I am not with zen.
My input is that all the big four try to lock you into long contracts. If Market 1 then Plusnet, Sky and TT plus BT may not be best options
Seeing the 7 year with Zen threads and, the fact that there is no long term tie in on ADSL, they are worth a look. The phone is a much of a muchnes whatever the supplier and easy to move broadband if not satisfied.

In my limited experience of ISPs and what I've read on various sites,most of the time one gets performance which is more to do with the line between computer and the exchange than what the ISP does.

It's when things go wrong that the difference in suppliers can make all the difference.... especially in dealing with OpenReach.

If you need (as opposed to want) 24/7 service be prepared to pay for it.

Before committing yourself to an ISP, try them out by asking a technical question by email and make phone contact to get some idea of how the do things.

By far the best advice I can give is to go with an ISP that shows confidence in their ability to provide a good service by having a rolling one month contract .....OR factor into your costings the cost of breaking a contract.

Likewise take into account that there may be a cost if you transfer from one LLU'd ISP to another .Doing this before the event will save you (and us) from the anguished and indignant postings we have seen all to often over recent months.

One definite thing to do, regardless of who you sign up with is to get an email account completely separate from any ISP.

Lastly keep hard copies of all correspondence and keep electronic copies on a different device and/or mail box.

I hope you get the service you want but be prepared to change if things don't go right for you....it's not like getting married or getting a mortgage!

In my limited experience of ISPs and what I've read on various sites,most of the time one gets performance which is more to do with the line between computer and the exchange than what the ISP does.

Largely that is correct. However, the actual ISP network and their onward links can be key to whether you can actually achieve the speed at which you are connected. If they don't have enough bandwidth then peak time performance will almost certainly have problems. Often this is where the cheaper ISPs fall down - fine if you are only a casual user but if you are doing big downloads or doing a reasonable amount of streaming then it isn't just your connection that defines how good your broadband is.

Take a look at Andrews & Arnold:

http://www.aa.net.uk/broadband.html

If you have any questions give them a ring or tweet @aaisp

Good luck

In reply to a post by ian72:

In my limited experience of ISPs and what I've read on various sites,most of the time one gets performance which is more to do with the line between computer and the exchange than what the ISP does.

Largely that is correct. However, the actual ISP network and their onward links can be key to whether you can actually achieve the speed at which you are connected. If they don't have enough bandwidth then peak time performance will almost certainly have problems. Often this is where the cheaper ISPs fall down - fine if you are only a casual user but if you are doing big downloads or doing a reasonable amount of streaming then it isn't just your connection that defines how good your broadband is.

Actually paying more doesn't ALWAYS give you a better connection. I've been with niche ISPs such as Zen, Goscomb etc on their 8128/832 Kbps connection on my knackered 20cn exchange in the past and every evenings speeds slowed down to 2meg from 7+ meg. And guess what? as soon as Talktalk llu'd my exhange in 2010 and I transferred over I got a constant 17 meg day & night and downloading at least 1tb each month.. and I was only paying a fiver to TT (+vlr). So this notion you always have to pay £60 pm to get a decent connection is rubbish. ...as coms users are finding out

Actually paying more doesn't ALWAYS give you a better connection

Never said it did. I said:

Often this is where the cheaper ISPs fall down

Not ALWAYS and definitely didn't say paying more got you more. I said paying less often gets you less - you get what you pay for in most cases. For a straight ISP if they are low cost then something has to give - the line rental is going to be the same so support or onward connectivity will suffer and often it could be both.

Or did you reply to my post in error as you seem to be suggesting my post is wrong and yet nothing you say is in contradiction to my post just looking at it from the opposite end. Starting with "Actually" suggests you disagreed with me and then didn't?

TallkTalk is interesting - to sustain high bandwidth at their prices means they must be subsidising the connection with other parts of the business. They cannot provide good speeds at the price they charge if people actually are using the network without making a loss on the connection.

In reply to a post by ian72:

TallkTalk is interesting - to sustain high bandwidth at their prices means they must be subsidising the connection with other parts of the business. They cannot provide good speeds at the price they charge if people actually are using the network without making a loss on the connection.

On BT Wholesale, that's true. On LLU MPF there is a large initial outlay, but after that if there are sufficient customers, the individual pricing doesn't have to be very high at all. Of course having mandatory line rental on MPF is what really makes the low broadband pricing viable.

So, £5 a month covers the broadband rental, the network infrastructure (including switches, firewalls, etc), the services (DNS, email - if available, etc), support and onward connectivity.

I can't remember how much an LLU rental was but I'm pretty sure just the line was higher than this not so long ago. I cannot believe at £5 a month there is any profit and I believe it would be subsidised by other areas of the business.

SCRATCH THAT - Apparently they are now selling one for £3.50 per month with first 6 months at £1.75. Clearly there must be a profit at that price?


EDIT: If this Openreach link is correct that full MPF rental is £83.92 per annum plus VAT. That is £8.39 inc VAT per line. Am I looking at the right page? If so, then surely any broadband service has to be more than that per line just to get anywhere near covering costs?

EDIT 2 : OK - I may have misunderstood the costs? Full MPF is much more than Shared MPF so does full MPF at £8.39 per month also include the voice line rental from Openreach? If so, then charging £15ish for voice plus £3.50 for broadband would give some leeway for other costs/profits. Anyone know if this is how it works?

Edited by ian72 (Mon 12-May-14 14:55:13)

The £8.39 per month is for both voice and DSL parts of the line.

The price rises in April have made MPF and SMPF much more equal in terms of price. Hence why Simply and other TalkTalk stuff went up in price recently.

That makes TalkTalk proposition more understandable to me then. Assuming that the amount of profit they make on voice is outweighing the costs of all the broadband infrastructure/support needed to sell at £3.50 per month.