Fibre broadband, Views and opinions please

My list.

BT infinity 2 £26 inc VAT

Unlimited, sort of.
up to 76Mb download speeds
up to 19Mb upload speeds.
Free connection
P2P traffic shaping.


Plusnet Extra fibre £20 inc VAT
250GB download
Super-fast speeds up to 76Mb
Upload speeds up to 19.5Mb
£50 connection ok
P2P traffic shaping



Merula fibre Pro £30inc VAT
up to 40M download speeds
up to 2M upload speeds
100GB Guideline usage
£100 connection
No P2P traffic shaping


Xilo Fibre+ £29.99 inc VAT
50GB download
80Mb/20Mb - 50GB Peak / UM Off-peak-
£100 Connection
No P2P traffic shaping

What is your opinions on the fibre providers I have selected above. Good or bad.
That�s my short list but does not mean they are all suitable.

BT says I can get 50.7 down and 10.9 up. Market 3 exchange and download upto 100GB month. I do use P2P, i player and youtube, streaming.

£100 connection is a ridiculous price when it used to be £50 in ADSL days.

Also would like to know who is better out of PlusNet VS BT infinity for service, speed and P2P download.

Are Merula and goscomb good� isp�s? Thanks

A good router to buy so can use on any fibre service?

Edited by deleted (Wed 07-Nov-12 19:56:59)

What about EE and Sky?

Sorry should of said. Sky, EE are out of the question as you have to have your phone line/rental with them.

I have BT line rental saver and and want to keep my phone with BT. Thats why PlusNet would charge me 50 quid for connetion as well.

Edited by deleted (Wed 07-Nov-12 19:54:51)

Like you i made a list and talked to my closest mates, i was happy to wait for sky to enable us but after a while all the posts about the speed problems started to worry me so at the recommendation of my best mate i went with bt and apart from the upload being nowhere near the estimate (est is 20 but im only getting 12 at last speed check) ive been very happy with it. had it 7 days and already downloaded 200gig (kid in the sweet store ) the hh3 hasnt missed a beat either but its good to know that i can use my own router if i choose to (again unlike sky)

Yes they slow torrents to <BEEP> but ive spent the last 3 years on 3.5 meg so am very used to just letting it run over night and once the throttleing comes off at night it flys and pings have been good at around 16 to 30ms depending on game/server.

Iplayer works ok, not great but ok, i have had a few stutters when watching hd content but ive been advised it could just be contention (is that the word?) on their servers and not bt.

Plusnet i looked at but i didnt like the idea of a limit, the others i never looked at as my three where bt, sky and plusnet

Anyways thats my 2p's worth.

Edited by omnius (Wed 07-Nov-12 20:02:43)

BT says .... Market 3 exchange and download upto 100GB month.

Where does that 100GB pm come from? It's garbage. BT require you to have your phone line rental and a call package with them. The helpline normally takes you to India, though occasionally you get someone in the UK. Reports of the usefulness of the Indian centre are mixed, tending to poor.

Plusnet is 250GB 8am to midnight, unlimited midnight to 8am. If you move your phone to them as well then the £50 connection charge is waived.

Plusnet P2P throttling is 8pm-10pm only, and the throttling is to 2Mbps. Streaming is not throttled. The basic helpline is good but limited, as you'd expect. More complex problems are well handled on the PN Community forum and here, with very active very good reps around.

Are those the current Merula product and price details off their website, or from something like the Orly/yarwell spreadsheet? I find it hard to believe there isn't an 80/20 product.

Xilo/uno - good reputation, small ISP with hands-on by the boss who visits here a lot.

Goscomb - IIRC quite a few people like them. We don't hear much.

I'd go for Plusnet if I were you. If you decide you want to get out then it is only £6 per outstanding month, not the full £20, but I doubt if you would wish to. They supply a Netgear TG582N router which is fine except the wireless isn't too brilliant and it only has three LAN ports. I continue using my Buffalo WHR-G300NV2 that I got for use on IDNet FTTC, as it's wireless is far better, but don't get the gig-LAN version. If you want that, look for something else.
_{Edit - changed Buffalo link to a cheaper offer.}

Edited by RobertoS (Wed 07-Nov-12 22:51:49)

Thanks. How slow is it with BT for torrents? as I seem to find conflicting advice. Is it as bad as this? http://community.bt.com/t5/BT-Infinity/bittorent-tho...

Just seen this video and don't give you confidence. That is bad and not even a torrent. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8MNAlwgqr4

Edited by deleted (Wed 07-Nov-12 20:15:37)

Roberto that may of been the way I put it. The 100GB is my download max, not BT's Lol.

Yes merula prices are current, see here http://www.merula.net/broadband/
http://www.merula.net/broadband/fibre.php

How much are the routers on plusnet to buy outright? Am I correct in thinking that, you can't use plusnet routers on another service?

Edited by deleted (Wed 07-Nov-12 20:22:30)

In reply to a post by superspeed:

Thanks. How slow is it with BT for torrents? as I seem to find conflicting advice. Is it as bad as this? http://community.bt.com/t5/BT-Infinity/bittorent-tho...

Just seen this video and don't give you confidence. That is bad and not even a torrent. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8MNAlwgqr4

My speed was reported by vuze as 3.4mb yesterday while downloading 6 torrents however it has been lower, right now im downloading at 85kB/s (one torrent), upload seems capped at 15kB/s. during the night the log shows that the downloads go much faster but the upload didnt change

as for the video isnt that adsl not vdsl?

The PN router is free, (£4.99 postage), so long as you stay 12 months. (Not the 18-month FTTC term). I think the price if you leave within the 12 months is £40, but you can probably check that as quickly as I can.

I beliieve it is locked down, but can be flashed with generic fw.

I seriously recommend the Buffalo. Silly price and nothing wrong with it. The price showing at the moment is higher than usual. Mine was £26.

Torrents usually full speed

till about 8pm-11pm where i get around 1-2Mbps which tbh isnt that much of a big deal as i'm working then.