[Closed] Best home broadband provider

If its morning where you are and youre in the UK then as its 11pm in Cambridge any other provider has to be better than your current one if it takes that long from hitting "send post" to appearing on STW

We have a fibre optic connection with Virgin available however they have recently blocked a certain website we use to watch TV series and films so are looking elsewhere.

Is this because it's not strictly legal?
So the same would apply to any provider.

vodafone are worth a look now - they have dropped the separate "line rental" charge and now offer their fastest / unlimited fibre broadband for £28 a month all in.

Plusnet also have some good deals going at the moment.
You're going to struggle in getting a provider that doesn't include a landline as part of the package. Its really only Virgin that provide just data connections. Most other providers use an analogue line to run the service down.

[i]they have recently blocked a certain website[/i]

Use a proxy

I’m a huge fan of Andrews & Arnold (aaisp.net I think) but they are not cheap.

Worth it, though…

Rachel

^^ VPN

I recently canned our BT which was costing £40 a month for 0.75 to 3 MPS typical "speeds" so watching with interest. As we've discussed before you have to pay for line rental anyway

@allthegear - tell us more, why so good. What package and typical speeds

+1 PlusNet

However trying to find one that will let you do illegal things will be tough in the UK 😉

With PM May now in charge, Snoopers Charter is a sure thing too so everything you do will be spied on by law also, whatever provider. Major film and music industry companies already have their hooks into many broadband providers to try to demand customer details also when they detect dodgy goings on.

As for Virgin (formerly NTL etc) - bargepole not even touching with. Awful customer service and reliability.

What package and typical speeds

Welll, they've just offered ne 4Mb for£50 a month.
No thanks...

I pay for their 1TB package, at 80Mb/s and reliably get connected at 72Mb/s all day every day, according to speedtest.net

They supply a non-callable (i.e. no voice telephone service) line and the whole lot costs me £60pcm. Yes, not cheap. Worth every penny.

They don’t block anything and are quite radical in being simply an internet service provider, nothing else.

Rachel

You're going to struggle in getting a provider that doesn't include a landline as part of the package.

No - that's exactly what you get with Vodafone. It's one charge of £28 a month and that's it - so about the same for the whole service as BT charge for broadband only. You still get a phone number with Vodafone, there's just no separate charge for the line.

just5minutes - Member 
No - that's exactly what you get with Vodafone. It's one charge of £28 a month and that's it - so about the same for the whole service as BT charge for broadband only. You still get a phone number with Vodafone, there's just no separate charge for the line.

Well, that is still "landline as part of the package". It's just a cheap deal for broadband and phone that's all with some marketing to make you think you're not paying for the phone.

Thanks for the thoughts all.

We had Virgin before and had no issues with the service or speed other then the blocking.

I'm aware of VPN but don't know a great deal about it, can you recommend a provider as there seem to be about a ton of them?

[i] £60pcm. Yes, not cheap. Worth every penny.[/i]

I beg to differ on that! 😉

Re: VPN - I have a plug in called Wallcy on Chrome. Sits there on the toolbar until you need it - Click it on, away you go.

opera browser has 'off road mode' ( or turbo mode, or whatever they call it now ). all traffic goes via their servers, where it gets compressed, sent to your browser, where it gets decompressed.

VPN doesn't always help as the big names in the US keep track of known VPN and block you at that end.