had any issues

Prior to that .. Blueyonder (now Virgin) .. no problems

Prior to that .. Demon (dial-up) .. no problems, as far as dial-up went

Prior to that (first ever internet connection) .. AOL .. NEVER AGAIN, not only immensely unreliable, but when I quit, they stole £600 from me .. long story.

Suppose I've just been lucky as far as broadband goes (touch wood).

[EDIT]

@ BkS

BT and pretty much all other ISP's will charge a fee if the problem lies on your side of the primary test socket .. if it's the other side (ie. outside your house), you shouldn't pay anything.
(service is ONLY supplied to the test socket .. anything after that is considered YOUR responsibility)

The only thing I don't like about Sky is that you HAVE to use their router .. that's part of the contract .. not that I've had any problems with their router, but it means if it ever goes wrong I'll have to buy a new one from Sky (they're reasonably priced, but it aint gonna be just a trip to the local PC shop).

.

[BkS]

Prior to that (first ever internet connection) .. AOL .. NEVER AGAIN, not only immensely unreliable, but when I quit, they stole £600 from me .. long story.

Suppose I've just been lucky as far as broadband goes (touch wood).

56K FTL! [BEEE-YAWWWW BEEE-BEEE-BEEE-MAWWWHHH_NJDBHOUDFOWNDFPOUBPFUEH.] < Dial-up sound.

@ BkS

BT and pretty much all other ISP's will charge a fee if the problem lies on your side of the primary test socket .. if it's the other side (ie. outside your house), you shouldn't pay anything.
(service is ONLY supplied to the test socket .. anything after that is considered YOUR responsibility)

Yeah I knew that, but the problem was with their bloody cabinet and they still charged me. I tried speaking to the supervisor at my local call centre just down the road (yes, I can set fire to them!  ) for a refund and they weren't having it, even though the fault had been established at the cabinet which is 0.8mi from my house!

Bloody robbin' bas***ds!

[Mark Greaves (PCNetSpec)]

Get onto OFCOM .. that's illegal.

They charge you for providing a service to the test socket .. if they don't, THEY are in breach of contract .. they CANNOT charge you for THEM being in breach

Personally I'd not have paid it in the first place.


Go back and see that supervisor .. and tell him you want it in writing that they will not refund you, when the issue was with their cabinet .. so you can take the matter up with  his superiors and OFCOM if necessary.

I'll bet he has a change of heart.

.

[BkS]

Thanks for the advice. That I shall do!