Best UK ISP?
Community Forums/General Help/Best UK ISP?
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| I`m thinking of signing up with either O2, Virgin or BT Broadband. I`ve heard good things about all three but am leaning towards O2. Has anyone here had any positive (or negative) dealings with these companies? Customer service (helplines), price and regular speeds are all important factors in helping me to decide. Thanks for any advice. Jason. |
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| Do you want fibre optic or DSL? What type of speeds are you wanting? Do you need unlimited downloads? If you have SKY tv already, then they offer an excellent SDL service with three levels of broadband, depending on your need from free to £10 a month for unlimited downloads at upto 8Mbs. I've been with SKY for over a year now and never had any downtime or problems. If you don't have SKY, then I don't know which of those three to go with, as I've heard good and bad about all of them. But then I expect someone to say that they've heard the same about SKY. |
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| If you get DSL, check on Sam Knows to find out which LLU operators are on your exchange. The ones that aren't will go through BT Wholesale so each one will be as good/bad as any other - the only difference is who you pay your money to. LLU operators are generally much cheaper. |
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| Thanks, I will check out Sam Knows. I`m not too fussed about the speed as long as I get a good constant service with good after sales help if I need it. Jason. |
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| We have Sky its ok. Main thing is its cheap with the phone/tv package. Used to have Freeserve/Orange which was better for Broadband and after care but more expensive. |
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| OK, I`m thinking of going with Virgin which is fibre optic. I have been told by Orange, my current ISP, that if I do this then I will need to pay a £24 fee for them to disconnect my line. They say that this is standard. Is this true as I have never heard about it before? Thanks for any further help, Jason. |
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| Don't know, but Supanet tried charging me £40 when I ditched them, even though I'd already been with them for longer than the 12 month contract I signed up for. Hidden away in the smallprint was a £40 cancellation fee, which you have to pay if you cancel within TWO years, despite it being a one year contract. I took the matter up with Ofcom, arguing that if its a one year contract then I should not have to pay any cancellation fee after that period. Eventually, Supanet didn't force me to pay it. Although they refused to give me a MAC code for several weeks. The point is that there are some very crooked ISPs out there who try their luck to see what they can get out of you. Always ALWAYS argue if certain fees have not been made clear from the outset. In my case, Supanet were selling a two year contract, dressed up to look like a 12 month one. Unless you can find very specific details to get out of it, then you might not be so lucky. Oh, and while I'm on a rant about ISPs, the only reason they have 12 month contracts is so you have to keep on paying them long after you've found out that the service they provide is tantamount to a couple of empty baked bean cans and a length of string. If most ISPs weren't sub-par, there'd be no need for this 12/18/24 month contract lark. You'd be on a rolling monthly contract and you'd stay with them because they were GOOD, and not because you had no choice. |
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| Thanks for the advice, I`ll be sure to look into it. Jason. |
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| By the way - I think you made the right choice with Virgin. Fibre optic broadband is far superior to the archaic method of using copper wires for data transfer. Way too many uncontrollable factors that determine the service quality. I'm sure you'll find people who will tell you that Virgin broadband is crap, but I don't think any company in the history of time has ever achieved 100% customer satisfaction. |
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| If you want decent value then make sure you bundle up some services, paying for Internet access on it's own is ludicrously expesnive, particularly if you look at your annual bill. For example I pay only £5 a month (every month not an offer) for 8 Mb broadband (I actually get ~6Mb). I also get my phone calls (free), phone line and Sky HD tv package (including everything except sport and movies) for a total of £35 a month. If you buy those services seperately you will pay a lot more in total. Pretty much all providers do bundles now, although really it's only Virgin and Sky that have really good offers and they are pretty much comparable (Sky has more HD content but less Video-on-Demand). I switched my parents over from seperate services to a bundle from Sky and they saved £25 a month and they got "free" Sky TV (they used a freeview box before). If you are switching multiple services you have more bargaining power with the reps too and push for stuff and you can get it. Word of warning though, changing over can be a real pain in the butt, I had lots of problems the last tim I changed proviers! Darkheart |
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| I would also say get a bundle, sky or Virgin. I have Sky myself. When I left Orange they did not charge me anything to leave. |
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| It seems that if you change to another provider that is not using fibre optic then you will not have to pay but otherwise BT charge the ISP to disconnect you so the ISP passes this charge on to the customer. Jason. |
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| It is common practice for many kinds of telecommunications-type-people to charge a disconneection fee. These fees also may change dependsant on whether disconnection is linked to a cancellation or breach in an exisiting contrract, or the contract has ended. Definitely whether you have niow,, or may consider complete packages including but not limited to, digital television and/or telephone services sd well as internet connectivity with the same provider is going to make a difference. |
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