I need an alternative to Virgin Media for fast Broadband &T

I need an alternative to Virgin Media for fast Broadband &T

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AC43

Original Poster:

11,436 posts

207 months

Monday 13th June 2016
quotequote all
Hi all about move house and I can't get Virgin Media at the new place *sigh*.

So I'm looking for another way to get (very) fast broadband and (basic) TV package

SSE, Plusnet and BT are offering 76Mb/s

So I could either

(1) get one of them + Sky for the TV package

OR

(2) go for BT for everything.

Any advice from those who have recently taken one of these options?

Thanks in advance

maccas99

1,697 posts

187 months

Monday 13th June 2016
quotequote all
I'm with Plusnet for internet and phone and I get an 80mbps connection. They get my vote, not had any problems and service is rock solid. Something to factor in is all the support for Plusnet is onshore with the majority of BT/Sky offshore...

AC43

Original Poster:

11,436 posts

207 months

Monday 13th June 2016
quotequote all
maccas99 said:
I'm with Plusnet for internet and phone and I get an 80mbps connection. They get my vote, not had any problems and service is rock solid. Something to factor in is all the support for Plusnet is onshore with the majority of BT/Sky offshore...
Interesting; onshore support is attractive.

I could do them + Sky.

Thanks.

(although I bet they use BT fibre under the covers and will call Outreach to bollx up the install......tell me I'm wrong.....)

maccas99

1,697 posts

187 months

Monday 13th June 2016
quotequote all
AC43 said:
Interesting; onshore support is attractive.

I could do them + Sky.

Thanks.

(although I bet they use BT fibre under the covers and will call Outreach to bollx up the install......tell me I'm wrong.....)
If you rely on a BT phone line for internet, then there is no alternative. Openreach will take care of everything from the moment the cable leaves your premises to the cabinet and beyond.

ashleyman

6,963 posts

98 months

Monday 13th June 2016
quotequote all
I would recommend PlusNet. I think it's the only provider that offers decent upload speeds and it really does make a difference to connections. Their support is also quite good and if you're not a dummy then there's a community forum where people are very helpful with errors.

AC43

Original Poster:

11,436 posts

207 months

Monday 13th June 2016
quotequote all
maccas99 said:
AC43 said:
Interesting; onshore support is attractive.

I could do them + Sky.

Thanks.

(although I bet they use BT fibre under the covers and will call Outreach to bollx up the install......tell me I'm wrong.....)
If you rely on a BT phone line for internet, then there is no alternative. Openreach will take care of everything from the moment the cable leaves your premises to the cabinet and beyond.
Oh God. Every house move bar in the last 10 years (and there have been a few) have involved awful customer service and cock ups from BT and/or Openreach........the only smooth one was Virgin.

It gets worse - when I try to click through on deals from Plus or for BT Infinity the original "congrats you're covered" becomes "sorry you're not".......so looks like neither Virgin nor BT cable is available (!!).

Struggling to comprehend how this is possible in NW2 in 2016.

Sound like I need to make some calls.

Not sure my household can funcion on 10Mb/s........gulp

Cybertronian

1,516 posts

162 months

Monday 13th June 2016
quotequote all
AC43 said:
Oh God. Every house move bar in the last 10 years (and there have been a few) have involved awful customer service and cock ups from BT and/or Openreach........the only smooth one was Virgin.
This.

Moved house a couple of months ago and was due to have Sky's fibre offering up and running (half the price of Virgin).

Informed Sky, who should have also informed Openreach that I had no physical line from the house to the telegraph pole. Openreach engineer arrives and appears surprised we didn't have a line from the house to the pole - either he didn't check his notes, or he had no notes because Sky hadn't told him. Informs us that the pole we needed to hook up to was of the metal variety, which meant he wasn't able to scale it without the use of a cherry picker and that would require a further 2 to 3 weeks to arrange and obtain!

Cancelled the order entirely and booked in with Virgin. Sadly, earliest they could get to me was in 2 weeks. They were scheduled to turn up between 8am and 12pm if I recall and were on the scene at around 08:05 and done within an hour or so. 50meg onnection is plenty fast for my needs (was on 11meg ADSL at previous property) and the supplied router is the best freebie example I've had without splashing out on something myself.

AC43

Original Poster:

11,436 posts

207 months

Monday 13th June 2016
quotequote all
Cybertronian said:
Informed Sky, who should have also informed Openreach that I had no physical line from the house to the telegraph pole. Openreach engineer arrives and appears surprised we didn't have a line from the house to the pole - either he didn't check his notes, or he had no notes because Sky hadn't told him. Informs us that the pole we needed to hook up to was of the metal variety, which meant he wasn't able to scale it without the use of a cherry picker and that would require a further 2 to 3 weeks to arrange and obtain!

Cancelled the order entirely and booked in with Virgin. Sadly, earliest they could get to me was in 2 weeks. They were scheduled to turn up between 8am and 12pm if I recall and were on the scene at around 08:05 and done within an hour or so. 50meg onnection is plenty fast for my needs (was on 11meg ADSL at previous property) and the supplied router is the best freebie example I've had without splashing out on something myself.
My most recent experience with Openreach was when the guy turned up very late on a cold, wet and windy December 23rd. Firstly his "equipment wasn't working properly". Then he "needed his colleague to help". Then "he had the wrong ladder". Finally it became "too dark". I was left with no TV and no broadband for 10 days over Christmas and New Year.

Merry Christmas. Not.

tr7v8

7,186 posts

227 months

Monday 13th June 2016
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Zen end of.

FlossyThePig

4,083 posts

242 months

Monday 13th June 2016
quotequote all
Unless you are on Virgin Cable all the rest get to you via BT (unless you live in Kingston upon Hull)

Interesting article about the trials and tribulations of a smaller ISP (A&A) and BT in the latest issue of PC Pro, available in Smiths, etc. on Thursday.

colin_p

4,503 posts

211 months

Monday 13th June 2016
quotequote all
I don't envy you.

Virgin have their moments but if something goes wrong it doesn't cost you a penny. Contrast this with any of the providers who use BTs network. I left sky after about 20 years over this where a fault occured on the phoneline with it becoming noisey after they had done and it was established that something had been upgraded in the exchange.

The conversation with them went along the lines of "Well, it probably isn't anything to do with us, we can send an engineer but of it turns out it is something wrong with your equipment we will charge £250 (or some stupid sum)".

That was enough for me. With sky, 'my' equipment is actually equipment they supply but you are responsible for, I think after one year, so I wasn't going to take this risk.

With Virgin, phone them say its broke, they either fix it off site, usually very quickly or do send an engineer but the best bit is it you don't pay. I seem to remember sky were trying to flog some kind of insurance when I was with them at about £10 a month.

Whenever anyone does a price comparson between sky and Virgin, that £10 a month needs to be factored in for it to be a like for like comparson.

The only downside is no sky atlantic but that is a small price to pay.

AC43

Original Poster:

11,436 posts

207 months

Monday 13th June 2016
quotequote all
colin_p said:
I don't envy you.
That statement makes me feel slightly ill

colin_p said:
Virgin have their moments but if something goes wrong it doesn't cost you a penny.
Yup totally agree. They've moved one of the installs for free. Replaced a remote control. Also free. Replaced at least one modem. Free.

colin_p said:
Contrast this with any of the providers who use BTs network. I left sky after about 20 years over this where a fault occured on the phoneline with it becoming noisey after they had done and it was established that something had been upgraded in the exchange.
Oh God. BT. Noisy lines. I'd forgotten about that issue from many many years ago. I'm felling nauseous now.

colin_p said:
With Virgin, phone them say its broke, they either fix it off site, usually very quickly or do send an engineer but the best bit is it you don't pay.
Yes, fantastic customer-centric ethos. Makes people like me hugely loyal.

colin_p said:
The only downside is no sky atlantic but that is a small price to pay.
That doesn't bother me. Not really interested in Sky content.

fking dreading the reaming I'm about to get from fricking BT/Openreach.

Also for "up to 20Mb/s"......


colin_p

4,503 posts

211 months

Monday 13th June 2016
quotequote all
AC43,

I really feel your pain. Have you considered, well, err, not moving house boxedin

Edited by colin_p on Monday 13th June 22:45

AC43

Original Poster:

11,436 posts

207 months

Tuesday 14th June 2016
quotequote all
colin_p said:
AC43,

I really feel your pain. Have you considered, well, err, not moving house boxedin

Edited by colin_p on Monday 13th June 22:45
Ha ha - too late for that now!

I bumped into one of the dads from my daughter's school today who confirmed the worst. He's an Openreach engineer who knows the area and he told me that the cabinet that serves my street is not fibred up. And God knows when it will be.

All is not lost, though. The new plan is get basic broadband from Plusnet (10-2Mb). I'll sack off Sky (as it's only a platform to me I don't need it) and get a couple of Freesat boxes. The money that I save on cheesey Sky can them go on a couple of EE SIMS for me and the OH on which I can get 4G, Double 4G or 4G+.

That way, if the Plusnet broadband is struggling at times we can just hotspot through the phones.

And then at some point in the future I'll get the option of going fibre.









born2bslow

1,674 posts

133 months

Friday 17th June 2016
quotequote all
We moved last year, after 16 years of Virginmedia I was gutted to learn it's not available in our area, although it is nearby so I'm bombing cablemystreet regularly. We chose Sky broadband and phone. Similar to others the phone line sucks, constant crackling makes it difficult to hear people a lot of the time. Recently we finally got a BT engineer out, who told us sky had to do a lift and shift to sort the issue. Sky have simply refused and are going through a whole ream of tests (again) to try and fix it. We even shelled out for new phones to make sure they weren't the problem, because of the threat of a bill regarding faulty equipment.

Internet is utter dog st after years of fibre, FTC but the cabinet where the fibre ends is over a mile away. Ironically there are Virgin fibre cabinets at the end of our road less than 500m away, so close yet so far.

We've been in 12 months and finally got them to send us a new router, the previous 2 had been refurbs and were pieces of st in new shiny boxes (common practice according to the BT engineer). Finally, got a stable connection but it's slower than a turd sliding down the leg of some slim fit jeans...if the kids are streaming video either YouTube or on the fire stick, I can forget online gaming...I thought i'd prepared myself knowing I'd be disappointed, but the reality is such a huge shock and frustration. First world problems I realise, but so annoying.

I understand BT are protected in their stty service because Virgin can't serve new developments for up to 5 years in some areas. Great work BT...out fking standing

mph1977

12,467 posts

167 months

Friday 17th June 2016
quotequote all
born2bslow said:
<snip>

I understand BT are protected in their stty service because Virgin can't serve new developments for up to 5 years in some areas. Great work BT...out fking standing
got a cite for that , or is it perhaps just that virgin haven;t been able to afford to maintain and u8pgrade their existing inherited plant until recently never mind do substantial expansion ...

ashleyman

6,963 posts

98 months

Friday 17th June 2016
quotequote all
mph1977 said:
got a cite for that , or is it perhaps just that virgin haven;t been able to afford to maintain and u8pgrade their existing inherited plant until recently never mind do substantial expansion ...
Virgin man selling outside Tesco collared me the other day. I had a lovely chat about how I wish I could get Virgin but it simply wasn't available.

He tried to prove me wrong and did some checks on his little iPad system and showed me that it would be impossible for at least another 2 years as my road was down as private and there was a contract on the lines that wasn't up for that time.

Only after the 2 years were passed would I have any chance of getting Virgin to my road as apparently someone has an exclusive contract with whoever owns the road. The owner of the road would be the council as it's just a regular street. That's all he could tell me but it was pretty fishy that it would never get considered yet.

AC43

Original Poster:

11,436 posts

207 months

Saturday 18th June 2016
quotequote all
born2bslow said:
We moved last year, after 16 years of Virginmedia I was gutted to learn it's not available in our area, although it is nearby so I'm bombing cablemystreet regularly. We chose Sky broadband and phone. Similar to others the phone line sucks, constant crackling makes it difficult to hear people a lot of the time. Recently we finally got a BT engineer out, who told us sky had to do a lift and shift to sort the issue. Sky have simply refused and are going through a whole ream of tests (again) to try and fix it. We even shelled out for new phones to make sure they weren't the problem, because of the threat of a bill regarding faulty equipment.

Internet is utter dog st after years of fibre, FTC but the cabinet where the fibre ends is over a mile away. Ironically there are Virgin fibre cabinets at the end of our road less than 500m away, so close yet so far.

We've been in 12 months and finally got them to send us a new router, the previous 2 had been refurbs and were pieces of st in new shiny boxes (common practice according to the BT engineer). Finally, got a stable connection but it's slower than a turd sliding down the leg of some slim fit jeans...if the kids are streaming video either YouTube or on the fire stick, I can forget online gaming...I thought i'd prepared myself knowing I'd be disappointed, but the reality is such a huge shock and frustration. First world problems I realise, but so annoying.

I understand BT are protected in their stty service because Virgin can't serve new developments for up to 5 years in some areas. Great work BT...out fking standing
Groan. I was planning to encourage the kids to use Chomecasting on the main TV
To make up yhd gap in TV content when I go Free sat. Maybe not........

AC43

Original Poster:

11,436 posts

207 months

Saturday 18th June 2016
quotequote all
AAAAAAAARGH!

At someone else's place I've just tried the Plusnet service that I'm going to have.

Firstly I couldn't get Spotify to stream unless I went down to the very basic quality setting. Not a good sign.

This place is a rental so I I was guessing maybe 2 or 3Mb/s.

So then I fired up Ookla.

It took so long to fire up I though the Internet was broken.

And then the full horror dawned; this was 15.81 Mb/s. Pretty much the maximum I can ever expect.

I've just lost 95% of the internet.

AAAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!




Edited by AC43 on Saturday 18th June 20:02

All that jazz

7,632 posts

145 months

Saturday 18th June 2016
quotequote all
Anything involving BTs wet string will result in a whole pile of grief and heart ache. If you want even something vaguely reliable from BT you need to part with ££££ for a leased line from them. In short if you want a reliable internet connection for sensible monies, either get Virgin or don't move house if Virgin isn't available. Choosing Plusnet, Zen or any other of the resellers makes absolutely no difference to the end product. The only thing that's different is that they answer the phone in less than 30 mins and they talk nicely to you; it's still BTs wet string at the end of the day.