[Closed] Broadband suppliers - alternatives to BT?

I’ve been with www.zen.co.uk for years and think they’re great.

Plusnet gets my vote, even though they are owned by BT.

What markie says

+1 for Plusnet

+1 again for PlusNet.

BT owned now but retains the customer service of PlusNet, cheaper, and the support forums are very good. Any problem, post there and a someone who knows what they're doing will generally sort it out for you, or kick BT's arse to fix their side of it.

Prices vary based on exchange popularity though, i.e. based on the wholesale price variation.

Virgin have been good for me. Reload fast and on the few occasions I've needed help they've had an engineer round.

Main reason we went down that route was not insisting we pay a fortune to get reconnected as previous owners didn't use them.

Another satisfied Zen user here, they aren't the cheapest though.

Plusnet broadband since 2003. (512mb!)
Now got their fibre and phone package. Only had to call customer services once in all that time. We get 70 Mbps up 18 Mbps down consistently.
Would recommend based on my experience. All my extended family on plusnet now. Money off for referrals too!

[quote=FuzzyWuzzy ]Another satisfied Zen user here, they aren't the cheapest though.

+1.

but I think in ten years I've had to call them once, i spoke to someone who wasnt reading a script and they had it sorted in a couple of hours.

Im with John lewis. Who are plusnet who are BT.

But it works. They were cheaper than plusnet.

Have been helpful on the phone after some inital connection issues.

I'm paying nearly £60 for BT broadband. I think the actual broadband is approx £45 plus the add-ons of BT sports and HD etc.

I know its too much but how much cheaper could I get it - including the BT sports bit? Massively cheaper?

Thanks

Please don't go with talktalk. My mother in law, who suffers with dementia , was approached in the street by one of their salespeople. They persuaded her into moving both her broadband and home phone line to them. Fast forward 18+ months later, and despite having cancelled all her contracts with them months ago and settling outstanding balances, and her now living in a dementia home, we are still receiving letters from debt collection agencies. For a communications company, they are very difficult to communicate with.
They are about as understanding as a concrete block. The phone advisor kept asking for the password on the account, despite being told numerous times that she has dementia and she doesn't even know if it's day or night anymore. If it ain't on their script, they ask again. Repeat. Bang head against wall. Now taking the matter up with the ombudsman.

My plusnet is shocking:

They forgot to turn my internet on till I rang them a week after it was supposed to be activated.

Couldn't connect to lots of websites, they told me it wasn't their issue despite be being able to connect from the same device at the same point with 4g.

Many complaints later someone suggested changing something inside the router, this worked for a few months but now I cant get on a load of other websites.

I cant get away from them fast enough.

I have used idnet for along time, very reliable connection and great support when ever I have needed it
not the cheapest though.......

Paying upfront makes a big difference to cost.

I paid £185 upfront for 18 months of broadband and landline (no calls included) with Plusnet, with £50 cashback - i.e. £135. For some reason, there's a monthly charge of £2.01.

We use mobile minutes for voice calls and the broadband speed is ok rather than stellar. For an equivalent of £10 per month, I can live with that.

That price is going to be very hard to beat when the deal ends next summer!

Virgin Fibre is pretty impressive 200Mb internet for me so no one else on market really.

Been pretty good when I have needed to talk to them.

Router is pretty poor config wise, but unless you are a bit of a geek you probably wouldn't notice.

Zen are about the best ISP IMHO, but you have to accept what you’re buying for your money, a billing platform and a call centre. Any problems will still be fixed by OpenReach.

PlusNet here for the last 3 years and their tech support service is very good, which is just as well because our rural overhead copper wires are shocking and belong the the worst monopoly that is BT (Openreach). I figure that whoever I went with, they'll only be able to promise the basic requirement of 1Mbps. They're between a rock and a hard place as Openreach will only do the bare minimum for the supply to two properties who are also 3.9miles from the exchange - which incidentally appears to have two'racks', one of which has this fluctuating power supply.

Bit of a bore, however, my monthly call to tell them that once again it would be quicker for me to physically travel to the host server of the website I'm trying to get information from, rather than wait for it to appear on my screen, is dealt with promptly and they keep me informed that if the engineer finds fault with anything after the test socket, I'm liable for £65, which any of the other providers would do I guess.

Posting only to vote down Talktalk!

Literally the most frustrating 'customer experience' I've ever had.

I have a small pile of talktalk routers (free to good home) because they seem to send one out as a first step in resolving any problem, even though it's clearly nothing to do with the router.

They read from scripts with no idea what's going on. They have a billion different departments that don't communicate. They promise what they can't deliver just to get rid of you. I now take notes on every call I have with them.

I have not left them yet... only because I honestly believe that will be more painful than just keeping them and hoping nothing goes wrong so I don't need to talk to them 🙁

I'm with Origin.
Initial 12 months was a seriously good offer, now that has expired, due to move on to some other deal which seems about the same as most other companies introductory offer.
Basic broadband and calls just work. No fibre available at the time we switched and getting by just fine with the connection we have.
Their billing and communication can be a bit off, but it comes right in the end, just a few confusing messages first.
Switchboard Tom Baker voice is quite loud.

I'm considering moving from Sky to Zen. Hands down the best plus you get a fixed ip address which is very rare these days....

If you go plusnet then you need to be aware they store your password in an insecure way so:

1. The staff have access to your password, don’t use the same password anywhere else (good practice anyway but many do)
2. This means the staff have access to your plusnet email account too - and so don’t use this for anything with passwords on them or they will be able to reset them!
3. If they get hacked expect your password to be compromised.

Or you might prefer a company who use normal industry good practice and don’t Store your password at all!

Vodafone here for the last 12 months. On the handful of occasions that the service has dropped out they have loaded our mobiles up with a massive amount of mobile data so we can use them as Wi-Fi hotspots. We are in a good 4G area so this works well when required.

Just ditched BT and gone to Vodafone. Supplied router is a bit naff but all good so far.

Zen here (mainly 'cos I need a static IP addy) - never had to use them in 10 or more years .... Which says something.

[Just for balance]
Got BT in our place by the beach and tbf I've not had any issues there either
[/Just for balance]

Andrew and Arnold. It isn’t the cheapest but it’s a proper professional service. Way better than BT. I used to get regular DNS timeouts (I think that was the issue), where big sites (Google, Facebook) just wouldn’t load. All disappeared since moving.

Admittedly the router has synced at a slower speed than BT but it’s more reliable so feels like a better service overall. No point having high bandwidth if you can’t use it when you want!

Also quite like the fact there is 2 factor authentication on the account and you get an email when the internet goes down, and then another when it comes back up. Regardless if it was a problem upstream or just a local power cut.

Another long term Zen customer here. First class on all counts. Tis time to go fibre though so I'm hoping they'll cut me a deal to combine that and phone having giving them loyalty all these years.

If they won't budge then maybe PlusNet are next on the radar.

ISPs all differ in how they deliver your connection.

AIUI
If dsl or non Virgin coax the wires are provided by Openreach, this gets you to the exchange.
Depending on your ISPs presence at that particular exchange it will then either disappear into the ISPs own equipment and back haul network where they may or may not apply some traffic shopping or into another ISPs network until it can get back into your ISPs network further upstream.

Depending on what grot/bike/socialmeja website you initially requested the request will travel through the ISPs network and pop out at there nominated connection to the rest of the intertubes, and then on to the website. That website then sends back to you the twaddle you requested, probably by the same route, but not necessarily.

Oh and Zen +1

Or you might prefer a company who use normal industry good practice and don’t Store your password at all!

How would you log in to anything if they didn't store your password?

EE have been doing some decent home broadband deals recently with ~£100 Topcashback.

https://www.topcashback.co.uk/ee-home-broadband/

NOT Talktalk!!!
My connection was actually ok but if you have a problem then the last thing they want to do is talk talk to you.
Each time I correctly answered a security question they would ask one more until I couldn't answer then they'd tell me I wasn't me and said that they thus couldn't deal with the problem!
Final straw was them asking me the name of my pet. I told them I didn't have a pet so how could I answer that?
"If you can't answer then we can't talk to you sir" ...
FFS Arrgh!!!

Edit; in the anger that was caused by thinking about TT I forgot to mention that I've had many happy years with Plusnet.

Just ditched BT and gone to Vodafone. Supplied router is a bit naff but all good so far.

This. You do seem tied to their router though as they don’t want to give out the PPPoE settings.

Just ditched BT and gone to Vodafone. Supplied router is a bit naff but all good so far.

This. You do seem tied to their router though as they don’t want to give out the PPPoE settings.

Ratherbeintobago, policy on that changed in June this year. As long as you have an [url= https://uno.help/knowledge-base/article/openreach-approved-vdsl-modems ]OpenReach/BT approved[/url] modem/router the login details will be given on request via chat.