Switching from Virgin Media

Hello,

I'm currently a customer of Virgin Media. Even on the 100M service, my area is horribly congested and speeds, latency and packet loss are at unusable levels in the evening. My exchange is LSGRNW, and while it is configured for fibre it appears my location is Exchange Only, since fibre checkers show no fibre is possible. (I'm checking by address, since my phone number is a Virgin Media number--though there are BT sockets in the house from a prior occupant.)

What would the experts here advise me to do? After the Virgin experience, I'm really keen to get a stable, low-latency service (I do video chatting/conferencing and streaming video, but no gaming) that does not degrade in the evenings.

It looks like I have a lot of choices: 21CN BT, and Sky, TalkTalk, C&W, Be, Pipex, Tiscali and AOL LLUs.

And then a bunch of providers selling these services. Is there a big difference, say, between the smaller "premium" providers (ADSL24, AAISP, IDNet) and the big guys (BT, TalkTalk, Sky)?

Grateful for any suggestions!

Thanks

Plusnet.

Thanks, Roberto. Is there a particular reason to choose Plusnet? It does seem like they have good value products, but I wonder if providers like A&A, ADSL24, Xilo or Vivaciti are worth considering--though they look to be 15 to 20 pounds a month more expense. They seem to promise an especially robust connection (lower latency, less congestion etc.). Is that just marketing? And ADSL24 offers the C&W LLU--is that any better?

In reply to a post by c1g1:

Thanks, Roberto. Is there a particular reason to choose Plusnet?

Roberto is a Plusnet selling machine. Nobody else on the forum has the time to keep up with his 24/7 Plusnet marketing.

A&A are a proper ISP albeit an expensive one. Xilo, Vivaciti and ADSL24 are not real ISPs but resellers who get referral payments to 'manage' your connection. This could be via ISPs Daisy or Entanet.

In my view, this a mature market nowadays and the best deals out there are from the big boys, BT, TT and SKY.

Edited by deleted (Sun 14-Apr-13 21:37:08)

In reply to a post by partial:

In reply to a post by c1g1:

Thanks, Roberto. Is there a particular reason to choose Plusnet?

Roberto is a Plusnet selling machine. Nobody else on the forum has the time to keep up with his 24/7 Plusnet marketing.

That's a bit off. RobertoS is simply recommending the ISP he is currently with, in the same way he would recommend the ISP's he used to be with. There's nothing wrong with basing a recommendation on experience, unlike your guesswork

That is an extremely insulting post regarding me from someone who has in the past clearly justified his nick. Who also seems to have developed a desire to try to turn people away from my recommendations. Which are not always Plusnet - but you probably ignore those.

Did I show you up as recommending something inappropriate to someone at some time? I'd be interested to know what I did to upset you, and in which post. IIRC I've asked you that before, but you didn't reply - maybe because people would then be able to see how justified or not each of us is.

To help the OP put your partiality in perspective,

Xilo, Vivaciti and ADSL24 are not real ISPs but resellers who get referral payments to 'manage' your connection. This could be via ISPs Daisy or Entanet

is simply tripe.

AAISP are indeed an excellent ISP, who also resell some LLU products, in exactly the same as those.

Daisy is not an ISP, it is a backhaul supplier. Entanet is a Business ISP and also wholesale supplier just like BT Wholesale, albeit most of their wholesale products are BT Wholesale based. They do not make "referral payments" to the ISPs that buy their products. All of those ISPs add many other services such as domain registration and hosting, web hosting, email services and so on.

They are all ISPs that I have recommended a lot in the past. At this point in time, the value for money of Plusnet products is incontrovertible, and the technical quality and service levels up with the best. That is why I choose to be with them, and recently to have renewed mid-term for a further 18 months.

BT, TT and Sky, as you say, have excellent deals. With drawbacks as well. No ISP is without those, including Plusnet.

I've just switched from BE to BT. I managed to get a deal where I will get around 20mbps download, unlimited usage - so no throttling/slowing down at all, unlimited evening and weekend calls for £11.10 a month + line rental.

BT definitely have some really decent deals around at the moment, and I'm in the same position as you. My telephone line is exchange only, but as soon as they figure out how to give fibre on E/O lines, then I can just directly upgrade to Infinity, even if I'm still in contract on ADSL2+

In reply to a post by c1g1:

Thanks, Roberto. Is there a particular reason to choose Plusnet? It does seem like they have good value products, but I wonder if providers like A&A, ADSL24, Xilo or Vivaciti are worth considering--though they look to be 15 to 20 pounds a month more expense. They seem to promise an especially robust connection (lower latency, less congestion etc.). Is that just marketing? And ADSL24 offers the C&W LLU--is that any better?

I think you've largely hit the nail on the head yourself there .

All the ISPs you mention there are in the top rank for quality. All get the occasional complaint, like any ISP, except A & A (AAISP) who very rarely do. I must admit I haven't looked into AAISP's recent Home::1 product, which looks to be a medium-usage cheaper offering. Their long-standing ones are very pricey unless you only use them outside daytime, and that explains why they are able to offer such a good service.

The others use combinations of BT Wholesale, O2 Wholesale, C & W and TalkTalk Wholesale, with overlapping and far from identical packages.

I'm not sure where you get the "more robust connection" from, nor the lower latency and less congestion. Two years ago I think you would have been correct, but with wholesale prices falling virtually all the well-known ISPs have upped their game hugely in that period. If you see any claims anywhere about 20:1 or 50:1 contention ratios, those went out with the ark. They refer to BT Wholesale products that are no longer sold.

I would say all of the ones that have been mentioned are viable choices.

BT Retail, Sky and TalkTalk get occasional geographic pockets of congestion, like your VM service. But it seems not as badly or as numerous/widespread as VM. Sky appear to be the quickest at upgrading where necessary once it occurs.

Plusnet have systems monitoring their loadings 24/7, for example see this page, and you will find this post by the Head of Products and Digital Care, when replying to a doubter about this description of Plusnet's traffic management system.

Throttling details.
Traffic management system.

Support differences between ISPs are a major factor. BT Retail in general have a poor reputation, Sky quite good. TalkTalk quite poor on the support lines but good support from their staff on their in-house forums.

Plusnet are currently having a bit of a bad spell with first-line support being slow to respond compared to in the past. The Plusnet internal systems have also grown in a somewhat haphazard way over the years and are rather cumbersome - which doesn't help first-line support .

On the Community forums members of the Digital Care team, (see Kelly's job title above), are present every weekday and often at weekends. They also visit these forums frequently but obviously not as much as there.

They are bright cookies and do have the power to kick things into action within Plusnet. (This sounds a bit like what reputedly happens at TalkTalk). If there is a problem with Openreach however they can get stuck. AAISP is the best at dealing with Openreach.

I would rate the support from AAISP; ADSL24; Xilo/uno and vivaciti as good. Of that type of ISP it's also worth looking at Aquiss. I would not go anywhere near UKFSN.

Thus spake the Plusnet Marketing machine . I still feel Plusnet are currently the place to be, and I have highlighted their strengths and weaknesses. There's quite a lot above for you to chew on. I'll leave you to form your opinion of my probity and judgement .

EE/Orange do Fibre and 21CN WBC, don�t go LLU that�s going backwards!

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/LSGRNW

https://broadband.ee.co.uk/home.do

If you are interested in faster upload then a provider able to offer an annex m product may be worth looking at. I know xilo offer this over products based on BE and TTB connections, as well as BE themselves.
Not sure if BE are recommended at the moment though with the uncertainties with the SKY takeover.

You would need to be close to the exchange to get much benefit, hard to assess if you don't have any line stats.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Daisy is not an ISP, it is a backhaul supplier.

Say what now?

In reply to a post by partial:

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Daisy is not an ISP, it is a backhaul supplier.

Say what now?

I'm not quite sure what that question means. It looks like it might be disputing my statement, but it also looks like gibberish. Or perhaps it's the latest street-cred-speak that I don't come into contact with.

Daisy are indeed a business ISP, with a wholesale side that was not in dispute, plus a slightly confusing website with what appear to be almost identical products "from £14.99" and "from £29.99". I haven't checked if those are including or excluding Vat.

I believe that the ISPs you accused of merely taking referral payments from them do not do so. Nor do I think they simply resell standard Daisy products, (plus extras as I pointed out before) in the same way as they resell standard Entanet products.

It doesn't really matter. The phrasing of your reply about them to the OP appeared to me to be designed with a purely denigratory aim based on some sort of partiality, in the same vein as your comment about me.

They are all good ISPs. Your views are not worthy of consideration by the OP.

"What!"