Spoilt for choice?

I want to upgrade to fibre optic broadband, I dont live in a cabled area so its going to have to be fibre optic through my phoneline. So far Ive looked at BT, SKY, Plusnet and talk talk. Has anyone got fibre optic from any of these comapnies?? Any good?? I want an unlimited package with no caps. I m looking at the 80mb deal. I was going to go with BT but some people Ive spoken to tell me they throttle traffic. Is this true? What about Plusnet? I know they are owned by BT but Ive heard good things about them. As for SKY, Ive had a bad experience with them a few years back. Any help or advice with this will be very much appreciated

This might sound obvious, but have you actually checked what you can order where you are right now using the BT Wholesale checker? Obviously just because you can't get cable, doesn't mean you can get some kind of fibre, and in some places you can even get FTTP which is much faster.

In terms of FTTC:

Sky's FTTC packages are all properly unlimited but for up to 80Mb speeds Plusnet are better value while still unlimited, especially if you factor in the cashback they currently have on Quidco, the three months half price deal, and that you can pay your line rental up front and get a nice discount.

(I don't work for them and currently have ADSL with Sky, though I tend to think Plusnet are most people's best bet for FTTC)

In terms of FTTP: I'm mostly just aware of BT Retail offering it with 160 and 330Mb speeds, though Plusnet have certainly been trialling it.

I have fibre with BT and Sky.
My Sky connection 'feels' a fair bit faster but both are very good.
My BT connections gone off for a few hours. It's weird as it stays connected but websites just don't load. It's synced with an IP and everything... Then it just begins to work again. The modem shows no drop in connection and at BTs end it looks like it worked fine. It's done this a few times (never got to the bottom of it) and I have 7+ internet devices so it's 100% the connection. New modem and router didn't solve it.

My Sky is more reliable, never doing this kind of thing.

On BT if I start a torrent it will take a good few minutes to reach the 8 - 10Mb/s speeds.
On Sky it takes a good 10 - 30 seconds.

PlusNet whilst unlimited they have prioritisation. So say you begin a torrent and somebody starts to stream, I believe the torrent gets slowed down slightly.

I've also noticed PlusNet takes a while to reach full torrent speeds, probably muchlike BT.

I would personally choose PlusNet BT or Sky.
My order of choice: Sky, then BT then Plusnet.
In terms of pricing PlusNet is hard to beat for Fibre... Definitely do consider Skys 40Mbps package (it's half price for a while) as I honestly found barely any difference when I upgraded from 40 to 80Mbps, yes my speeds doubled but I had no real NEED for the extra speed.
Websites felt like they loaded at the same speed and even with over 7 users I couldn't tell any difference generally on day to day things like skype iplayer netflix and website loading...
Also via wireless I was maxxing around 40 - 50Mbps anyway so the 80Mbps wasn't getting used. This meant that unless I connected via a wire (which I do around once a year for like 5 mins) there wasn't much point.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Sun 01-Sep-13 04:51:04)

I'm with Plusnet and have been for 10 years, I've also changed our connection over to them at work, both on FTTC.

Their traffic prioritisation is just that, if someone is streaming or using VOIP, gaming etc. then that is given priority over a torrent for instance, otherwise the torrent could swamp the connection and the gamer would suffer, and the video stream would start to buffer. This is done at both your connection level and the whole of PlusNet, all it means is the torrent may take a few minutes longer to download. In my view it's a win/win scenario.

As others have said, you need to check what's available, and if FTTC is available what the speed estimate is, you'll probably get more than the estimate as they estimate really low nowadays.

If you can get FTTP then you can still go with PN, but I believe you'll need get their ADSL service then apply to go on the FTTP trial, just ask the question on their forums and a staff member will reply.

In reply to a post by R0NSKI:

I'm with Plusnet and have been for 10 years, I've also changed our connection over to them at work, both on FTTC.

Their traffic prioritisation is just that, if someone is streaming or using VOIP, gaming etc. then that is given priority over a torrent for instance, otherwise the torrent could swamp the connection and the gamer would suffer, and the video stream would start to buffer. This is done at both your connection level and the whole of PlusNet, all it means is the torrent may take a few minutes longer to download. In my view it's a win/win scenario.

As others have said, you need to check what's available, and if FTTC is available what the speed estimate is, you'll probably get more than the estimate as they estimate really low nowadays.

If you can get FTTP then you can still go with PN, but I believe you'll need get their ADSL service then apply to go on the FTTP trial, just ask the question on their forums and a staff member will reply.

I can get BT infinity, Plusnet and Talk Talk. The new cab over the road from my house has been active for over a week now. Bt and plusnet are offering me up to 76mb. For some reason, sky are saying theu can gibve me 4mb only. My neighbour has just gone plusnet and he loves it. As for p2p etc, I usually download last thing at night snyway. I do play on xbl a lot and use xbl fot gaming every day more or less. I also download games and demos off xbl snd they usually take forever to finish downloading but thats on a 4mb connection. Think its going to be BT or Plusnet as sky are telling me fibre is not available yet.

I got Fibre installed 2 weeks ago from Plusnet and can say i'm impressed most indeed.

Great price and I actually prefer traffic favouring gaming as I game a lot even with torrents in the background.

It's fast and great price.

Oh and Plusnet aren't owned by BT.

Lucky you having the cab just across the road

Bare in mind that PlusNet have UK support, whereas BT's is a foreign call centre.

Also with Plus Net you can get a referral discount, so could in theory if you refer enough people get your broadband for free, or they even end up paying you money. If you go with PN ask your neighbour for their referral code, which is their username.

It's possible Sky have not installed their link at the exchange yet. ISPs that use their own back haul like Sky & TalkTalk need to link the FTTC equipment to their own equipment and need to get a special link installed, sometimes they can be a bit slow getting this done.

In reply to a post by Damoxuk:

Oh and Plusnet aren't owned by BT.

Oh yes they are,they've owned PN for around 7 years. I was initially worried when I heard BT were buying them, but fortunately they seem to have left them to get on with things. Rumour has it that BT only bought PlusNet to get hold of the technology they use for traffic prioritisation.

Here's an article confirming it.

I stand corrected. So Plusnet are undercutting BT and offer better service? Ok fair enough.

In reply to a post by R0NSKI:

In reply to a post by Damoxuk:

Oh and Plusnet aren't owned by BT.

Oh yes they are,they've owned PN for around 7 years. I was initially worried when I heard BT were buying them, but fortunately they seem to have left them to get on with things. Rumour has it that BT only bought PlusNet to get hold of the technology they use for traffic prioritisation.

Here's an article confirming it.

Good read that. Think another reason for bt buying plusnet was to keep it out of skys hands, call me cynical if you want but Im with O2 for my home broadband and phone atm, Sky have now bought out O2 phone and broadband and Be. I had a bad experience with Sky once so they would be my last choice. Irs a long story but to cut it short I left aol to go on sky snd for 2 months I had no internet because they couldnt fix an issue they had in my exchange so I ended up with Orange which was ok, before going onto O2 whom I have been with for the last 5 yrs. My speed isnt the best at 3 to 4 mb and seeing as Sky have now bought them out anyway, its time to upgrade to fibre optic. On another mote which has annoyed me, I used to get cheap phone as I used to have an O2 mobile but since I cancelled my o2 contract, my bill shot up to nearly £40 a month.

Edited by TudorBlue (Sun 01-Sep-13 09:54:23)