SSE Broadband

SSE sell broadband and phone services at what appears to be very reasonable prices.
Why are they not listed on this website?

http://www.sse.co.uk/PhoneAndBroadband/Products/

Perhaps they haven't asked to be.

Probably they're just a reseller, like Tesco or JLP.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

Probably they're just a reseller, like Tesco or JLP.

Certainly those two are not listed, and certainly I think this site should try to list all ISPs as otherwise you can't trust comparison lists.

Interestingly, the government appears to want to stop the likes of moneysupermarket.com from having contracts with energy suppliers which stop the suppliers from selling at a lower price elsewhere. The effect of this is that there is no competition between the comparison web sites which the government think is wrong.

I would prefer to be able to trust the comparison sites!

The problem is the package details quickly get out of date. So, unless the company actively engage with telling TBB about their products and agree to update them when they change then the data is worse than useless.

In reply to a post by Michael_Chare:

Interestingly, the government appears to want to stop the likes of moneysupermarket.com from having contracts with energy suppliers which stop the suppliers from selling at a lower price elsewhere. The effect of this is that there is no competition between the comparison web sites which the government think is wrong.

Is there a comparison site comparing the prices of the various comparison sites? And if there is more than one comparison site comparing the prices of the various comparison sites, is there a comparison site comparing the prices of the comparison sites comparing the comparison sites?

To answer your first question - Yes.

There are sites now advertising on TV that do comparisons of comparison sites. Can't remember their names but they do exist (certainly around insurance type products). I'm sure if enough of these setup then they will be mega sites that compare sites that compare comparison sites...

EDIT : Here's one

Edited by ian72 (Thu 25-Sep-14 12:29:04)

Be prepared for a list of over 1,000 providers by the time you include the SME providers.

Damn, I had hoped I was just being flippant!

Of course the consumer still loses out in the end despite all these seemingly helpful comparison sites, because all the affiliate commission has to be paid for... by the consumers.

Pretty spot on, happy enough to do a basic listing for speed test purposes for almost any provider who has an IP block we can use to identify them.

You'd be surprised how many providers are asked about

a) IP blocks
b) Coverage data

Who give nothing back.

Though unlike the majority of other sites, getting a listing is not subject to being an affiliate, though this does help greater in keeping up to date with pricing.

Yep, unfortunately you can probably think of the worst possible thing and someone will already have done it I was amazed when I saw the first advert for these.

In reference to www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/energy-bills/10970226/B...:

Mr Hunter said that the biggest hidden cost in bills came from price comparison sites. "One supplier estimated that hidden commission makes up 7pc of the bill on top of supplier profits, yet it is hidden under the radar.

"These murky costs are spread across all customers � whether or not you use a broker � so there is no avoiding the surcharge even if you compare the market yourself," he said.

Well, at least all that cash we spend on funding comparison sites goes to good use, like making adverts with irritating opera singers.

Yeah, way OT now.

I think you are being a little down on it all - what about all the free meerkat toys that get given away - seems that is essential to me (not that I have ever gone through to receive them but as I am paying for them anyway maybe I should).

That would take some trawling through. OTH the SSE offer appears very reasonably priced, and I only found out about it because they sent me an email, as I am an M&S Energy customer.

But if SSE are as slow to answer the phone for broadband queries as they are for electricity contract queries they might be worth avoiding.

Also anyone interested in this should obtain firm information about their traffic management policy.

I was pleased to find that a place I rented for a week in Anglesey last week had a newly installed ADSL broadband connection. The Thinkbroadband speed test showed that the ISP was the Post Office.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/button/14110...

Good example of congestion!