Advice needed on alternative broadband/homephone provider

[mikeisyou]

Im currently with Virgin Media for TV/Broadband/Homephone however I'm highly interested in moving away. The plan is to have TV from freeview/ freesat and broadband/phone from whoever can offer the best value for money.

Can anyone suggest what providers to avoid, I have been with talktalk in the past and left with no internet access for months. Vodafone are offering a good deal but I don't know alot about their service other than they use BT's network.

 

[Lazarus]

Do you have any Fixed Wireless Access providers in your area? If so, as we have found to our satisfaction, they are normally fast, cheap, reliable and quick to respond to any technical issues.

Using Wireless Networks means not having to rely on Openreach or VM at local level and you can Port your Phone Service to a VOIP provider.

 

[Ghostleader]

Im currently with Virgin Media for TV/Broadband/Homephone however I'm highly interested in moving away. The plan is to have TV from freeview/ freesat and broadband/phone from whoever can offer the best value for money.

Can anyone suggest what providers to avoid, I have been with talktalk in the past and left with no internet access for months. Vodafone are offering a good deal but I don't know alot about their service other than they use BT's network.

Jeez'o you must be £80 a month plus with them!? I can only say through personal experience that Plusnet have been good for us and for £23.99p a month for phone line rental and BB the only cheaper alternatives I have seen has been sh#tty TalkTalk.

 

[jeallen01]

Jeez'o you must be £80 a month plus with them!? I can only say through personal experience that Plusnet have been good for us and for £23.99p a month for phone line rental and BB the only cheaper alternatives I have seen has been sh#tty TalkTalk.

It is worth calling up VM and telling them that you are leaving (with the reasons) as you might well be quickly offered a very good "deal" to stay, especially if you take Virginmedia TV off your requirements. Last year I got our monthy bill cut by about 50% (from around £68 to around £33 before the latest price rises - although I did have to pay a year's line rental of around £190 in advance). Also got an internet speed boost into the bargain.

Also you may well find that the promised "up to xxMbs" internet speeds of the competitors don't match up to VMs actual speeds - although that depends on whether you are on a "Fibre To Cabinet" (FTC) and then coax to house connection or a "copper" ADSL/VDSL connection (that latter being generally slower in almost all cases)

 

[mikeisyou]

Do you have any Fixed Wireless Access providers in your area? If so, as we have found to our satisfaction, they are normally fast, cheap, reliable and quick to respond to any technical issues.

Using Wireless Networks means not having to rely on Openreach or VM at local level and you can Port your Phone Service to a VOIP provider.

Could be a good option down the road when 5G comes to our town. The 4G option Ive seen from EE serms to a bit more monies compared to the other packages.

Jeez'o you must be £80 a month plus with them!? I can only say through personal experience that Plusnet have been good for us and for £23.99p a month for phone line rental and BB the only cheaper alternatives I have seen has been sh#tty TalkTalk.

Yep thats right, and it used to be higher. Thanks for the input, I haven't used Plusnet before but ive heard good things.

 

[Lazarus]

Could be a good option down the road when 5G comes to our town. The 4G option Ive seen from EE serms to a bit more monies compared to the other packages.

I was referring to Wireless Broadband, not Mobile ..... Entirely different!

 

[Archive-8]

My Sherborne connection is with now Broadband. I now get fibre and line rental for £20 a month (for 12 months) then I will change provider.

My plusnet connection is so/so for the money!

 

[mikeisyou]

I was referring to Wireless Broadband, not Mobile ..... Entirely different!

Sorry I looked up Fixed Wireless Access providers and it started talking about 4G so I presumed it was that. I'm not aware of any Fixed Access Providers in my area.

It is worth calling up VM and telling them that you are leaving (with the reasons) as you might well be quickly offered a very good "deal" to stay, especially if you take Virginmedia TV off your requirements. Last year I got our monthy bill cut by about 50% (from around £68 to around £33 before the latest price rises - although I did have to pay a year's line rental of around £190 in advance). Also got an internet speed boost into the bargain.

Also you may well find that the promised "up to xxMbs" internet speeds of the competitors don't match up to VMs actual speeds - although that depends on whether you are on a "Fibre To Cabinet" (FTC) and then coax to house connection or a "copper" ADSL/VDSL connection (that latter being generally slower in almost all cases)

Thanks for the advice, VM are the fastest provider in my area so I'm keen to stay with them, if the price is right. My current speed is in the region of 90mbps - 100mbps through Wifi, I'm pretty sure we have a FTC then coax connection but I wouldn't know for definite.

Thanks everyone for their comments

 

[RustySpoons]

Just stay with VM for Broadband.
I pay £40 for 380Mb with them, they do cheaper packages.

I have had xDSL/FTTC and VM is far better imho.

 

[jeallen01]

..
Thanks for the advice, VM are the fastest provider in my area so I'm keen to stay with them, if the price is right. My current speed is in the region of 90mbps - 100mbps through Wifi, I'm pretty sure we have a FTC then coax connection but I wouldn't know for definite.

Thanks everyone for their comments

I doubt you will get much more than a genuine 10-20mbs from any provider other than VM.

As for your connection, that's easy to check: if you have a coax cable coming into your house and then to your cable modem (probably a SuperHub 2 or 3) then you are on FTC + coax (as you almost certainly are); OTOH, if there is a "telephone cable" to your modem then you are not.

Time to do some"dickering" with VM - and get hold of a copy of today's Sunday Times "Business and Money" supplement as there is an article on this very subject!

Also, if BT "Openretch" "fibre" is available in your area then use that as a bargaining chip in the dickering - that's what I did!

 

[Lazarus]

Openretch

 

[jeallen01]

Openretch

Worth a "Like" I think!- coined "that" a few months ago, but nobody seemed to notice (what a one-letter "change" can make to the "meaning" of a word!)
PS: I am actually a BT shareholder, for historical reasons when BT went private a couple of decades ago, but wouldn't use their "service" (even though we have an "Openretch" engineer living about 100 yds away,, we never got that "service" here until last year, but just in time to "dicker" with VM!)

 

[mikeisyou]

Thanks for everyones help, I'm now paying half the price I was before whilst remaining with VM. The coax cable was going through a splitter (one going to the tv and the other to the router) since I was now only getting the basic free tv channels I decided to remove the splitter and have the cable directly going into the router/superhub which seems to have improved it a bit.

 

[jeallen01]

.... since I was now only getting the basic free tv channels I decided to remove the splitter and have the cable directly going into the router/superhub which seems to have improved it a bit.

Just be a bit "careful" about removing that splitter - or at least mentioning it to any VM engineer who has to come around to fix something (although I doubt that the latter will ever be needed) - as it might be considered to be breaking your contract with VM by "interferring" with the installation.

OTOH, effectively did the same thing myself a few years ago and that increased the signal to my modem as well , and there's never been a whimper from VM as I never needed to call them in to fix anything - apart from a phone line damaged during the installation of the exterior wall insulation. On that occasion the phone cable had to be shortened and rejoined at the point of entry through the wall - and the VM guy was perfectly happy to let me do that myself, and so gave me a new VM wall box and some gel connectors before he left! They are pragmatic people!

 

[Captain Jack]

Vermin Media. Would rather stick with Openretch provided lines than deal with VM and their worse than BT's so called customer service.

As long as you go for a smaller provider, like Zen, you will never have to deal with OR.

 

[2cvbloke]

Round here, there is no choice, no cable service to this street (despite passing through the village along the main road!!), so it's ADSL or FTTC, or nowt (unless you can get a good 4G data plan that doesn't gouge your bank account, which I certainly can't!)...

 

[moonbase]

From reading this topic, am I right in assuming that there are two types of VM connectivity to premises, FTC + Coax to the premises or FTC + telephone wire to the premises?

From appearance, it seems that we have some type of VM connectivity running under the tarmac pavement along the road. At periodic points, a cable pops up out of the ground and snakes its way into someones house. At other points there looks to be some type of circular disc cap about two inches in diameter flush with the tarmac pavement with nothing coming out of it.

What type of connectivity would VM be offering based on the above?

 

[RustySpoons]

From reading this topic, am I right in assuming that there are two types of VM connectivity to premises, FTC + Coax to the premises or FTC + telephone wire to the premises?

From appearance, it seems that we have some type of VM connectivity running under the tarmac pavement along the road. At periodic points, a cable pops up out of the ground and snakes its way into someones house. At other points there looks to be some type of circular disc cap about two inches in diameter flush with the tarmac pavement with nothing coming out of it.

What type of connectivity would VM be offering based on the above?

Most likely the fibre coax hybrid network If it's VM.
Their xDSL stuff will be openreach for non cable areas.
VM also do FTTH in some areas. But that's very rare and something that's been trialled.

 

[moonbase]

Most likely the fibre coax hybrid network If it's VM.
Their xDSL stuff will be openreach for non cable areas.
VM also do FTTH in some areas. But that's very rare and something that's been trialled.

Am I correct in assuming that the VM "Vivid 350" broadband requires the fibre-coax hybrid mix (350mb download, 20mb upload)? Or can they deliver this using some other connectivity?

 

[RustySpoons]

Am I correct in assuming that the VM "Vivid 350" broadband requires the fibre-coax hybrid mix (350mb download, 20mb upload)? Or can they deliver this using some other connectivity?

That's using the fibre/coax hybrid system.