Broadband Internet & ISP Recommendations?

So who do go to?

Don't fancy giving murdock money.

People who live on boats - do any residential moorings offer broadband?

Just signed up with origin. They've so far failed to deliver the router. Not sure if this is royal mails incompetence or theirs. Not a great start.

To compensate me for unusable Internet for 4 months, I'm being credited £10 of my £53 a month.

If you're on a bundle there's little you can do to challenge that.

If you only receive internet via them, and not TV or phone, then you should be able to argue for a payment relating to their lowest package for the duration, and then a discount for a year of around £10 per month once it's resolved and you are back on 200Mbps.

That £10 per month discount is what I got when their advertised upspeed was reduced, they put me up a plan to restore it and offer a year long discount. But then, I threatened to leave and had BT in my area (though interestingly not to my house, but Virgin didn't know that).

So Origin is a bit shit. The router arrived in time and the service started on time but it keeps dropping out (was down for about 3-4 hours yesterday, not sure why) plus its quite slow. Thinking about cancelling within the 14 day cooling off period. Has anyone done this? (not just through Origin).

Any recommendations for alternatives? Just finished a BT contract, which was flawless. Good router, great connection speeds.

Yep, I cancelled my Sky BB within the cooling off period after they failed to correctly switch me from EE.

Still got the £75 incentive card from it though (<See avatar)

Majestical avatar. ^^

Nice.

Gone with but as cheap £11 a month fibre broadband and 205 for a years line rental, plus 150 quid on a debit card

Left sky broadband for BT fibre 12 months contract, got £90 cash back through Quidco and £100 prepaid card from BT. Nice and so far all good connection and speed wise (actually getting 65mb on my 50mb line) but had loads of problems with BT on my previous address ages ago mind. Also new BT home hub best router you can get for free from provider

Anyone else with BT having problems with the Home Hub5?

First one worked for just about 2 years,
then needed repeated power cycling to maintain an internet connection for a couple of days,
then,
despite the (normally) reassuring blue light shining out, it would not connect by wifi,
and the 'net only BT TV channels would be unavailable.

This was swapped out Oct/Nov 2016, (handily BT failed to send the replacement HH5 on the promised day, and with some pointed complaining gave me £16 in credit as compensation).

Just before Xmas the replacement HH5 was again failing to provide consistent trouble-free connection. The BT call-back service told me my connection was just fine, and after some 'other tests' they would call me back. They did not.

Over the weekend there appeared to be no 5GHz wifi service at all.
Yesterday morning a power cycle brought it back,
but yesterday evening, again the blue light was on but no wifi on either 2.4 or 5 GHz.

I checked with a digital IR thermometer and the BT HH5 was 40C,
(second hottest item in the room to the radiator).

Again a power cycle restored wifi coverage.

40 minutes on the phone to BT this morning,
'line check' from their end, all OK,
ignored the 'temporary technical glitch' non-explanation.

8 minutes 'on hold' after asking how much electricity is the BT HH5 supposed to use, and why is it at 40C, to be told replacement will be with me tomorrow!

We shall see.

You haven't got a Chromecast have you? Read something on here recently about CCs breaking BT Homehubs/causing reboots etc.

No,
just the vanilla BT TV Youview box, (made by Humax?).

I should have had more faith;
'Royal Mail Tracked' delivery showed up around 12.30,
delivered by the guy in the RM Doblo high roof van who also collects the local Postman
and returns him to the local depot,
(we are the cul-de-sac end of the Postman's round).

Lets hope this BTHH5 works properly and for longer than the November replacement.

This third BT HH5 has now been replaced,
free of charge,
after several long phone calls to BT by their latest 'Smart Hub'
which broadcasts ssids labelling itself as 'BTHH6'.

The 3rd BTHH5 also suffered from poor wifi, (2.4GHz band offering single figure Mbps coverage just 6-7 metres and one internal single leaf brick wall away),
and,
very intermittent 5GHz coverage.

The BT Smart Hub/HH6 took 3 power cycles and two depressions of the 'Factory reset' button before it started working properly.

2.4Ghz signal: 50 Mbps
5GHz signal: 250Mpbs

anyone use Vodafone? bt is now ridiculously expensive

ISP question here; long story posted on another forum link

Assuming an issue I am having with my connection is caused by an issue with Sky either at the exchange or cabinet level, would changing to another ISP, and fiber be a potential way around the problem - as it would require a different hook up at the cabinet (and presumably different hardware at the exchange). Six months of intermittent connection issues with Sky are really making me sick

Can you get Virgin fibre? That's an entirely different connection.

I thought I'd looked it up 6 months ago and we couldn't but had another look today and it looks like we can, so that's what prompted this new question. Its probably the route we'll take

Virgin fibre is ace. Would recommend....

Getting a solid 280mbps connection with them now.

Heh. Until we started this rigmorale (30 year old BT Faceplate, 8 year old 02 router) we had 1mbps down / 0.2 up! Now hitting 19mbps down 1.2 up when it works, which is pretty good for ADSL

Get Virgin Fibre ASAP.

280mbps up, 25mbps down. Rock solid for 18 months and counting now (i.e since we moved in)

Ive just had a rewire of our phone and router setup and the connection download speed has increased from 2.9Mbps to 5.8Mbps 😀 Our exchange isnt likely to get fibre any time soon.

The BT master socket is in the loft and was probably installed in 1989. The removable lower panel didn't have a socket for connecting a phone (or router) into and the wiring that extended from that to the usable hallway socket had been heavily stapled in place.

Ive now got the latest NTE5C filtered faceplate master in the loft and replaced the phone cable with a length of cat5e down to the hallway telephone socket.

A second run of cat5 cable is run from the router and hardwired into Data home wiring A/B connections on the back of the master socket faceplate. It could have been plugged into the front of the master socket, but being as the wires are clipped inplace to the rafters, the hardwire option seemed neater.

Definitely worth while

Just finished my years contract with plusnet and my cost has gone up from 17.99 a month to just under 30.

Who should i switch to?

GF is moving in at the end of the week, and wants wifi coverage throughout the whole flat (currently it drops out in the last two rooms, because of concrete walls) so that got me into looking at a new router through BT. My current package (BT Infinity, Line Rental, BT Sport App, Friends and Family, and international calls) comes to £62pm, after a talk with an agent yesterday, they'll bring it down to £50pm if I pay half price for Home Hub 6 and £10 delivery.
Not bad I thought until GF said at her current place they don't pay that much, and she gets international calls on her mobile, the only issue with their wifi is that it falls over constantly and in a block with thinner walls than my place the signal doesn't stretch that far either.

So for cheaper broadband in my place I can go Virgin Vivid 100mb unlimited Fibre broadband 12mth contract @ £30pm, Talk Talk 76mb unlimited fibre broadband 18mth contract @ £30pm, or Plus net 17mb unlimited broadband 12mth contract @ £18.99pm.

I've previously heard horror stories about virgin and talk talk's customer service, anyone have anything to offer. Reasons why Virgin, Talk Talk are a decent shout. Or should I just stay with BT paying the £20 extra..