Which ISP as backup broadband

I'm on Virgin cable, which is fine some of the itme. But typically they have at least 1 week of faults per month that makes the broadband connection unusable. This is difficult for me as I do a lot of work from home. With all the money I'm getting back on refunds every time the cable is out, I can afford to put in an openreach line and get another connection. The question is who to go with. I can't get fibre optics where I am. The main requirement is reliability. Incredible speed isn't, as long as the line is just going to work. No big bandwidth requirements. I was looking at one of the IDNet packages, but after reading their sub-forum it seems they've really gone downhill. Any suggestions?

Edited by deleted (Tue 07-Aug-12 10:30:41)

Who's at the exchange?

BT Wholesale ADSL
BT Wholesale ADSL Max
BT Wholesale WBC (21CN)
BT Wholesale SDSL
AOL LLU
O2 / Be LLU
Bulldog LLU
TalkTalk (CPW) LLU
Sky Broadband / Easynet LLU
Tiscali LLU
Tiscali TV (via Tiscali LLU)
Virgin Media (Cable)

Well, there's enough choice and if you add a load-balancing router, you'll never notice any downtime.

As you do a lot of work from home look at a BT business broadband package.

For not a great deal extra you get UK based call centers, guarenteed service agreements and minimum downtime if something does go wrong.

A lot of people like to bash BT but in the last 5 years I went from BT to Sky to O2 back to BT and both Sky and O2 for me were poor compared to the product I got from BT.

At least with BT it works out of the box and I have never had to contact them about a fault.

But no matter who you choose eventually I would get a business service rather than rely on a residental one.

I have a TalkTalk line as backup the reason is simple the price .

Things you need to know about TalkTalk is telephone support is worthless , when dealing with TalkTalk its best to do it through there members forum .

TalkTalk default profile uses a 12db noise margin , this can be changed by posting a request on the members forum to a 6db noise margin if your line is good enough to support a 6db profile ( most are ).
If not bothered about speed leave on 12db as this will be rock solid unless your line develops a really bad fault and there is a good chance TalkTalk DLM will eventually tune your line to 6db anyway .

In my area i have not experienced congestion for a good few years and a line that was put in as backup and against many peoples opinions ( misconceptions mostly at the time , that unforgivably some still have ) has proved to be reliable and cheap but with shocking telephone support and support is not great in general but manageable through the members forum .

In my experience its been dirt cheap broadband that works , from a budget company with budget support , with most complaints being support related and the telephone support being the biggest culprit .

Other things to remember and this is a big one , is Talktalk take your line away from BT network , this is one of the reasons its so ridiculously cheap but can course problems if wanting to move back to BT network but truth being , if you want to move back to BT , BT retail will take the line back happily whilst signing you into a new contract .

You are sadly mistaken if you think Idnet have gone downhill. You should not take notice of one disgruntled complainer. Ident are still excellent and among the top providers of quality and service.

I find talktalk ok