Broadband - BT or Virgin Media?

[Doggy]

Like some opinions, please peoples. - Currently using Virgin Media, (which seems abysmally slow sometimes), but I'm moving very soon and it seems an ideal opportunity to swap, if it's appropriate. I always thought the cable TV type system was technically superior to any kind of phone line, but BT claim to have 20Mb capability and are a fair bit cheaper at £15.99/month, (including landline), after the initial 3-month freebie.

Whadya think?

[highlander]

You're right to be concerned about the 20 Mbps claim. For 99% of users, it's a load of balls. You would only get 20 Mbps if you are directly opposite the telephone exchange, and the wiring between the DSLAM in the exchange and the BT master socket in your house was truly superb. AND, because all ADSL lines go through a multiplexer, you are sharing that multiplexer's bandwidth with up to 50 other users (this is the "contention ratio" you may hear about - 50:1 is poor, 20:1 is generally much better).

If you're sharing your internet connection with up to 49 other users, then at peak times, you may find you're not even getting 1 Mbps downstream.

Personally, I have a very low opinion of BT - as a former customer, a former employee, and as someone who occasionally has to perform troubleshooting for BT Business Broadband lines as part of my job - I would recommend you look at other providers.

Avoid Tiscali and AOL; both have very poor customer service.

I used to be on Demon Internet, who are an excellent ISP - though their pricing is a bit high for what they offer nowadays.

I am currently with Sky Broadband. They're a decent ISP as far as ease-of-use is concerned; you sign up and they send you a router which just works, out of the box. As a network tech though, I replaced that sharpish with a Cisco ADSL router I got off eBay - but be warned that Sky will typically only provide tech support for you if you're using the router they provide you with.

My brother swears by Eclipse, and my parents are with them too. Maybe worth checking out.

[FarmerPug]

i was with the utility warehouse for about a year, its not great, especially considering that they constantly change their customer services number and make it as difficult as possible to get hold of, then the customer services if you eventually do get through might as well be the local takeaway because they havent got a clue, it was so bad i went back to bt, at least i got a telephone line that always worked

[puggy]

I was with Tiscali and couldn't fault their customer service ( phone ,broadband and tv ) since
they became part of taik talk its gone totally crap and i am now considering a change to
a new provider !!

[gumby6371]

I used BT a few years back and to be honest had no problems with the service itself, however I did get a few letters about excedeing my download allocation as they're pretty hot if you're not on an unlimited package. On virgin now and pretty happy with it, works out well for me with the tv, phone and internet package.
Internet speeds as mentioned already are greatly affected by distance from exchange, line quality time of day etc but always worth double checking you haven't got a load of crap on your puter which is using most of your bandwidth before you even click your mouse. Malware, spyware, RSS feeds, toolbars and even some software can be using your internet connection as soon as you power on.

[mjb]

Use Zen (http://www.zen.co.uk). They probably cost a bit more but they have a UK callcentre with guys that actually know what they're talking about (and I worked in Tiscali's NOC and built a lot of services for one of the biggest non-residential ISPs in the country)

My adsl line sucks though. 3 miles from the exchange by road (so probably about 10 miles of BT cable ) and I can barely get a sync rate of 1Mbps I have a 20Mbit virgin line as well though, which is good for the whole 20Mbps most of the day

[sirwiggum]

BT were brought to book over the 20mb claim:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11075066

Virgin Media internet is OK, but I would avoid them because:
- Their customer service is shockingly poor
- They actively monitor your internet usage, sending out wee letters if you stray onto certain p2p applications to obtain that obscure Underworld MP3 to burn to CD to play in the 406 on the way into work.

My new house has Plusnet, £6.50 a month or so free for the first 6, get around 5mb in real usage.
Also considered Talktalk but they were going to take ages to get the engineer to press the button, and O2 but they had a hissy fit because I was moving and my bank address wasn't fully onto the new address.

[steve_earwig]

I remember one of our (BT) fitters saying he'd had a customer complaining at him about poor service. The customer subsequently went to another provider but as their broadbean still used the BT line the same fitter went back to fit it, much to the customers chagrin

There's lots of choice out here. There's Hrvatski Telekom (crap), there's VIPnet mobile internet (expensivo), satellite (mucho expensivo) or nothing. My experience of HT so far is them taking 3 months to provide ADSL at my house (only took one month at my wife's so they're getting better); changing my connection speed (and therefore charges) without telling me, charging me handsomely for something I didn't ask for and denying all knowledge ("it's always been that package"); when I asked for my phoneline to be disconnected at my house they did so, then carried on charging me for a phoneline and internet for the next 8 months until I was able to convince them I didn't actually have anything, then followed a stack of correspondence until I was able to claim (most) of what I'd been overcharged back (fortunately I refused to pay anything after the first two months despite threats of legal action); my linecard is reset at least once a day (goodbye downloads ); if I want to deal with them at all I can't just phone them up (but they're a communications company! ) I have to go to one of their offices in Zagreb. In the evening, when everyone and his wife's using the Internet, my connection speed all but dies off altogether. Meanwhile my mate Goran got a computer virus, HT detected it and cut his connection. It took him 3 weeks to find out why he had no Internet...

And you complain about BT

Edit: Just tested my connection speed - down 3.58, up 0.19 For this wonderful service I pay 99.81Kn (£11.29) which is actually much cheaper than it used to be.

[nutski]

I've been on quite a few providers as I normally download quite a lot, used to be on PlusNet and at the time I did find them pretty good, customer service always responded quite quickly too. Recently been on Sky broadband with a 10meg connection, I personally have never had any issues with speed due to contention ratios, would always max out my speeds to what I expected, since I moved and argued with Sky about how long I was going to be without phone and broadband I moved to Virgin 50meg connection, I've heard their customer service isn't great but I'll risk it as it's so quick!! So far seems fine although the gigabit hub they supply doesn't seem very good, my download speed was dropping to less than 1/5 everytime I had a reasonable size file copying between machines, swapped this for my original 3com hub and had no issues since, solid 6.2meg/sec

[sockpuppet]

i have Virgin Media's 50meg cable service, always get 50 meg speeds. superb.

[mjb]

I moved to Virgin 50meg connection, I've heard their customer service isn't great

Understatement of the century!

[nutski]

Understatement of the century!

It's as bad or worse than people say then?
I left my TV with Sky, so far i haven't had to ring Virgin and hopefully won't have to!

[mjb]

Understatement of the century!

It's as bad or worse than people say then?

If people say they'd rather have their testicles ripped off with rusty molegrips, fed to a dog, then upon exit from the dog, salted then surgically reattached to them with a hot glue gun... it's worse than that

[swiss]

In my experience, the ISPs are all as bad as each other. BT have rubbish service and abysmal customer support (on hold for over an hour at a time being not uncommon), TalkTalk had an even worse service and a customer 'care' department that actively despises its customers and seeks to crush their will to live at every opportunity.

Currently on Virgin media, which seems OK but very slow as their bandwidth throttling is practically German in its efficiency. Not had much to do with their customer support, but the landlord is bunging us up to the 50Mb unthrottled connection in a fortnight. Woo yay.

The only ISP I've dealt with that I was truly happy with was Plusnet, a bit of a minnow in the market but they are therefore keen to keep their customer base by looking after you. Service was pretty average, I got what I paid for. But the customer support was superb, if their rep siad they'd do something they did it. And a a record of the conversation was transcribed on your account page, so you had instant access should you need back up after a problem. Nice people.

[sockpuppet]

Virgin Media's customer service is superb if you enjoy ill-educated, illiterate, non technically minded Indian people with little to no grasp of the English language.