What's the best/best value broadband/phone supplier?

[swee'pea99]

BT have been ripping me off for years. Orange want my business. Talk Talk seem on the face of it to offer the best deal. Where should a poor boy go for the best landline & broadband with unlimited data downloads deal?

 

[Maz]

Dunno about the others, but TalkTalk is the one I'm with. I get my phone calls from them, too.
Never had any real problems.

 

[NormanD]

Virgin if you have it in your area

 

[rualexander]

If you go to the cinema with someone else a couple of times a month then Orange are worth considering for Orange Wednesdays (unless you have your mobile phone with them and get it anyway).
I pay £12.99 per month for my broadband with Orange and can save £8 a time by going to see a film on wednesdays, so twice a month saves £16, plus you can also get 2 for 1 at Pizza Express on wednesdays too.
So my broadband is 'virtually free'!

 

[Melonfish]

if you can get cable do so, if not go with the cheapest provider, fact is they're all running over the exact same kit as everyone else at the local exchange and all their customer service centres suck. so might as well not pay too much for em.

that said, when any broadband line is setup correctly barring major incident with your line you should be relatively trouble free.

 

[MarkF]

None, they are all as crap as eachother. I work for myself from home, therefore cost and reliability are both issues for me. From AOL, to Orange, to BT, to Plusnet, to Fast.co.uk, to Virgin, from the tiny premium customer focussed (ha!) companies to the conglomerates they all have one thing in common, they could not give a monkey's fart about you. All they want is the contract.

All recommendations like "never had a problem" will be a pile of poo, you only find out what they (The ISP's) are like when something goes wrong, which it will, then you'll be shafted....................one way or another. I'd go for the cheapest TBH

 

[Manonabike]

None, they are all as crap as eachother. I work for myself from home, therefore cost and reliability are both issues for me. From AOL, to Orange, to BT, to Plusnet, to Fast.co.uk, to Virgin, from the tiny premium customer focussed (ha!) companies to the conglomerates they all have one thing in common, they could not give a monkey's fart about you. All they want is the contract.

All recommendations like "never had a problem" will be a pile of poo, you only find out what they (The ISP's) are like when something goes wrong, which it will, then you'll be shafted....................one way or another. I'd go for the cheapest TBH

I used to be with AOL for many years and I had very few problems..... hardly anything in 6 years TBH. I remember that in 6 years once they left me without Internet for 3 days but I was warned from the start that it could take days to fix the problem. I probably had once or twice little further problems but not worth describing. When they were bought by Talk Talk, on the advise of a friend, I left and for what I understand I did the right thing.

Going for the cheapest ISP might not be the best option as they are probably over subscribed..... this is what I hear from people anyway.....


Take a look at the best 10 ISP according to the website.

 

[MarkF]

Take a look at the best 10 ISP according to the website.

But 5 of the useless ISP's I mentioned are in those top 10. If you don't have a problem/issue, then they are all great, if you do have a problem/issue then they are all crap. Do you think any of them actually care about the customer? After all where are they going to find better service?

 

[Dogberry]

, fact is they're all running over the exact same kit as everyone else at the local exchange

when any broadband line is setup correctly barring major incident with your line you should be relatively trouble free.

Wrong.

All the service providers each have their own bit of kit that 'pumps out' broadband / dialtone at the local telephone exchange.

The only thing in common is the wiring that leaves the telephone exchange.

If you change from Talk Talk to BT or Sky or whoever, they use the same cables. So dont think that by changing providers your broadband speed will increase. It wont.

Want faster broadband ? Live nearer the exchange !

 

[slowmotion]

We have TalkTalk. Only inertia prevents us leaving. When things go wrong (usually due to their basement geeks installing a "software update", their technical helpline/customer service is utter, utter shite. The "Which report says they are lousy as well, so it's not just a personal grudge.

When I find the copy of Which with the report, I'll post their findings. Meanwhile, avoid TalkTalk.

Edit: It was on the desk! Here are the September 2011 copy of Which customer ratings for broadband providers...

Zen Internet 84%
BE 81%
Eclipse 77%
Utility Warehouse 75%
O2 75%
Greenbee 75%
Plusnet 72%
PostOffice 56%
Sky Broadband 56%
Virgin Media 55%
Medasafish 54%
Demon 51%
Tesco 48%
BT 48%
Karoo internet 45%
TalkTalk 39%
Supanet 37%
Orange 33%
AOL Broadband 27%

 

[swee'pea99]

Damn! I'd just more or less decided from this site http://www.broadbandchoices.co.uk/bundlecalc.asp that orange were actually my best bet - now here they are propping up the Which table @ 33%. That really isn't very good. *sigh*

 

[slowmotion]

http://www.broadband.../bundlecalc.asp[/url] that orange were actually my best bet - now here they are propping up the Which table @ 33%. That really isn't very good. *sigh*

Sorry!

I have my gravest suspicions about online comparison sites of all types. One never knows if they are bona fide or just advertorial. "Which" has its faults, but they are not cynical manipulators.

 

[MacB]

I fall into the camp of never really having had problems, started with Telewest about 17 years ago, house move meant switch to NTL approx 14 years ago and stayed with them through another house move and change to Virgin. But it's always been a cable connection and haven't had outages for years now, important as I work from home a lot. I don't know if it is helped by the fact that the Virgin HQ at Hook is only down the road from us.

As for customer service it's never been great but has become progressively better, we just haven't had much call to speak to them, thankfully. I think it's another of these weird relationships where we are the customer but then we're not really as we also function as a product.

 

[Cal]

I'm with Talktalk, but I've never had problems so can't speak for their customer service - what has happened is that the contracts seem to 'change' over time and I end up having to ring them to get it back down, currently works out at ~£15/month including a year's phone rental paid upfront. It does mention a download limit...but nothing ever shows up on my account usage. Only did this last week and ended up with some 'turboboost' which has made a noticeable difference.

 

[Mrbez]

I've been with BE for 6 years. Excellent throughout.