Looking to move to fibre or cable - where next?

We are currently on BT for phone and Sky (ex-o2) ADSL for Broadband.

We don't want to give the Murdoch empire any more hard earned cash, so looking at other options.

I've got a shortlist of:

BT - Attracted by the Reward Card and TopCashBack incentives, free BT Sport for 12 months and the free Home Hub, but concerned about the Indian call centres if anything goes wrong.

Zen - Ex-customer of theirs so know what I would be getting, but some concerns they might not be as good as they used to be

Pulse8 - Amazingly responsive to me email questions. Slight concerns about TTW, but this is more about the £72 cost of restablishing a BT line sjould we ever want to go back to BT. i believe the TTW Braodband service is pretty rock solid and probably better than BTs.

Aquiss or Uno - Very good reviews on ISP Review. Slight concern with Uno's capped pacakages as I have no idea what our current usage is. No response from Uno to my out of office hours email yet.

Virgin Media - Never really been that motivated about VM, but my son has used them at Uni and I have work colleagues that rate them.

I would welcome your thoughts and experiences with any of the above.


As an aside, I'm not really a big fan of the larger players discounting prices for the first year. At leaxt VM are fairly overt about it, ny BT suck you into thinking the 2nd year costs are the struck out figures on their ads and hide their real figures in a link to a tariff guide.

Is it just me that tyhinks all ISPs should be forced to be just offer a standard undiscounted prices?

Funnily enough Sky Fibre is currently free http://www.sky.com/shop/broadband-talk/fibre-optic/?...

The 25GB usage is free, the £10 per month unlimited 38Mbits package is very good value at £10 per month

Edited by deleted (Sun 04-Sep-16 12:59:31)

In reply to a post by jaydub:

BT - Attracted by the Reward Card and TopCashBack incentives

For me the former was no problem, The latter was bad, I waited 3 months to be told I didn't qualify for both whilst all of my friends were getting their payouts from Quidco - my one and only time I have ever used TCB and never will again.

Just look at quidco as well, pays to shop around.

I'm currently dealing with BT over a evening slowdown. Makes me want to pull my teeth to be honest. BT should have an engineer arrangement button on the customer section. All the call centre does is "turn it off and on" "come off wireless" "send out an engineer"

I plan to move as soon as I can ( end of contract, price rise or bad speeds) You don't know an ISP's worth until the day comes you need them.

Stark contrast. BT £48,99
AAISP £45 - a million times better by all accounts.

What are the BT and AAISP products you quote at the end there? And ADSL2 or FTTC or FTTP?

Sorry for being vague.

Well, I pay £48,99 for BT which is £30 Infinity 2 and line rental of £18,99

AAISP's 1TB Home package I believe is (and I got this wrong) £50 a month to me (also FTTC). I'd rather pay the small extra and experience AA when I need them. I sit in their chat most days and I can see the quality of service.

Yes BT is unlimited and in the past believe when I've used it - but I am not getting on in life and can't be bothered with unlimited anymore when the price you pay is sacrifice of service. I'd much rather get limited to an initial 1TB limit and then know they will sort things if they go wrong.

I think I am right anyway, I've been watching for a few months now.

Edited by deleted (Sun 04-Sep-16 16:23:29)

And the line cost?

You're right to be wary of BT's call centre, but for me the savings are too big to dismiss. 55/10 is 12.50 per month (+19 line rental) with £100 cash back from BT and about the same again from somewhere like topcashback.

Add the fact that it's only a 12 month contract, the fact that there are normally retention deals towards the end of the 12 months and the decent router makes it hard to beat.

AA is £50 and the line rental is in that.

Edit: Oh bugga no it's not it's £60 a month with £10 for the copper pair.

However the argument is valid that the tools and support make it worth it.

When I did a dummy order I was not given the option for the copper pair.

Edited by deleted (Sun 04-Sep-16 16:41:03)

I expect you do know it doesn't have a phone service on the line? Pointing it out just in case. You can have VOIP on it but that costs.

I pay £14 to Pulse8broadband for my line, which is £13 rental + £1 caller display. 1571 is included. Call costs are peanuts. And I kept my 44-year old number LOL.