Anybody get their broadband from anybody other than Virgin Media?

Got me new, "Nobody likes to see a price rise letter" this morning. BUT they are going to anyway. So many other offers BUT Virgin (in this area) are the only one providing via their own(NTL/Telewest) Cable infrastructure. Everything else, I believe ,comes down the phone wires. Does anybody out there receive their service from one of the other providers of, "FASTFIBRE BROADBAND" e.g. TalkTalk, PlusNet or Sky and feel that they can recommend them for relatively reliable, fast download speed? Just that really.

 

We're with TalkTalk. £21 a month, reasonable download speed (just clocked it at 5Mb/s but normally between 5 and 10).

 

We get between 40-50Mb with Sky - got about 23 MB but there's three of us online with 1 on a Zoom call

 

The industry seem to be doing like mobiles with annual CPI + a bit more for good measure increases these days, and that's when the Wholesale costs are going down. GREED.

 

Give them a phone and ask if they could give you a deal to keep as you are actively scowering the market for a better deal.
I’ve found it works before. I got the same letter a couple of weeks ago. They agreed to keep my payments as they were for a year.
Worth giving them a call but be prepared to wait about an hour for them to answer

 

With any of the Openreach / BTWholesale based provides (such as those you mentioned, the speed / quality of the line will be near enough identical (perhaps marginally faster on an LLU provider like Sky). Your main point will be the router that they offer (is it good/bad) and what their customer service and price is like.

In essence, what I'm trying to say is that from a technical point of view, they are basically identical.

 

You may get good speeds on a provider, but if he's a million miles away from the exchange/cab, he might get exactly the same deal with speeds a lot slower.

 

Always worth a call to tell them you've got a better deal somewhere else (whether you have or not) and see if they can reduce their prices

 

Sorry pal.

Its all about distances.

 

Do speeds generally get worse with time? I was with Plusnet, at first things were ok then download speeds gradually got worse.Binned them off eventually, now with Talktalk and things are good so far (early days, hence the question)

 

Copy of my "price going up" email from Shell Energy. Up £2 to £20.99 but it should be a faster connection (10mb max before) and we have had the old price 3+ years so no too unhappy.


"We were recently in touch to let you know that we’re increasing the pricing of your broadband monthly rental by £2 per month from 11 January.
We’re also upgrading you to our Superfast Fibre package. This package includes your line rental, and is up to three times faster than your existing broadband based on average download speeds.
Your broadband upgrade will take place on 29/01/2021. We’ve outlined the details of your new package below.
Your new broadband package:
Superfast Fibre
Faster speeds
With your new fibre package comes even faster broadband. Your estimated speeds will be between 35 Mbps to 38 Mbps, with a minimum guaranteed speed of 29.37 Mbps. This may vary depending on the quality of the line at your property."

 

lTalktalk were cheapest but not great and on the whole Virgin have been a lot better. Trouble is like you say they've upped their prices. I'm out of my introductory offer now too. Guess I'll have to give them a ring. Someone did say they needed to keep new customers to make a profit on the whole set up so we'll see if that's true or not I suppose.

 

Utility warehouse

 

Distance rather than time. Once connected you have a ten day training period where the line will try to find the fastest speed that the line will support whilst remaining stable.
Your sync rate (the speed the router gets) should be more or less the same between PN and TT.

Throughput can be managed but often isn't done these days, but when you add wifi into the equation and you often see other issues.

 

Just to add to what I put earlier, I'm assuming like for like products - i.e. ADSL>ADSL or Fibre to Fibre not ADSL>Fibre

 

We're with Plusnet. Unlimited fibre broadband, unlimited phone and mobile calls, line rental.
£34.99 per month.
It was going to increase to about £46 from £36 but I rang them to clarify this increase and to ask them if they could do me a deal. They then said they'd do me the 34.99 deal so for the sake of a phone call I actually saved a pound.
We've been with Plusnet for donkeys years, never had a problem with them, they are always polite and helpful, and any problems with any technical help. Only last week they sent Openreach out to us to fix a buzzing phone line which turned out to be damp wires in the little plastic box on the outside wall.
We get a line speed of about 34Mbs which takes care of our needs. I asked the engineer if we could get a faster speed and he said not to bother ... due to the distance factor from the exchange box. He said we'd be paying more for very little benefit.
Oh and we're out in the countryside, down the end of some long cables and wires.

 

Virgin to sky once again superfast broadband,line rental any time calls, TV package + Netflix £41