the 200mb is on fttp isn't it? with normal fttc service the fastest is 76/80mb unless you have a gfast enabled cabinet

Talking about Virgin Media cable...

Back to FTTC unlikely to notice much difference on any of the providers if their service is running well, the differences tend to revolve around how they talk to you when reporting faults, or speeds are slower than expected

Vodafone seems a bit hit or miss due to congestion in some areas, and EE has some quirks seen in speed test that may affect some things, but largely no one complains or don't realise web browsing on a good service is snappier.

Have you considered a slower service, as your speed estimate isn't 76Mbps?

BT's 55Mbps service is in the middle of your estimated range and the promo on mastercards is at it's peak at the moment.

Their router is better than Sky's and probably better than most others.

Yeah I was trying to gauge what difference I would likely see but it's hard to tell. I am a perfectionist and would be constantly irritated if something wasn't working right, like inconsistent speeds at peak times, poor pings, packet loss. I have had bad experiences with BT before, where the phone and broadband (old adsl) kept dropping out whenever it rained, water was obviously getting in somewhere. They attempted to fix it twice but it was so intermittent it had always stopped by the time the engineer came out to look at it. Thats when we moved to Virgin and it has been flawless ever since, I suspect very few people around here have Virgin because I have always had speeds 10% above the speed I am paying for and it never budges at all, and pings of 7ms. It's driving me mad having to drop them just to move one road over and spend hours trying to figure out what FTTC provider to go with.

Since I am a perfectionist, AA would be the one I would go with, but I can't justify that cost for a 200gb cap. BT would probably be most likely my next choice at the moment, the danger is I am moving to this new flat and have no idea what the quality of the existing phone line is and I may end up stuck in an 18 month contract with a company too incompetent to fix it if its a poor line (again).

not bothered about the router, it will be in modem mode anyway. I am coming from a flawless 220mb connection so I dont want to lower it any more than I have to. It might be BT I end up going with anyway despite their [censored] customer service because it will work out cheaper overall.

Getting good feedback here, one thing you mentioned is whichever you choose will be putting the supplied router in modem mode and using your own router like you do on VM, I'm not sure which VDSL supplier suplies such a device.
Although easy to get round by buying either a VDSL modem like the HG612 or a VDSL router that can run in bridge mode, I've used TP-Link W9970 and Billion 8800NL R2 in bridge mode aswell as the BTO HG612 3b, just something you might not be aware of or might need to factor in when moving.
Maybe get the BT 55Mb service and use the pre-paid mastercard to buy a new router?

I had assumed whatever they supply would be the same as the Virgin modem/router, just stick it in modem/bridge mode and plug my own router into it? AFAIK that has always been standard with modem/routers, easily switched to just act as a modem only. It was that way back when I had ADSL many years ago and ever since I got VM.

Unfortunately its not that easy now, VM Hub has modem mode but I've yet to come across a VDSL ISP supplied router that can run in modem mode, Sky Hub won't, BT ones wont, I had limited success with TT HG635, I've just moved from Sky Fibre to VM Vivid350 and used the devices I mentioned above as VDSL modems on my VDSL connections, now I use VM Hub in modem mode.
Although many do, including myself, its against Sky's T+C's to use your own router on their Fibre.
There's others on here with much more knowledge than me so maybe they will advise which ISP VDSL device can run in modem mode?

In reply to a post by Ewok:

not bothered about the router, it will be in modem mode anyway. I am coming from a flawless 220mb connection so I dont want to lower it any more than I have to. It might be BT I end up going with anyway despite their [censored] customer service because it will work out cheaper overall.

No ISP other than virginmedia use modem mode. It is not an option. Unless you have a new router you likely will find the WiFi better on most ISP supplied devices now.

I argue VM have Modem Mode as their routers are that bad, everytime I have used VM I have had to use modem mode. With other ISPs I have zero issues using the supplied kit. My BT SmartHub I never turned it off. The Sky Q router I have now has 1000+ hours uptime all the time. My TalkTalk router was getting 60+ days uptime.

The only bad talktalk router is the HG633. Users often get it swapped for a DLink 3782 which is fine.

RE BT CS, it's not too bad nowadays, it's got a fair bit better especially since BT promised in late 2016 to handle 80% of calls in the UK.
If you have any major issues, there are good escalation channels.

There are options for you if you insist on using your own device, e.g. buy a VDSL2+ modem router or a bt openreach modem on ebay e.g. hg612 (but the openreach modems are now a bit long in the tooth as they were phased out a few years back now with all in one devices by ISPs so you're getting old tech).

My advice, see how you get on with the ISP kit, it works for 99% of users, myself included and I have 30+ devices hooked up. Make sure to split the 2.4 and 5ghz bands from day one. My BT SmartHub actually had better WiFi than a Netgear Nighthawk which I ended up sticking back in the cupboard as it wasn't getting to the back bedroom.

I would rule out AAISP as in my experience 2 hours of 4K on Netflix is around 11-15Gb.

EDIT: Having used BT based services and virginmedia, I would opt for a BT based one everytime. My Sky, TalkTalk and BT has been worlds better than virginmedia was, VM I had a lot of jitter, single thread slowdowns every evening, higher pings.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Sun 18-Feb-18 22:05:37)

I use an Asus AC68U with Merlin firmware on it. I have the devices set up as static ip's and openvpn set up on it. I am directing 4 devices over the vpn, leaving the others to connect directly, I have overclocked it so that the vpn can max out at 50mb instead of 35mb. I plan on moving to wireguard as soon as I can get firmware for it. I can monitor the bandwidth usage of each device, use it as a DLNA server with a plugged in HDD or usb stick and set up adaptive QoS.

Can these isp supplied routers do this stuff? particularly the vpn which is a must. If so then I can consider using it but they were all very basic the last time I used one. I also want control over my own firmware updates.

As for VM, its been flawless since the day I got it several years ago, 200mb connection that runs at 220mb speeds 24/7 without a single glitch of any kind and a constant 7ms ping. I guess not many people use VM around in my area.

I just checked out adsl modems here and it looks like i can ggrab a relatively chepa oe if need be https://www.broadbandbuyer.com/store/modems/vdsl-fib...

Edited by Ewok (Sun 18-Feb-18 22:16:52)