Nor is it unique to the IT industry.

In reply to a post by philippercival:

To be fair it is not just Microsoft who does this.

I agree,, Apple is no better. Saying that internet providers are the same as well. a few years back you could just get a internet connection, at first being dial up and then Broadband. you just had your phone line, and internet connection.
Now, yo try and get a internet connection only from a provider and you will find it is difficult. Most want you to rent the phone line from them, in fact they insist on it. they also put a load of rubbish in with your connection .

Look at BT for a start, you will have our router, if you use it or not is a different thing, but you will still pay for it.
Oh we will give you some free online storage, which is not really free as we put the price up of your line rental.
some smart phone App to do with something called smart talk and lets not forget the fantastic free Wi-fi, which I expect 2% of their customer use. Oh yes, and their so called BT sports, whic is 99.9% football, so they may as welll call it BT football.
Then they will try and get you to spend more by offering their TV service.

Tall Talk is not much better, again you need to take their line rental out to be able to get their broadband. then we got their Talk Talk TV. they also got some smart phone app so you can answer your home phone anywhere you want. why would i want to do that? i have a mobile phone, if I am not home, then they can phone the mobile. If it is not urgent then it can wait until I get home. Also do not forget about their router, which again you have to pay for, even if you do not want it.

Sky is slightly better, they just more or less offer broadband, but you still need their phone lien and you got to pay for their router, and have little choice not to use it with them. i know they have Sky TV, but at least they do not bug you if you choose not to have it.

The only one of the larger providers that allow you to have broadband only and choose your own line rental is Plusnet. , but that belongs to BT.

What happened to the days when we just had a internet connection and that was it? All this triple and quad play I do not want it.

I have to confess I have my phone and broadband through Plusnet. They did supply a router though I am am still using it. (Another was ISP supplied on my second line, which I have since ceased.)

Back in the good old days I had a really slow connection, well everyone did, with a modem, then I progressed to ISND2. The good thing was I was able to dial in through lots of different companies, eg Freeserve, Tesco, Namesco etc depending on who was giving the best deal and working best at the time.

I found the modem in a box the other day (pre ISDN one) and nearly threw it away as I realised that I can no longer connect it to any of my computers as they do not have com ports. I suppose I should throw it away, but maybe the Spectrum in the attic still works, though I don't have an old style tv to act as the display - Times change.

I am looking at plusnet to be honest, only because they seem to offer the least and have nothing to keep nagging me to pay more for.
I have still got an old US Robotics courier modem, I doubt it will ever be used again.

I know things change, but not always for the best.

Which product(s) on Plusnet James, and how long a minimum term?

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Which product(s) on Plusnet James, and how long a minimum term?

James?

It would be unlimited fibre and it is a 18 month contract, which is a bit annoying, I would prefer 12 months.

Not sure which way to go about this to be honest, either cancel my old provider now and go for Plusnet right away, or wait and get plusnet in the next couple of weeks.

I do not want to have too much of a cross over, wasting money and I do not really want to be without the net.

Money is the problem at the moment as from now on I will be on SSP for a couple of months and then got to apply for ESA or what ever it is called for another couple of months until I get back to work. I do have some money saved up, it is a good job I did.

As for IE, for some reason it stopped working on windows 10.

Ummm.

Plusnet do seem to be having niggling problems with FTTC at the moment. I have a feeling the frequent capacity increases have been stopped by the recently appointed CEO from BT .

It's still good enough to keep me, and you should be OK joining, but I have stopped claiming it is near-perfect on performance. Customer numbers now look to exceed 810k. 802k physically connected at the moment but not much traffic.

On the other hand, the capacity question could very well be BT Wholesale that has stopped adding exchange backhaul as readily. That has been talked about a fair bit since late last year.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Ummm.

Plusnet do seem to be having niggling problems with FTTC at the moment. I have a feeling the frequent capacity increases have been stopped by the recently appointed CEO from BT .

It's still good enough to keep me, and you should be OK joining, but I have stopped claiming it is near-perfect on performance. Customer numbers now look to exceed 810k. 802k physically connected at the moment but not much traffic.

On the other hand, the capacity question could very well be BT Wholesale that has stopped adding exchange backhaul as readily. That has been talked about a fair bit since late last year.

Well i sent a email to cancel my provider yeatserday, i still have not got a email back mind you. but if i do not want to be without the net I have to think who I am going to with.
little choice to be honest.

Well i sent a email to cancel my provider yeatserday

Did you actually request to cancel? Are you planning to migrate to the new provider? If you have asked to cancel without using migration route then you may find you get charged and lose the Internet for a period of weeks whilst the cancel goes through and then the reordering.

He's on a local wireless provider, not landline.