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Currently with EE for home broadband but they're utterly powerless (or so they claim) when it comes to fault resolution that involves Openreach. Too much s**t to go into, but after 5 days - and counting - without broadband they've exhausted my patience.
We have the option of Virgin Fibre (confirmed it's in the street outside) but I'm not keen on idea of being tied to one provider. Also seems 'kin expensive. No other fibre providers in the area.
Am I right in saying all other home broadband providers will use the Openreach-managed cables etc?
Starlink not an option because Muck Fusk (and the cost).
Don't have a good enough 4G/5G signal to hotspot off mobile data so can't even use that as backup (typing this while out and about).
Options?
Openreach, Fibre, Mobile (4g/5g), Satellite and Starlink are your options.
5 days isn't too bad for Openreach - we had a business connection down for 2 weeks
Agree on Virgin. OK, but slower upload than download speeds on DOCSIS.
Do you have access to BRSK? Great.
This might help see which networks you have access to https://checker.ofcom.org.uk/en-gb/broadband-coverage
It's 5 days without a hint of progress - can't even get them to successfully schedule an 'engineer' visit. Openreach contractor outright lying about attempting access on multiple times across multiple days when they've not visited property. It's as basic as that.
Picking up a PAYG SIM from another network that I know has signal inside our house to at least allow some access until this is resolved (and I can figure out who best to go with for proper solution).
If you have a Three mobile account, through the app you can get their mobile 5G BB for home at a discount.
~£16pcm until April '26, ~£18 until April '27 and ~£20pcm until April '28 with two year contract.
Our NowTV landline BB recently broke over a weekend, all fixed now, but we're paying £32.50pcm for BB and unlimited free phonecalls provising they are under 60mins (we hardly make calls these days).
Our NowTV is a pathetic ~25Mbps down a ~6Mbps up.
Three 5G through my mobile data sim at home has been as good as ~600/40Mbps (when trying different spots around our place)! 😱
Agree on Virgin. OK, but slower upload than download speeds on DOCSIS.
Do you have access to BRSK? Great.
This might help see which networks you have access to https://checker.ofcom.org.uk/en-gb/broadband-coverage
Thanks but nope, no access to BRSK it seems. Only networks in my area are Virgin or Openreach according to Ofcom checker.
If you have a Three mobile account, through the app you can get their mobile 5G BB for home at a discount.
~£16pcm until April '26, ~£18 until April '27 and ~£20pcm until April '28 with two year contract.
Our NowTV landline BB recently broke over a weekend, all fixed now, but we're paying £32.50pcm for BB and unlimited free phonecalls provising they are under 60mins (we hardly make calls these days).
Our NowTV is a pathetic ~25Mbps down a ~6Mbps up.
Three 5G through my mobile data sim at home has been as good as ~600/40Mbps (when trying different spots around our place)! 😱
No Three signal here. Non existant indoors and very shonky in local area. Vodafone mobile signal was great indoors but struggled for many places we visit, hence a recent swap to EE mobile (but are a legacy customer with EE home broadband for years). Typically EE mobile is brilliant out and about but struggles at home. I'm sitting in only room upstairs with enough signal to reply here 🤣
Only networks in my area are Virgin or Openreach according to Ofcom checker.
Well, I guess that's your options then!
Round here Virgin is horribly unreliable, I wouldn't have it at any price. In other places I'm sure its fine.
I don't know if getting broadband via BT gives better access to Openreach. The couple of times in the last 10 years I've had issues with my Openreach service, which I get via Plusnet (owned by BT), Openreach engineers have been round the same day. I get the feeling I've just been very lucky though.
Hasn't Three just merged with Vodafone, so Three home BB will use your local good Vodafone signal?
Do you have neighbours that you're friendly with?
I had a similar issue when trying to upgrade to FTTP that I won't bore you with but ended up borrowing my neighbours wifi password for a few weeks until I got something sorted (still stuck on FTTC but at least it's internet).
Took me two weeks and five engineer visits to get my broadband up and running when I moved home a few years ago.
Been rock-solid since though (and that's with TalkTalk! 🙂 ).
Where I stay there is no fibre, internet is through a copper cable at 0.5Mbps on a good day and phone signal is erratic - an internal 4g router was basically useless and there's no indoor phone signal most of the time.
I'm now using an external aerial to a 4g router which is pretty good. It's not fast - max 15Mbps, but that's enough to stream live TV and general internet etc with good reliability.
The aerial I got is this:
Poynting XPOL-1-5G 2x2 MIMO Omni-Directional Antenna : Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories
And I'm just using a basic TP link router
Hope that helps!
Openreach are just contractors for any number of internet providers - at some point you're more or less guaranteed to have them involved.
FWIW, they were very good when I upgraded my existing EE to fibre although the guy did break three drill bits getting through the thick stone wall at the front of the house. Other than that, all done inside of 30 minutes.
Maybe different when it comes to resolving faults though, it wouldn't be the first time that each company just blames the other.
I've used Zen internet in the past. Can't recommend them enough. Not the cheapest but they do a great job of wrangling OpenReach. A relative moved house and OpenReach were being crap so Zen gave them a fixed amount to cover using their mobile as a 4/5G hotspot. You can even plug the phone into the Zen router so you don't need to reconfigure all your devices to talk to a different temporary WiFi network.
Finally with VM fttp, seems to be stable and fast 2 key needs for us, some neighbours are signed up with Giff gaff on a trial , using VM fibre etc and cuts out VM 'customer service' might be an option for you ? , we had 12 visits to blow in the fibre blocked x 8... wrong cabinet x 4 they must have emptied the excuse book by the time they got it working!!
Don't forget to chase them for compensation, should be automatic but you never know. https://ee.co.uk/help/broadband/fix-problem/automatic-compensation
Most providers use Openreach network
When choosing your provider check what your SLA is with them, reality is you will only get compensation not a faster repair
Count yourself lucky we live in an area with no Openreach services , our fibre is fully independent and therefore shit ie they don’t even work evening or weekends so your stuffed
You could try pointing a cheap directional antenna at a couple of the nearest masts and seeing what the signal looks like then, it "should" be a massive improvement over what you get just kicking about the house with your phone.
Tower locations and which providers are on them and pointing in which direction are here:
And you can check elevation line of sight here:
https://www.scadacore.com/tools/rf-path/rf-line-of-sight/
Edit - basically what boriselbrus said it turns out.
Are Grain (fibre optic) available in your area? I've been with them for around 18 months, no problems at all.
£21.99p/m for 150Mbps, though I rarely get less than 175Mbps, 125Mbps-ish upload
Hasn't Three just merged with Vodafone, so Three home BB will use your local good Vodafone signal?
Despite the adverts Three and Vodafone are in the very earliest stages of merging networks, and due to the shutting down of redundant masts will likely generate only a very small and slow improvement in network performance before it drops to worse overall than it was before.
Virgin packages aren’t that expensive. When you say it’s too expensive, what are you thinking is too much?
Compared to other utilities, broadband is relatively cheap, even the more expensive packages are quite good when you think how much you depend on it.
Virgin packages aren’t that expensive. When you say it’s too expensive, what are you thinking is too much?
Very fair point. Just checked with Mrs a11y and we're currently paying a LOT more than I thought for crappy non-fibre broadband, with EE quoting approx £48/mth once (now a big IF) we change to FTTP with them.
When choosing your provider check what your SLA is with them, reality is you will only get compensation not a faster repair
That's what I'm trying to suss out at the moment: which provider(s) have the best customer service for managing Openreach in the event of network issues. Certainly not EE who seem to have SFA power (or competence) when it comes to dealings with Openreach. Zen do appear to be one of the better ones.
All of which is pushing me towards trying Virgin. Initial contract is min 24mths and cost isn't as bad as I first thought.
What speeds do you guys get over there on fibre? My u/l just got doubled so now 1000/100 for $99 a month unlimited data.
I remember when I was the 1st person in my town to get Blueyonder 512k back in the day. Counterstrike never felt so good!
Openreach. What a shitshow of a company. Yet another no-show to a scheduled appointment this morning. So still no fix. EE admitting they have limited power over Openreach to resolve this.
Escalate it with EE. If you're just going through the first line CS then you'll get nowhere.
Sky initially gave me similar excuses when Openreach cut off my FTTC despite there being no FTTP in place. I escalated it with Sky and eventually got through to someone who could get Openreach to turn the FTTC back on.
Got to love a near monopoly provider. But what can OpenReach do when forced to choose between higher costs of delivery and paying those BT dividends?
The company your contract is with should always reimburse you while your service is messed up, which works well for those with the signal to use mobile tethering while they wait for OpenReach to get around to sorting things. Little help for you though OP.
+1 for Zen if you don't have alternative FTTP providers. It took a bit of back and forth when my fibre was first installed but Zen were excellent at keeping on top of them and keeping me informed.
Plus they actually run a proper ISP and support things like ipv6 which is seemingly still beyond providers like Virgin.
Currently with EE for home broadband but they're utterly powerless (or so they claim) when it comes to fault resolution that involves Openreach. Too much s**t to go into, but after 5 days - and counting - without broadband they've exhausted my patience.
We had Openreach and Virgin both dig up same street within a couple of months of each other and install fibre. This was February 2025.
Our contract was ending and so we placed new order for fibre into the house, making use of the shiny new facilities laid at great expense and interruption. This was start of April 2025.
By October 2025 Openreach had not managed to get fibre into our house. They had realised that they had not dug it into our cul-de-sac of 6 houses, and then had issues getting a date to dig up the road and then organise it across the front garden and drive.
We move next month, so have cancelled the order. That is 6 months to fail to connect brand new infrastructure which is within 10metres of our house. And their are 3 other houses in the cul-de-sac waiting on the same...
Good luck to the folks who are buying our house.