Potential move imminent, but cant use VM....

[Turn7]

Our house move is edging ever closer to exchange.

Sadly we cant take our VM deal as they are not in the village.

The options are :

BT
Sky
TalkTalk


Which would you choose and why ?

Looking for rock solid Net access, TV , well, meh......Its nearly all available via a direct sub these days.

Ive been with VM since dialup, and whilst there CS isnt the best, the Net service has been very good.........

[Brainpox]

I never had a problem with BT, I only moved because they raised their prices too much.

Avoid Talktalk, they are cheap for a reason.

Around here Sky doesn't seem well set up, neighbours regularly lose connection even though we are theoretically all using the same cabling (I understand there is more to it than that though?). My parents are with Sky though and apart from the piss poor coverage of the wifi on the router they send out, it seems okay, although they are not heavy users. Your mileage may vary.

I would recommend Zen. As rock solid as you like and their customer service knows what they are talking about. No annual price rises either.

[normalbloke]

Have you not checked the speeds available to the property you’re moving to? Have you checked what’s available? Chances are, if no VM, you’re going to be supplied by the Openreach hardware, and be limited by what they offer.

[TEKNOPUG]

If it's not VM it will all be the same infrastructure leased from Openreach, so I wouldn't pay a premium unless you are getting improved bandwidth.

[Durzel]

As above.

BT, Sky and TalkTalk will all ultimately just be white labelling Openreach connectivity, so it comes down to your preference for addons and whatever you feel will be best for customer service (I suspect they aren’t radically different)

[jjones]

Brainpox said:

I would recommend Zen. As rock solid as you like and their customer service knows what they are talking about. No annual price rises either.

This.

[fishermanpaul]

Brainpox said:

Avoid Talktalk, they are cheap for a reason.

Seconded. I had the worst customer service experience with them I've ever had by a long way - and I've been an nPower customer before.

[Lucas Ayde]

BT aren't that great when you have problems either. You will get the runaround from the Indian callcentres and often get two different 'definitive' answers depending on who you speak to.

Also, a mate had a nightmare experience with them screwing up his order (took up a really decent deal for a BB package) and after they'd admitted they had 'lost' it and arranged a new install, they tried to charge him full price (not the original deal price he originally signed up for) on his first bill because they said the deal had expired between the original order and their re-booking and they couldn't give it to him. Took him weeks to resolve.

[babelfish]

I moved from a house where we had VM to the middle of nowhere 2 years ago.

Doing the online comparisons said max of 36Mb/s. I went with Sky as they were offering the best deal on an 18 month contract.

Renewed 6 months ago and they price matched the best deal I could get at the time.

Just did a speed test from server hardwired on the LAN and getting: "Download: 34.94 Mbit/s"

As said above all use the same infrastructure just go with the cheapest baring in mind any really bad customer service reviews.

Edited by babelfish on Sunday 14th February 02:50

[FunkyGibbon]

Turn7 said:

The options are :

BT
Sky
TalkTalk

There are other alternatives which you may wish to consider - 4G (or 5G) broadband. You can get some great unlimited data deals and you may get better download rates.

e.g. where I am when (if) openreach infrastructure worked the best I can get is 2Mb down and almost nothing up. (I live too far from green box and even further from exchange).

With Three I regularly get > 50Mb down and 35Mbit up. For £18/month.

Thread running here about the good and bad of mobile broadband:

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

[anonymoususer]

BT or Plusnet (BT Rebadged into budget supplier)
Only because its one step less to getting Open Reach out if you have an issue

[Mr Pointy]

anonymoususer said:

BT or Plusnet (BT Rebadged into budget supplier)
Only because its one step less to getting Open Reach out if you have an issue

How do you work that out? BT to Openreach is the same as Zen to Openreach & with Zen you don't have to flog through an Indian call center spouting a script at you.

[anonymoususer]

Mr Pointy said:

anonymoususer said:

BT or Plusnet (BT Rebadged into budget supplier)
Only because its one step less to getting Open Reach out if you have an issue

How do you work that out? BT to Openreach is the same as Zen to Openreach & with Zen you don't have to flog through an Indian call center spouting a script at you.

I am just stating stuff from experience.
If the OP goes to someone like Talk talk may the lord help him as they toss the issue back n forth.

[Sheets Tabuer]

Not sure who you should pick but I wouldn't touch talk talk with a barge pole, in fact if they were the only isp I'd do without internet.

[keith333]

We've been with Talk Talk for about 6-7 years and they have been absolutely fine. Pricing is competitive and the broadband service is reliable. Unlimited downloads is something working from home and having three teenagers we definitely need. Not sure if all providers do unlimited downloads or some have limits still?

The Broadband did go down last year due to the engineer accidentally disconnecting our cable at the cabinet, but this was probably an Openreach engineer than Talk Talk. I don't know for sure. We all switched to using our mobile phones to provide hotspots and it was resolved within two days.

[anonymoususer]

jjones said:

Brainpox said:

I would recommend Zen. As rock solid as you like and their customer service knows what they are talking about. No annual price rises either.

This.

One thing I do know about Zen is that at one point they were giving out a Fritzbox 7530
It is a great piece of kit. I only know this as I bought one a few months ago off someone and it was rock solid with good wifi too. It worked well with my Virgin hub in modem mode - you have to select one of the Lan ports to work as a Wan on the fritzbox
Only by looking up ZEN earlier this afternoon did I see they were using that router

Edited by anonymoususer on Sunday 14th February 18:49

[Turn7]

Hmmm, like the sounf of Zen, but I guess I need to check what deals are about, still need something for TV of some description.....

[anonymoususer]

Turn7 said:

Hmmm, like the sounf of Zen, but I guess I need to check what deals are about, still need something for TV of some description.....

Your TV is maybe a separate issue.
You can go down the Freeview route for which you need an aerial on the roof this gives you the basics plus a few HD Channels if your TV is full HD
If you can't have an aerial on the roof you can try a loft aerial
If you want more than the basics you could try a BT TV package*
If you can't have either you can try the freesat TV route for which you need a dishthis gives you the basics plus a few more channels than freeview
You can see what you get on freeview or freesat by googling either and seeing the channel list
If you want any premium stuff then your only options are going to be Sky/ BT TV etc*

• Both Sky and BT TV oprions you are more likely to get cheaper if you buy them all as a bundle with their broadfband offerings

[babelfish]

Turn7 said:

Hmmm, like the sounf of Zen, but I guess I need to check what deals are about, still need something for TV of some description.....

I live in a valley off the Wye valley. As stated above we are on 35Mb FTTC.

No mobile signal in the house, we use WiFi Calling, 3 seems to be the best for that.

We have FreeSat, we're happy with the channel selection.

Bandwidth is perfectly acceptable for Netflix, Amazon Prime etc.

and a small amount of IPTV

Edited by babelfish on Monday 15th February 03:14

[105.4]

BT: I couldn’t imagine a worse, more incompetent bunch of lying, deceitful charlatans if I tried. I’d rather use yogurt pots with string and smoke signals than ever use BT again. They are amongst the worst companies I’ve ever had the misfortune to experience.

TalkTalk: They’re cheap because their internet speeds are woeful at best.

SKY; I’ve never had a problem with them.