Best Broadband / TV supplier?
Discussion
I know this may have been done before, i'm currently in the process of moving house and trying to work out the best route to take.
In my current place I have BT internet and BT TV (pretty standard package with Now TV channels). At first the package worked out about £42 month but has now been hiked up to £50. I did an internet speed test this afternoon (download: 23mbps, upload: 17.5mbps). For my needs the internet is fine.
Current internet needs are using it for working from home which includes video calls / team meetings etc. (my partner also works from home at same times), streaming every now and then, general internet usage and some trading (nothing super high speed). TV: we've been getting by with fairly basic TV - our aerial is pretty s
t so can't even get some Freeview channels. We aren't after sky movies, sky sports or any of those expensive packages but it would be nice to have Discovery, Comedy Central if possible.
I was going to switch my package over to the new place and BT informed me that the location i'm moving to hasn't got fibre. BT can offer 8-16mbps download and will not be able to offer anything other than bog standard freeview and for £5.22/month I can have a BT box which lets me forward/rewind/pause/record. Internet £24.99/month. Sticking with BT is option 1.
Option 2: I called Zen internet who I believe are a good ISP. They claim on their site to be able to offer 10-17mbps download. Spoke with customer service and they said up to 19.5mbps for the place and they can offer better speed than BT due to lower contention ratio. Cost: £29.99/month and we'd have to Freeview it or sort something out separately.
Option 3: Virgin - I can pay £49/month and get Maxit TV package (honestly not bothered as better than what I have currently) and 362mbps. Or, I can pay £37.99/month and get the TV Mixit + drama & docs and M100 internet which is 108mbps average. Customer rep gave me a code to get £35 off installation fee. The problem is the contract is 18 months. If I move property after 12 months and new place won't let me get Virgin installed then i'm on the hook for 6 months service. There's a formula to work out how much I owe but worst case it's £240. The question is: How realistic are their internet speeds and given my needs - should I even care?
Option 4: Sky - They can't offer Fibre either and have said 14.1-19.6mbps download and guaranteed 10.5mbps. The new place has a satellite dish so I don't need to worry about getting that installed. I can get a fairly basic TV package (Sky TV signature) which has more channels than i'd watch. TV + internet = £35/month. Also on an 18 month contract but if I can't move across a satellite dish they'll waive it and only charge me for services I can use. There are a few startup costs but it's about £30 total I believe. I have checked Which? magazine and whilst the TV packages are good, the internet is not so great. Any experiences with Sky internet?
Ultimately, the option seems to be either go through the BT line which is fairly slow, or go with Virgin which is advertised as much faster.
Key questions:
- Would 10mbps still be sufficient for working from home / general surfing with 2 people using at same time?
- Is Virgin worth paying extra for their advertised high speed internet or not really necessary? Even the cheaper Virgin option is superior to anything else the others offer.
- Is Virgin cheaper package or Sky the no-brainer decisions or am I missing an alternative option?
Appreciate any advice / thoughts if you got this far
In my current place I have BT internet and BT TV (pretty standard package with Now TV channels). At first the package worked out about £42 month but has now been hiked up to £50. I did an internet speed test this afternoon (download: 23mbps, upload: 17.5mbps). For my needs the internet is fine.
Current internet needs are using it for working from home which includes video calls / team meetings etc. (my partner also works from home at same times), streaming every now and then, general internet usage and some trading (nothing super high speed). TV: we've been getting by with fairly basic TV - our aerial is pretty s
t so can't even get some Freeview channels. We aren't after sky movies, sky sports or any of those expensive packages but it would be nice to have Discovery, Comedy Central if possible. I was going to switch my package over to the new place and BT informed me that the location i'm moving to hasn't got fibre. BT can offer 8-16mbps download and will not be able to offer anything other than bog standard freeview and for £5.22/month I can have a BT box which lets me forward/rewind/pause/record. Internet £24.99/month. Sticking with BT is option 1.
Option 2: I called Zen internet who I believe are a good ISP. They claim on their site to be able to offer 10-17mbps download. Spoke with customer service and they said up to 19.5mbps for the place and they can offer better speed than BT due to lower contention ratio. Cost: £29.99/month and we'd have to Freeview it or sort something out separately.
Option 3: Virgin - I can pay £49/month and get Maxit TV package (honestly not bothered as better than what I have currently) and 362mbps. Or, I can pay £37.99/month and get the TV Mixit + drama & docs and M100 internet which is 108mbps average. Customer rep gave me a code to get £35 off installation fee. The problem is the contract is 18 months. If I move property after 12 months and new place won't let me get Virgin installed then i'm on the hook for 6 months service. There's a formula to work out how much I owe but worst case it's £240. The question is: How realistic are their internet speeds and given my needs - should I even care?
Option 4: Sky - They can't offer Fibre either and have said 14.1-19.6mbps download and guaranteed 10.5mbps. The new place has a satellite dish so I don't need to worry about getting that installed. I can get a fairly basic TV package (Sky TV signature) which has more channels than i'd watch. TV + internet = £35/month. Also on an 18 month contract but if I can't move across a satellite dish they'll waive it and only charge me for services I can use. There are a few startup costs but it's about £30 total I believe. I have checked Which? magazine and whilst the TV packages are good, the internet is not so great. Any experiences with Sky internet?
Ultimately, the option seems to be either go through the BT line which is fairly slow, or go with Virgin which is advertised as much faster.
Key questions:
- Would 10mbps still be sufficient for working from home / general surfing with 2 people using at same time?
- Is Virgin worth paying extra for their advertised high speed internet or not really necessary? Even the cheaper Virgin option is superior to anything else the others offer.
- Is Virgin cheaper package or Sky the no-brainer decisions or am I missing an alternative option?
Appreciate any advice / thoughts if you got this far
Edited by g4ry13 on Tuesday 18th May 18:21
I had 10mbs at my old house and it was fine for streaming, downloading, working etc. Never really had a problem. New house has 36mbs and never had a problem there either. I guess it depends on other factors such as whether you stream in HD, or Ultra HD, or just basic streaming. Is there any way to check what your typical usage is on the router? Dunno if that's possible or not.
You can also get the BT type Freeview TV recorder box if you need to buy one separately. Look for "You view" boxes, Curry's used to sell them (it's where I got mine), but you might only be able to buy them secondhand. Freeview plus might offer something similar though if your TV isn't 'smart' . The NowTV "TV" package can be obtained via an app if your TV is smart and newish though. I think we pay a tenner a month for those channels like sky one and discovery.
If you don't have fibre, but Virgin are offering those sort of speeds then I guess that is their cable network. Had that many years ago and it was great.
Dunno if any of that helps, or just adds to the confusion to be honest. Hopefully the former, but good luck with your search.
You can also get the BT type Freeview TV recorder box if you need to buy one separately. Look for "You view" boxes, Curry's used to sell them (it's where I got mine), but you might only be able to buy them secondhand. Freeview plus might offer something similar though if your TV isn't 'smart' . The NowTV "TV" package can be obtained via an app if your TV is smart and newish though. I think we pay a tenner a month for those channels like sky one and discovery.
If you don't have fibre, but Virgin are offering those sort of speeds then I guess that is their cable network. Had that many years ago and it was great.
Dunno if any of that helps, or just adds to the confusion to be honest. Hopefully the former, but good luck with your search.
Edited by Cloudy147 on Tuesday 18th May 20:03
Thanks for the replies to this.
RE: 30 day month rolling contract - yes it can be done. But I believe they only offer that for internet and not the TV packages. I don't think they do anything shorter than 18 months for the TV. There is obviously a bit of investment to have an engineer come around to install it and sending out equipment.
I think we're going to want a TV package along with our broadband which is pretty much going to narrow it down to Sky or Virgin.
For the last 2 and a bit years i've lived in places where the aerial was not good and I was unable to pick up a lot of Freeview channels or watch something without a 'signal unavailable' message being displayed multiple times.
Sky and Virgin are pretty comparable in price - £35/month (Sky) vs £38/month (Virgin) for the 108mbps internet speed. I need to go through the difference in TV packages but aside from the potential disconnection costs 12 months down the line, i'm thinking that Virgin is winning here.
RE: 30 day month rolling contract - yes it can be done. But I believe they only offer that for internet and not the TV packages. I don't think they do anything shorter than 18 months for the TV. There is obviously a bit of investment to have an engineer come around to install it and sending out equipment.
I think we're going to want a TV package along with our broadband which is pretty much going to narrow it down to Sky or Virgin.
For the last 2 and a bit years i've lived in places where the aerial was not good and I was unable to pick up a lot of Freeview channels or watch something without a 'signal unavailable' message being displayed multiple times.
Sky and Virgin are pretty comparable in price - £35/month (Sky) vs £38/month (Virgin) for the 108mbps internet speed. I need to go through the difference in TV packages but aside from the potential disconnection costs 12 months down the line, i'm thinking that Virgin is winning here.
BigRuts said:
Do you need a TV package? would you not be better off using your existing BT TV box for freeview services and getting one or other of the streaming services like netflix or disney+?
Freeview depends on having a decent aerial and at this point i'm not sure whether my new place will have a good one. Previously, I have used an indoor aerial to get around the poor aerial problem but in my current place that did not work well. I certainly don't need sky movies / sports and all the expensive add-ons. I think the BT box will be cut off if I don't continue with BT. If I went with the BT route i'm looking at £24.99 internet + £5.22 for the box.
I'm not a huge fan of Netflix, a lot of stuff which is poor and i'm not interested in. I assume 10mbps would be ok for using a streaming service?
g4ry13 said:
Freeview depends on having a decent aerial and at this point i'm not sure whether my new place will have a good one. Previously, I have used an indoor aerial to get around the poor aerial problem but in my current place that did not work well.
I certainly don't need sky movies / sports and all the expensive add-ons. I think the BT box will be cut off if I don't continue with BT. If I went with the BT route i'm looking at £24.99 internet + £5.22 for the box.
I'm not a huge fan of Netflix, a lot of stuff which is poor and i'm not interested in. I assume 10mbps would be ok for using a streaming service?
When we cancelled our BT package we kept all our equipment including the youview box which we are still using many years later. some of the streaming channels like gold were cut off but the recording features etc still work. You can source a new freeview aerial pretty cheaply and i'm sure a local handyman type would fit it for you if you didn't have a ladder or it wouldn't be good enough signal in the loft.I certainly don't need sky movies / sports and all the expensive add-ons. I think the BT box will be cut off if I don't continue with BT. If I went with the BT route i'm looking at £24.99 internet + £5.22 for the box.
I'm not a huge fan of Netflix, a lot of stuff which is poor and i'm not interested in. I assume 10mbps would be ok for using a streaming service?
10Mbps should be ok for streaming, you will probably notice some slow down if much else is going on at the same time though so no facebook on your phone whilst watching.
g4ry13 said:
Option 3: Virgin - I can pay £49/month and get Maxit TV package (honestly not bothered as better than what I have currently) and 362mbps. Or, I can pay £37.99/month and get the TV Mixit + drama & docs and M100 internet which is 108mbps average. Customer rep gave me a code to get £35 off installation fee. The problem is the contract is 18 months. If I move property after 12 months and new place won't let me get Virgin installed then i'm on the hook for 6 months service. There's a formula to work out how much I owe but worst case it's £240. The question is: How realistic are their internet speeds and given my needs - should I even care?
My experience of Virgin is their speeds are realistic - I've been with them for getting on for 20 years now (started as 150Kbit/sec with NTL), and the speed has always been what it said on the package. I had a free upgrade to 120 that I'd not previoulsy bothered taking up at the start of the pandemic, and they implemented it for me as part of their general everybody's WFH now package, which I thought was more decent than they needed to be. Over the past year I think I've had 2 hours of outage total.Downside is if anything breaks it is quicker to commit suicide and wait to be reincarnated with a new ISP than to get useful technical support, but I suspect that's true of all of them but Zen.
If you had an option that guaranteed say 20mbit, then I'd say that's enough for the uses you're describing. I'm not sure how much I believe Zen's lower contention ratio giving better speed, but it's somewhat plausible.
The question really should be which is the least worse rather than the best, as they all seem a bit ropey.
I was with Virgin for years and to be honest they're not bad. The internet speeds they quote are generally realistic, the TV service works, with a decent EPG and recording system. In 10+ years I only had issues with the connection 2 or 3 times, but when you do have problems they're a bit of a nightmare to get through to and get anything sorted out.
I was with Virgin for years and to be honest they're not bad. The internet speeds they quote are generally realistic, the TV service works, with a decent EPG and recording system. In 10+ years I only had issues with the connection 2 or 3 times, but when you do have problems they're a bit of a nightmare to get through to and get anything sorted out.
RizzoTheRat said:
The question really should be which is the least worse rather than the best, as they all seem a bit ropey.
I was with Virgin for years and to be honest they're not bad. The internet speeds they quote are generally realistic, the TV service works, with a decent EPG and recording system. In 10+ years I only had issues with the connection 2 or 3 times, but when you do have problems they're a bit of a nightmare to get through to and get anything sorted out.
I had Virgin a few years ago and they were pretty good. I can remember a handful of times the internet went down and once it was for about a day. I complained and they refunded me a bit of money. I was with Virgin for years and to be honest they're not bad. The internet speeds they quote are generally realistic, the TV service works, with a decent EPG and recording system. In 10+ years I only had issues with the connection 2 or 3 times, but when you do have problems they're a bit of a nightmare to get through to and get anything sorted out.
The only downside aside from they hike the price after 18 months (I know you can tell them you're leaving and negotiate) is when living in rented accommodation the owners may not be particularly keen on having a hole drilled through the walls and new cables poking through.
When I look at Which? nothing is perfect by any stretch. Virgin have bad customer service for technical issues. But then i'd hope there won't be many technical issues - when I used them last I was able to resolve most issues with a router / box reboot.
I ended up going for the £37.99/month Virgin deal. Virgin were nice enough to give me a £50 promo code + I used a £35 promo code which I also had (hopefully both codes will go through).
The date installation can happen is perfect for me, hopefully they won't change it which has happened to me in the past.
It may not be the greatest for internet or TV but hopefully it will be a good compromise for our needs.
Thanks for the input which helped me decide in the end.
The date installation can happen is perfect for me, hopefully they won't change it which has happened to me in the past.
It may not be the greatest for internet or TV but hopefully it will be a good compromise for our needs.
Thanks for the input which helped me decide in the end.
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