B E Broadband

[Deleted member 1258]

What to you people know of BE Broadband? I've been looking at switching providers and these have come up. The reviews seem to be either best thing since sliced bread or don't touch them with a bargepole, no middle ground, seems a bit suspect. What are the people on here using?

 

[marinyork]

Where are these large numbers of reviews that say don't touch BE with a bargepole? I've never heard any of these and I've known many people with BE and spent years reading broadband forums. If you'd said various other names that spring to mind when you say polarised opinion I could understand...

 

[StuAff]

With O2, so though different brand, as they have the same owner it's running on the same infrastructure etc. Been very happy with speed & the couple of minor issues I've had (in three years) were quickly and efficiently dealt with. Recommended, highly.

 

[Fletch456]

I'm with ID Net cos I put service before price. Though I don't think them expensive there are cheaper bundled offerings when you take into account tv.

I had had enough of call centres (Virgin, BT (would never touch though 90% of providers use their network), Sky) and Sky who I was with for a tv/phone/net bundle "moved the phone line onto their network". As a result of the latter I had to pay for a new line to be installed in the exchange when I no longer wanted to stay with them.

ID Net here win awards and have really friendly staff who I have found to be nothing but professional and very helpful when I have needed to call them. They are more akin to office staff than a call centre and they may be that. Though you will need to buy your own modem I didn't mind that; I wanted to have greater control and no 12 month contract; it's 30 day.

 

[phil_hg_uk]

With o2 here as well, very good service no problems in 2 and a bit years, I dont know about BE but o2 have uk call centres so no problems there either.

 

[marinyork]

What are you really wanting from your broadband anyway? Wanting higher speeds e.g. you have 4Mbs now and it'd be nice to have say 10Mbs. What do you use now? Download 2Gb per month? 20Gb? 150Gb? Or do you just browse? How far do you live from your exchange? What sort of LLU can you get? Can you get fibre? Is it mostly price you're bothered about?

 

[DCLane]

With BE here and I've used them for about 6 years now. Good speed and no issues, which is why you pay a bit more.

 

[Deleted member 1258]

Where are these large numbers of reviews that say don't touch BE with a bargepole? I've never heard any of these and I've known many people with BE and spent years reading broadband forums. If you'd said various other names that spring to mind when you say polarised opinion I could understand...

http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews101289.html

This is one of several I've read

 

[martint235]

I'm with be, the actual service is very good. Their initial communication with customers can be frustrating. For example, I got an email saying effectively "your package is no longer available. You will now pay double or please find another provider. " Querying it led to a much better response. As I said though, can't fault the actual service

 

[Deleted member 1258]

With O2, so though different brand, as they have the same owner it's running on the same infrastructure etc. Been very happy with speed & the couple of minor issues I've had (in three years) were quickly and efficiently dealt with. Recommended, highly.

I'm with o2 as well, been with them for several years, it works very well, only had a couple of minor glitches, its the customer service that I'm not keen on, sometimes excellent sometimes not. I had wondered if B E were the other arm of o2.

 

[BSRU]

I've had BE for a couple of years now now problems, although when BT eventually make Infinity in Swindon available I will be leaving BE.

 

[soulful dog]

I was previously with Zen but decided to try BE as they provide LLU at my exchange. Only been with them for about 4-6 months, and though it's not been completely problem free, I've been pretty impressed. I've been able to keep in touch with support staff via the forum, and email (haven't had to phone yet so can't comment on that), and while I wouldn't rate them as highly as Zen support, they seem pretty helpful. Even better, I haven't needed them at all for the past few months, and I'm paying not too much more than I was with Zen, but have faster downloads, lower pings and what now seems to be a reliable connection. I'd recommend them.

Incidentally, after suffering BT Broadband to start with, I'm pretty careful about who I use for my broadband, I'd never have considered BE if there was any real suggestion of people not rating them?

Edited to add: I'm pretty sure that the BE support is entirely different to 02, and is one of the reasons why 02 isn't rated as highly as BE.

 

[marinyork]

http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews101289.html

This is one of several I've read

I would refer you to my previous post (and the 2nd one about what you actually want). I would take some of these reviews with a pinch of salt and really don't see the fuss apart from the communication - which you'll have with nearly any ISP (unfortunately). I would point out that sync problems aren't necessarily Be's fault. One of the problems with Be is they may be a victim of their own reputation. For example take this review

I read glowing reports about BE before I joined them..... well, all I can say is they must have been for a different company to the BE I'm with!! I am obtaining very average speed - they are certainly not the fastest (as is claimed in some quarters) Extremely regular and annoying outages - at least every other day if not more.... is this a sneaky way of throttling bandwidth or capping download allowance?? One has to wonder! Average customer service, not particularly helpful. They supply a godawful...

This is fairly run of the mill sort of thing I've heard down the years from someone who doesn't know what they are talking about. The only complaints I ever heard about Be were people on what were for them frustratingly slow internet connections and speed was a big thing for them. They naively signed up for Be thinking that because a mate a mile up the road got 16Mbs they would too and then got very angry that they are only getting 5Mbs connection or sync problems. They don't necessarily see that 5Mbs might be good for them. A lot of the people who explode with rage are people who live quite far from the exchange. Also heard many of the 'but I had to buy my own router' type whinges too. God, the thought of that, it's absolutely outrageous!

I just thought your opinion a bit bizarre, when one imagines polarised opinions on broadband one thinks of several other providers first...

 

[Deleted member 1258]

I would refer you to my previous post (and the 2nd one about what you actually want). I would take some of these reviews with a pinch of salt and really don't see the fuss apart from the communication - which you'll have with nearly any ISP (unfortunately). I would point out that sync problems aren't necessarily Be's fault. One of the problems with Be is they may be a victim of their own reputation. For example take this review



This is fairly run of the mill sort of thing I've heard down the years from someone who doesn't know what they are talking about. The only complaints I ever heard about Be were people on what were for them frustratingly slow internet connections and speed was a big thing for them. They naively signed up for Be thinking that because a mate a mile up the road got 16Mbs they would too and then got very angry that they are only getting 5Mbs connection or sync problems. They don't necessarily see that 5Mbs might be good for them. A lot of the people who explode with rage are people who live quite far from the exchange. Also heard many of the 'but I had to buy my own router' type whinges too. God, the thought of that, it's absolutely outrageous!

I just thought your opinion a bit bizarre, when one imagines polarised opinions on broadband one thinks of several other providers first...

I take it you are something to do with the industry? You seem to be more knowledgeable than I am on these things, I'd been reading broadband reviews for a while when I posted and it all seemed as clear as mud, my minds clearer now.

 

[Deleted member 1258]

I'm with ID Net cos I put service before price. Though I don't think them expensive there are cheaper bundled offerings when you take into account tv.

I had had enough of call centres (Virgin, BT (would never touch though 90% of providers use their network), Sky) and Sky who I was with for a tv/phone/net bundle "moved the phone line onto their network". As a result of the latter I had to pay for a new line to be installed in the exchange when I no longer wanted to stay with them.

ID Net here win awards and have really friendly staff who I have found to be nothing but professional and very helpful when I have needed to call them. They are more akin to office staff than a call centre and they may be that. Though you will need to buy your own modem I didn't mind that; I wanted to have greater control and no 12 month contract; it's 30 day.

Thanks for that, I hadn't come across ID net before, gives me another one to look at.