Returning to UK - best setup?

Hi all,

I am returning to the UK after a couple of years abroad. The flat we are found is about 900m from the exchange, which is not FTTC enabled, and although in a cable area Virgin say the address is not covered.

I was really hoping to take a virgin bundle but since that isn't possible I am looking at other options. Good quality internet is essential. When in the UK before I had a BT line with Be broadband - but this was before they were bought by O2 and did the hideous rebrand. Are they still the best option for reliable fast service?

They now offer a Be Landline which is a little cheaper than BT. Is it possible to use prefix dialler services like 18185 with this line? These are very convenient (we make a lot of international calls) and if it wasn't available I think I would pay the extra for a BT line rental.

Anything else I should be considering? I thought of a bundle with Sky but I am worried the internet will be [censored] (slow down at peak times etc.) and Freesat (which also wasn't available before we left) looks like it has everything we would need.

So looks like BT Landline (or Be landline if prefix supported) + Be (Value or unlimited depending on the speed I can get) + Freesat.

Is this sensible or any other suggestions?

The apatrment is a large development of several new build apartment blocks (2006 I think) about 900m from the exchange. So I was hoping for 10Mbps+ but I am not sure if this is realistic.

Line prefixes will not work with the WLR service I believe - time to be proved wrong he hopes.

Sky generally has a much better backhaul network than Be at present, and a very good peak time performance, plus reasonable call bundles.

900m - all depends on actual route to your flat. Might be 1000m or might be 2500m.

Talk Talk are doing some good bundles such as Phone, Broadband TV with Sports Channels all for £54 per month.

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

Anything else I should be considering? I thought of a bundle with Sky but I am worried the internet will be [censored] (slow down at peak times etc.) and Freesat (which also wasn't available before we left) looks like it has everything we would need.

Sky have a commitment nowadays that they will not slow you down during peak times. This means the service never slows down. It is 24/7 full speeds. Nothing is throttled or held back either. There is no traffic management and no fair use. This means that even torrents go at full wack and you can download Terrabytes a month.

Sky delayed launching their fibre broadband service. They meanwhile upgraded their backhaul massively over the last few years. This now means Sky can deliver 80Mbps broadband and even this DOES NOT slow down during peak times. I see 9Mb/s downloads at peak hours.

Sky are now ready at the exchanges in terms of backhaul so that as soon as infinity becomes available Sky can provide almost straight away. So your exchange will have no doubt already been upgraded in terms of backhaul in anticipation.

The fibre broadband runs on the same backhaul as the standard ADSL broadband. So if those on fibre can get 80Mbps 24/7 you can EASILY pull 20Mbps on their ADSL broadband no problems.

As long as it's their LLU broadband at 7.50 a month it will not slow down. Do not worry. Also BE at the moment are having lots of issues in terms of backhaul and routing to certain sites. I would not recommend. They are definitely overrated nowadays because they once were really good.

Telefonica (the parent company of BE) are not offering fibre services. Ask yourself why? They don't have the back haul to deliver speeds that fast without major slowdowns for everyone. Not only this they are starving the network of investment because they don't have the capital to carry out upgrades. Their financial position isn't great and it's beginning to show. They are becoming akin to virginmedia in terms of running the network into the ground before sorting anything out.

Sum up: go with Sky.

Sky purchased the easynet network which already had sheer backhaul and have built upon it massively. They are doing a good job with it and they have their eggs in so many baskets it doesn't matter if they make a loss on Broadband as they recoup it with calls or TV. Hence it's so cheap.

EDIT: The router they provide is good too. It is the most stable thing I've ever seen in my life. I often have 15+ devices connected as I've got a big household. It has still sustained over 3000 hours of uptime that's 125 days. Even then it didn't crash, I turned it off. It also handles 75Mbps fine on the wifi side of things so you would easily see full speeds on wifi on an ADSL 2+ connection with them.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Fri 14-Sep-12 00:46:18)

Sky won't slow you down, but activities of other users might, and they cannot predict this to 100% accuracy and always have more capacity available.

In areas where slow downs do occur they do increase capacity. Takes around a month or two. It's rare though.

I was in an area with slow downs & sky gave me an estimated fix date etc.

Worth noting that BT offers a decent discount on line rental if you pay one year in advance.

OP Here,

Thanks for the thorough information. It seems things have changed quite a bit since I last looked thoroughly - I will definitely have a look at Sky (although will have to keep it from the missus or find some other excuse for only have free sat as I don't want to pay 20 extra a month!)

OP again, found my old account!

Does a Sky line allow 18185 type prefixes?

So I found they do not allow 18185 and other indirect access codes.

Next question - is it possible to get a Sky bundle (TV, Internet) but keep a BT line? The BT line rental doesn't seem to be much more than Sky and the convenience of 18185 (not having to look up special numbers for international mobiles and most international calls are outside Sky's 20 countries included in the calling package).