Which broadband provider

[ammw]

I've had my home broadband with PlusNet for years. It's £18/month, and I'm very happy with the service, but I feel I should be able to get it cheaper...

I was in the O2 shop (got an iPhone) at lunchtime, and they can do it for £7.50 a month ... anyone got experience of O2 as a broadband provider?

Also, we have the full Sky TV package at home, so I'm thinking we should be able to get a deal with them.

Any others worth considering?

[Ydnaroo]

I've been with O2 for almost 2 years and their £7.50 for < 8 meg LLU deal is great. If you sign up through Quidco ( http://www.quidco.com/o2-home-broadband ) you get £50 cashback. I think that O2 also do the first 2 months free as well so this along with the Quidco offer means that you effectively get the first 9 months free.

[ammw]

Ydnaroo said:

I've been with O2 for almost 2 years and their £7.50 for < 8 meg LLU deal is great. If you sign up through Quidco ( http://www.quidco.com/o2-home-broadband ) you get £50 cashback. I think that O2 also do the first 2 months free as well so this along with the Quidco offer means that you effectively get the first 9 months free.

Thanks - that's good to hear.

My wife just phone Sky, who wanted £17/month plus £40 activation, and that's got a capped downlaod limit - 40Gb, I think?

Looks like O2 might be the best option.

[Zad]

If you can go LLU/Unbundled and have an O2 phone, then O2 is a no-brainer. Check your exchange is unbundled first though or you might end up on the non-LLU O2, which is nowhere near as good.

[JDMFanYo]

ammw said:

Ydnaroo said:

I've been with O2 for almost 2 years and their £7.50 for < 8 meg LLU deal is great. If you sign up through Quidco ( http://www.quidco.com/o2-home-broadband ) you get £50 cashback. I think that O2 also do the first 2 months free as well so this along with the Quidco offer means that you effectively get the first 9 months free.

Thanks - that's good to hear.

My wife just phone Sky, who wanted £17/month plus £40 activation, and that's got a capped downlaod limit - 40Gb, I think?

Looks like O2 might be the best option.

O2 is a no brainier.

Ditch the router though, mine was crap, disconnected every hour or so which made xbox gaming somewhat annoying

[ammw]

Zad said:

If you can go LLU/Unbundled and have an O2 phone, then O2 is a no-brainer. Check your exchange is unbundled first though or you might end up on the non-LLU O2, which is nowhere near as good.

Can you explain what you mean by LLU/Unbundled? And how do I check my exchange?

[M5jimmy]

I've been with o2 for a bit of time and been very impressed with them. I have an o2 iphone contract too so got the broadband at a good price.

WHen the setting up process was going on they texted to let me know what was going on and when it was going to be online. It was all accurate

When I rang them to set it up the chap I spoke to was very friendly and was British.

A breath of fresh air compared to my last provider Pipex.

[Ydnaroo]

ammw said:

Can you explain what you mean by LLU/Unbundled? And how do I check my exchange?

Check if your exchange is enabled here:

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/checker2.php

[ammw]

Ydnaroo said:

ammw said:

Can you explain what you mean by LLU/Unbundled? And how do I check my exchange?

Check if your exchange is enabled here:

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/checker2.php

Thanks. My exchange is not unbundled

[Zad]

Basically with LLU/Unbundled, the ISP puts in it's own broadband equipment at the exchange and the data communications link from the exhange to the ISP (or 'backhaul'). Without LLU, you use BT's own equipment (no matter who the ISP is) and BT's backhaul is massively oversubscribed. This means that, at peak hours, lots of people are sharing the same data pipe and everything slows down. ISPs try to reduce the load by having a cap on the amount of data transferred. My experience with Be (who are owned by O2 and share the same equipment) is that when their backhaul reaches it's limit, they have new capacity in within 2 weeks.

[TheStoat]

Just a mini update for people hitting this thread via the search mechanism. I tried the samknows website and it came up with a mighty list of options for broadband. I selected the O2 link and O2 deny they service that area (tried a search on the phone number too) It seems there are some discrepancies between the samknows site and the actual service providers. Definitely check with the broadband provider before you get too excited folks!

[JohnnyPanic]

Actually, I found that the samknows site knew more than the call centre people at O2!

My local exchange was unbundled but was up to capacity so the entry level call centre people just weren't shown the fast/cheap option by their system. They told me it was unavailable in my area. I told them they were wrong. They asked their manager. I was right! Well I suppose we were both right, it was in my area, but technically not available as it was fully subscribed.

I went with the slow expensive service on the understanding that they would upgrade me after a couple of months when BT would let them increase their capacity. And they actually did without any further input from me.


Someone mentioned ditching the router due to the signal dropping. I had a load of problems with mine initially, it's basically a bit of a pansy if others are broadcasting on the same channel. I ran 'vistumbler' (IIRC) to scan all networks my machine was picking up, changed the channel on my router and I haven't had any problems since.