Fibre or ADSL 2

I have been sitting on the fence for a few months debating whether to install fibre or not. I’m hoping that advice from the forum might help steer me in the right direction. The speed of my ADSL 2 connection, 4.5 mbps, might just suit the needs to stream video if no one else wants to access the Internet at the same time. I remember reading on one of the TBB forum pages that with fibre the ISP is of less importance than it was / is with an ADSL product. Is this still the case?

I have been with IDNET for years and can only report a wonderful service. It just works! I’m now looking for an unlimited package, ADSL 2 or Fibre from an ISP that works quietly in the background and that I do not have to deal with on a frequent basis should a problem occur.

From reading TBB forums, it seems the recommended providers come down to these three if I go fibre - Sky, BT or Plusnet for reasonable unlimited packages. There are always more horror stories than reports of glowing praise. Is it just initial setup and installation problems people experience? Does it settle down afterwards? Customer Support from BT concerns me as does LLU from Sky. Recent reports about Plusnet are less than encouraging. Help please! Would having fibre installed from a niche ISP help to avoid setup problems should they arise?

Thanks for your patience and advice.

Most posts on fibre issues tend to be install issues, or people fretting that it does not exactly match the estimate at signup, with the key word being estimate.

HD Streaming on a connection of 4.5 Mbps - sync speed might be dodgy, but if that is a speed test result you should be just about OK.

Fibre assuming it boosts you speed to above 10 Meg will reduce buffering significantly and if a PC starts a software update while watching a video stream you will have no problems.

The setup issues usually are an Openreach mistake, so could happen with any provider, the fun bit is knowing which provider will give you more help in sorting it out.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

The setup issues usually are an Openreach mistake, so could happen with any provider, the fun bit is knowing which provider will give you more help in sorting it out.

Thanks for the words of wisdom. Thoughts about ISP's would be very much welcome. There is only so much fun I can handle in one day.

I can recommend Plusnet, been with them for 10 years, had a few problems but that was mainly open reach's fault.

I was on O2 LLU until I decided to get FTTC. For the same reasons as you are wondering about whether to stay with a niche provider, (I assume you mean IDNet), I in fact did go to IDNet on their Home Starter Fibre. Paid the year up front so it worked out at £23.82pm in effect, rather than the monthly £28.nn.

As you say - no problems whatsoever. But at the end of the 12 months I set to thinking, purely because that was more and more looking very expensive.

Narrowed it down to Infinity or Plusnet. A single phone call to each emphatically decided it. Plusnet had to think a bit about my questions but talked sense, the BT guys just spouted rot.

Eleven months into my 18 month contract with Plusnet I have just restarted the 18 months as a result of upgrading to the new Unlimited package. I have no regrets at all about leaving IDNet, flawless though they were. In my case, if not some others, Plusnet have also been flawless.

In case you haven't come across it in the extremely extensive (and sometimes bewildering so) Plusnet Help and FAQ systems, in the event of your being unhappy with Plusnet you can terminate your contract early at £5.75 per outstanding month not the full £19.99. (If within the first 12 months of it you also have to pay for the "free" router if you took it - its wireless is poor and mine is sitting gathering dust as a spare).

Plusnet have had a lot of complaints since the end of December about people ordering the Unlimited 80/20 package and being connected on 40/10 (but still unlimited as far as I know). This was a bug in the ordering system from when the unlimited package was introduced on 19 December 2012, causing the wrong speed product to be ordered from Openreach.

The bug has been fixed, but a few of the bad orders are still awaiting installation by Openreach, and it appears better to let them go through then do an upgrade (24-48 hours on request - or automatic at some stage) rather than Plusnet cancel and re-order thus losing weeks.

So don't worry about any of those reports.

I hope that helps.