Heavy Home User Seeking Reccomendations for New ADSL Package

Hi folks. I was hoping I could pick your brains about what broadband provider to switch to. I was a member this forum a number of years ago, but have since misplaced my login. It was my membership of this forum that led me to join ADSL24 as my broadbrand provider following years of bad experiences with AOL, BT and TalkTalk.

ADSL24 were awesome. Their 1 month contracts really gave you confidence that they actually believed in the value of their product. Although I live out in the countryside of NE Scotland, I consistently achived 3.5mb/s connection speeds. Their customer service was faultless, and available at evening and weekends. I was on their 65gb on-peak a month package, and managed to exceed that limit a few times.

Since ADSL24 were bought out by Coms, I've been migrated over to them. For the same price they upgraded my limit to 100gb. However it's not all so perfect. Although I'm getting more download limit for my money, they're charging me my old ADSL24 rate which means I'm paying £10 a month more than new Coms customers. I've been trying to get in touch with them for a month to talk about this and am having no joy at all. I phoned their customer service line (ostensibly open till 8pm) last night at 1820 only to hear an automated message saying the office was closed. Compared to ADSL24, Coms customer service absolutely sucks. My connection speeds have also dropped noticeably. I'm now lucky to get 1mb/s.

I've been unsure whether I might be moving shortly for over a year, so I've been reluctant to change broadband and phone provider if it involves getting tied into a lengthy contract. This has resulted in me paying rather a lot more than I should. I'm paying Coms about £30 a month for Broadband and my BT phone bill tends to run about the same.

So far in January my on-peak broadband usage has been 68gb. Can anyone recomend a proivder (perhaps one that offers a combined phone and broadband package) who will provide out in the sticks?

Edited by deleted (Sat 31-Jan-15 10:42:38)

Does the exchange have LLU from Sky or TalkTalk on it?

No LLU and no Fiber I'm afraid. That's one of the big limiting factors for me.

BT probably cheapest unlimited during minimum term, plusnet another but paying higher rate.

Not sure which entanet reseller is in favour.

Zen and idnet probably good but price will be higher.

You could try Xilo on monthly contract. If you browse a few months of this forum you will see many Coms users have gone there and been happy.

You totally sure no LLU things may have changed.

In your case....
My recommendation would be BT (cheapest) or PlusNet.

Customer service not brilliant, but frankly it's not anywhere nowadays unless you pay a fortune... still should get as good speeds as with any other ISP.

Post deleted by MHC

Definitely no llu. Are you sure about Bt? If you include my off peak usage I'm pushing 100gb a month. On Bt unlimited packages I imagine I'd run into some pretty huge throttling issues.

I stay over on the NW coast miles away from the exchange which is still 20CN, no LLU no FTTC.
Most folk in the village use BT as if they have a Sky Sports package they get free BT Sport, I use Plusnet for BB and phone and so far so good for me, no point in paying more to a niche ISP out here in the wilds.

Always check the cashback sites like TopCashBack and Quidco for deals as the headline grabbing prices for Plusnet BB only apply if you live in a "low cost" area so you'll pay more than that I would guess living where you do, so any cashback is wellcome.

In reply to a post by AbrasiveScotsman:

Definitely no llu. Are you sure about Bt? If you include my off peak usage I'm pushing 100gb a month. On Bt unlimited packages I imagine I'd run into some pretty huge throttling issues.

A few years ago I would have agreed and advised you to avoid BT however the situation has changed.

Most providers have significantly increased their network backhaul due to fibre optic, i.e. BT deliver infinity which can give download speeds of around 9Mb/s, so you can get 100Gb in around 3.5 hours.

6 hours of Netflix on high quality uses around 13.5Gb.

So you can imagine plenty of people are way over this 100Gb you speak of.

They also removed restrictions, fair usage policies and traffic management. As such there is no such thing as "throttling issues" on BT anymore. You get the full speed, any slowdowns are due to congestion which is fixed in due course. They no longer "slow down" torrents or reduce speeds at peak times etc.

I am sure that at 100Gb you will be fine. In my eyes this isn't really "high" usage anymore (of course it's still above the average but certainly not uncommon).

I have pulled over 750Gb in a month on BT, never had a single issue. I have their fibre optic and I have never seen it fall below 7Mb/s.

I generally use my Sky connection though as that's my personal (not work) line.

Both work perfectly.

Order BT soon they have a big sale on right now. I am pretty sure you will be pleasantly surprised (at the connection, not their customer service hehe).

Edited by ukhardy07 (Sat 31-Jan-15 13:50:11)

I like the look of the plusnet phone + broadband deals. As far as I can see Bt don't offer anytime packages on calls any more. On the other hand my landline is with them right now which I suppose would simplify things.

My enduring memory of Bt is spending hours on hold to an Indian call centre.

In reply to a post by AbrasiveScotsman:

I like the look of the plusnet phone + broadband deals. As far as I can see Bt don't offer anytime packages on calls any more. On the other hand my landline is with them right now which I suppose would simplify things.

My enduring memory of Bt is spending hours on hold to an Indian call centre.

BT offer unlimited calls you can get that, it's an extra.
The prices you see on the PlusNet pages are for areas which have LLU, they charge less in these areas.

The actual price you pay will be higher if you have no LLU.

"Do the Check what's available where you live."
https://www.plus.net

Plusnet has had some issues with congestion of late, I personally think BT is your best option right now.

Give them a call and see if they can give you a good retentions deal on the whole lot. Especially as you have the landline with them already they may be able to offer a good deal.
What issues did you have with BT? Was it just traffic management. & Agreed their customer service isn't great although their broadband is fine.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Sat 31-Jan-15 14:20:03)

Plusnet support is based in Seffield and depending on the time of day/day of the week you can sometimes have a longish wait for a call to be answered, from personal experience I've only had to phone them about 3 times in 15 months and the 3 calls were made in the first 2 months of joining PN, at that time in 2013 the calls were answered through the week not weekend in around 10-20 minutes.

http://portal.plus.net/supportpages.html?a=212&helph...

It sounds as though BT has improved somewhat since I last used them. Last time I was with them, 10gb was one of their biggest packages, and it was out-of-date even then.

I'll get a MAC code from Coms on Monday. Anytime phone and unlimited broadband from BT will total about £33. That will save me about £27 a month.

To that end, does anyone know what BT are charging for early exit from a contract these days? The uncertainty over whether I'll need to move this year is still in play, but it definitely wont happen before August. So between now and then I stand to save in the region of £135, so if their exit fee is less than that it's a win.

Take it with you wherever you move too.

They do free home moves. Say you move to another city they'll install the services at the new place for free usually.

I've got an application in for a couple of jobs in the US, so if I was moving it would be overseas. Hence my concern about exit fees.

You would pay off the remainder according to the prices here.

http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumer/terms...

Find your package it gives you the monthly termination fee.
If you leave at the end of August you would have approx 5 months left to pay right. So 5 * whatever the fee is on that page I believe (do read the whole page though I skim read).

In case anyone was interested in an update: I migrated to BT yesterday. They flubbed the delivery of the router a bit but generally everything has gone smooth. Since connecting I've noticed my DL speeds shoot up to 6mb/s.

The connection with Coms has been a bit ropey for a few weeks usually getting <1mb/s and dropping out a lot. They said it was a fault on the line, but generally were unresponsive to support requests of any sort. They'd send you automated emails asking for more information every time you contacted them about anything, but rarely actually passed your support ticket onto a human. I even tried Tweeting the MD in an attempt to get some support, but all that happened is the frequency of the automated emails increased.

ADSL24 they weren't in terms of customer service, so I doubt BT will be much worse and I'm already getting a better connection. I still miss ADSL24 though. I was willing to pay extra for such excellent service. It's a pity they sold the business.

Brilliant, in terms of 6Mb/s is that over WiFi, if so it's likely the WiFi is restricting the speed not the connection (try ethernet). Or it may just be due to distance to the cabinet you don't get the full speeds.

Overall glad you made the decision to go back with BT & save a fair bit in the process.

Yes thats over wifi tested using the speedtest app on my phone, and I think the kids were maybe using the connection downstairs as well. When I have a mo I'll test it using the proper BT speedtest page on the desktop which is physically connected to the router. I think I'm probably getting close to the 8mb/s theoretical maximum. The exchange is only about 0.25 miles away from my house in the center of the village. Suffice to say, the connection has improved markedly since switching from Coms. Perhaps BT fixed the "line fault" when they connected me, or perhaps Coms were talking nonsense and my ropey connection was due to a fault in their servers.

What exactly was going wrong on Comms? If I am honest there was significant complaints when ADSL24 was taken over by Comms.

If it was general slow speeds around peak times then I would say it was Comms rather than a line fault.

The best bit is you have no usage limit now - begin that full HD streaming.

Also mobile devices often have slow WiFI speeds due to having small antennas inside, the only real test is the ethernet one

Use speedtest.net for the speed tests, the BT speedtester I've personally found to be odd.

Over the last couple of weeks my connection had been "surging". It would be OK, even relatively quick, for a few seconds at a time and then it would drop out altogether. It made normal internet usage almost impossible, but I got quite good at the jumping dinosaur game you get when Chrome cannot connect. You could just about watch Netflix if you could time the start of the programme to coincide with one of the "surges" - the buffering evened out the regular dropouts of connection. I found myself tethering my laptop to my phone's 3G so I could start watching a programme, and when I got it going I'd switch it back over to the broadband. It was a pain, and Coms were little or no help when I complained.

Honestly, I noticed my connection get slower and go through rough periods ever since Coms took over. I'd have done something about it sooner, but I was mired in the end of a postgraduate degree so had bigger fish to fry. I'd have left months ago otherwise. If you look at Coms' website, you can see they're business oriented. Home users are a total afterthought with them. I can only assume they provide a better service for business customers, or I can't imagine how they stay in business.

Hmm sounds like a line fault. It may have just been a faulty router though. See how BT gets on.

In reply to a post by AbrasiveScotsman:

Yes thats over wifi tested using the speedtest app on my phone, and I think the kids were maybe using the connection downstairs as well. When I have a mo I'll test it using the proper BT speedtest page on the desktop which is physically connected to the router. I think I'm probably getting close to the 8mb/s theoretical maximum. The exchange is only about 0.25 miles away from my house in the center of the village. Suffice to say, the connection has improved markedly since switching from Coms. Perhaps BT fixed the "line fault" when they connected me, or perhaps Coms were talking nonsense and my ropey connection was due to a fault in their servers.

Terribly sorry I have mis-read your post. I read 6mb/s as 6Mb/s not 600Kb/s which is what you actually mean.

I assumed you had got fibre (been a while since your first post).

YES 600Kb/s is about right for 8Mbps broadband due to profiling reducing it down slightly and then overhead. You'll likely see 7Mbps max, around 720Kb/s.

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

In reply to a post by AbrasiveScotsman:

Yes thats over wifi tested using the speedtest app on my phone, and I think the kids were maybe using the connection downstairs as well. When I have a mo I'll test it using the proper BT speedtest page on the desktop which is physically connected to the router. I think I'm probably getting close to the 8mb/s theoretical maximum. The exchange is only about 0.25 miles away from my house in the center of the village. Suffice to say, the connection has improved markedly since switching from Coms. Perhaps BT fixed the "line fault" when they connected me, or perhaps Coms were talking nonsense and my ropey connection was due to a fault in their servers.

Terribly sorry I have mis-read your post. I read 6mb/s as 6Mb/s not 600Kb/s which is what you actually mean.

I assumed you had got fibre (been a while since your first post).

YES 600Kb/s is about right for 8Mbps broadband due to profiling reducing it down slightly and then overhead. You'll likely see 7Mbps max, around 720Kb/s.

My fault, I was under the impression mbps was short for megabits per second and could be written mb/s. I`ve clearly been mangling my use of the terminology.

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

YES 600Kb/s is about right for 8Mbps broadband

Now you are confusing matters. You are measuring Byte-rate throughput when OP was measuring bit-rate.

You mean '600KB/s is about right for an 8Meg connection'. I'd put it higher at 800KB/s.

In reply to a post by AbrasiveScotsman:

I was under the impression mbps was short for megabits per second and could be written mb/s. I've clearly been mangling my use of the terminology.

Your impression is almost right. Just use caps 'M' for Mega. The other poster is using the wrong units.