XILO or BE?

Im leaving freedom2surf due to the sudden lack of speed in the evenings and weekends. Im a gamer and use my PS3 for online gaming and the Playstation network. PS3 takes up to 40mins to download a simple update.

Ive heard alot about BE broadband and have noticed XILO in ISP Review as being top of their game.
Both ISPs packages appear to be good (apart from XILOs migration fee of £47.00.
XILO 16MB HOME @ £17.24
BE UNLIMITED @ £17.88 or £20.43 (3 month contract)

Which one should I go for?

I'd say us - but Be do some very good cash back deals.

Bob will be along soon to tell you about them

Edit: it is £17.61.. since the VAT increase as of 1 Jan 2010.

Matt

Edited by uno (Fri 09-Jul-10 17:56:58)

Thanks

Am I right in assuming both Be and XILO are LLU and therefore speeds should be the same regardless of which provider I go for?
According to www.kitz.co.uk, my Exchange has BE and C&W LLU.

Edited by hittyh (Sat 10-Jul-10 00:19:24)

Speeds will be pretty much level as both providers are 2+ but if you wanted to save your pennies - Have a look at QuidCo to see what cashback offers you get with Be.

Matt

In reply to a post by hittyh:

Am I right in assuming both Be and XILO are LLU and therefore speeds should be the same regardless of which provider I go for?
According to www.kitz.com, my Exchange has BE and C&W LLU.

Did I hear my name?

C & W LLU is quite possibly just as good as O2/Be, and is available at a lot more exchanges. However you may have missed a third candidate - O2 Premium.

From your point of view there are two major differences between Be Unlimited and O2 Premium.

First O2 is Interleaved only. Be Unlimited has optional Fast Path on request. The difference is about 11ms from what I see on these forums. O2 20-28ms, Be 9-17ms. Both are stable rather than all over the place.

Second, assuming full cashback as mentioned by Matt, the total first year cost of Be Unlimited is £174.56. O2 Premium is between £40 and £85.

Full price analysis and feature comparison documents produced by MKD.

In fairness to Matt, xilo/uno has little competition on C & W exchanges and O2/Be are absent. Where they are, then basically his major plus point is the reportedly excellent xilo/uno support.

Could I use a friends O2 mobile number, since I dont have one myself?

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

Could I use a friends O2 mobile number, since I dont have one myself?

Short answer - Yes.

Long answer, as long as he/she doesn't want to use it for O2 discount as well. A single mobile can only be associated with one broadband connection.

The address doesn't matter either.

Note that you don't need an O2 mobile associated with the broadband at sign-up time. In fact as you get 3 months free at the moment you don't need it until just before 3 months is up.

What you do need at sign-up time is a mobile of some sort, any network. That's because lots of texts come between sign-up and migration, telling you what is going on. Like router on its way, and the expected migration date.

It's also important when you associate the O2 mobile number with the broadband, either at sign-up or later, that you have rapid access to the confirmation code that is sent immediately to that number as a security check that you have something to do with that number. Otherwise anyone could quote any O2 mobile number they knew about. Or your friend replies to it for you.

the saving is £5*12 = £60

and the topup required is £10*4 = £40

so even if you got yourself an O2 PAYG phone you would still be saving £20 overall and have some topup credit

But a friend's will do fine aswell as mentioned

Im scared. Seems O2 support isnt that great according to reviews on ISPREVIEW:
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/review/products/614.html

but the price is pulling me in.
I need to move, but am caught between XILO with a Rolls Royce support level (according to ISPREVIEW) or O2's cheaper alternative.
Help me decide....pleeease.

How likely are you to need broadband help? Things go wrong far less than on BT-based systems.

Remember O2 help is also getting bad ratings because of the annoyance and frustrations of people on O2 Access. O2 LLU service and help seems fine, barring the silliness over Home Moves potentially losing LLU unnecessarily when moving on the same exchange.

In fact, following the link you give, of the 5 reports on the first page only the first, by Ambassador, clearly on Access, says anything bad. The second is glowing and the other three favourable overall.

Recently we have also gained several O2 reps on this forum, who seem to be doing an excellent job sorting out or speeding up the resolution of problems that normal support may be struggling with.

You could try it for 30 days risk-free anyway?