Broadband Internet & ISP Recommendations?

John Lewis broadband. Customer service is very good, they answer the phone quickly and have resolved things there and then. No complaints. Also used zen previously, who were also decent. Plusnet were useless.

John Lewis broadband. Customer service is very good, they answer the phone quickly and have resolved things there and then. No complaints. Also used zen previously, who were also decent. Plusnet were useless.

John Lewis Broadband is rebadged Plusnet.

That’s interesting. Customer service on the phone is chalk and cheese.

Update on Plusnet. Finally connected on 9 September. Was without broadband since 17 August. It took an email to the CEO and someone quite senior taking ownership of it to resolve. Got compensation which I had to negotiate up because it was pitiful offer.

How much compensation did you get? I ended up with about £170 from Virgin for a similar delay but I'd lost the will to live by then.

Looks like this is the place for Plusnet love!

Came here because I have been on Plusnet for 2 years and over the last six months the top package (supposed to be50 - 70mbps) has become completely unworkable.
Every call breaks
Don't even bother with video calls
Can't stream anything - not even spotify.

Router is total junk.

So...
Who is the preferred BB provider?
South East London

Virgin product has been great for me.

Customer service is fucking terrible though.

EDIT: Router isn't great with Virgin (although not terrible) but I replaced that.

Router is total junk

Is it the same wired as well as wireless?

Before you shop around, worth investigating that whoever you go with will be using the same infrastructure as Plusnet and possibly even same router.

Try the Sam knows checker
https://availability.samknows.com/broadband/broadband_checker

Used to work for BT we would use this alongside our own systems

If your search results show LLU after a suppliers name that means they will be using wider BT network, but a separate installation at exchange, so slightly different service and more switching hassle

Also been with PN for some years, generally good enough for our needs, though recent wfh with two people on pretty much constant VC may be testing the system. Interesting that you can distinguish between junk router and junk internet connection, how do you know the difference?

First week with Three 5G. Not bad at all. Consistent 160mbps+ down and 25mbps up. Not sure whether It's because I've adopted early and the bandwidth is not as loaded, but quite impressed.

5G shouldn’t have bandwidth restrictions as it’s specifically designed to allow for 1,000s of concurrent connections in a very restricted area.

Interesting. I've been testing various Bandwidth hogs for the past few days and it's not blinked.
I've always had connectivity issues prior to this during peak hours. Last time I experienced this much consistent bandwidth was back at Uni with Virgin.
Such low latency is frikking amazing.

Just as a sample of the bandwidth increase of 5G vs 4G and why it's more suited to urban areas:

5G is capable of handling around 1 million connected devices per 0.38 square miles, compared to around 2,000 connected devices per 0.38 square miles with 4G... that's a 500x increase!

Super low latency is what really makes it feel really fast. It's also the enabler for a lot of the future tech for 5G like autonomous vehicles and smart cities.

It's super exciting tech. One of my main clients is one of the global infrastructure leaders in 5G so I've spent my head in it for the last 18 months.

The major barrier will be how it's rolled out at a national level - it's not particularly suited to suburban areas or open countryside due to the coverage a single mast is capable of; the frequency it operates at doesn't doesn't travel as far. That means either not rolling out 5G outside of urban areas or having thousands more masts. At least it's around 10x more power efficient than 4G so more green per area covered...

That's insane scaling! Tech really moves quick.

I'm not even sure I was supposed to get 5G. The guy on the phone wasn't entirely sure as Three implemented the service pretty rapidly, and inputting my post into their website says I'm not in the 5G zone, yet here we are.
I'm not even fussed about the speed, I won't be doing anything demanding really, it's just the fact that it's consistent that's very pleasing.

Shit, at this point, gaming is looking tempting after a decade's hiatus.

I've got EE 4G at home and have been getting 150 up and down consistently recently biut thats because we've got an EE mast literally on our roof. Would love to find out how much we'd get on 5G!

It's not necessarily about outright speed though. You're unlikely to get that peak speed consistently on 4G and your latency will be several 100 times higher on 4G than 5G.

Consistent speeds around 200mbps and a ping of 1ms is what transforms 5G into something that could easily replace home broadband / wired infrastructure in cities in the next 5 years.

See, I'm stuck between a whole bunch of buildings that are taller and apparently the mast is further down behind them according to the engineer I spoke to.
I've been doing bandwidth tests and it's been 210mbps for the past hour, all week around this time. For less than £30 a month. If it keeps this way, that's superb value.

@Soul I haven't hit such low ping yet, but its dipped into single digits.

@chak you're also probably experiencing sub-6Ghz 5G at the moment which is not full fat 5G. Three own the mmWave 5G spectrum in the UK but it's super hard to implement and requires antennas almost literally every 200-300m to work properly.

When that's rolled out at large urban concentrations like stadiums, rail / airport or shopping hubs, you'll see 1Gps connections which will be insane.

It's not necessarily about outright speed though. You're unlikely to get that peak speed consistently on 4G and your latency will be several 100 times higher on 4G than 5G.

I didn't say it was!

Yup, our ping timees are between 10 and 20 ms.

Google WiFi does a speed test at random times, the 150 figure is average speed over last 30 days. Lowest was 80, highest was 224. Upload is always 150ish. We also benefit from our cell mast being relatively low contention as on one side it overlooks blackheath and Greenwich Park so has a lower population density to serve.

I'm not, you're right! Router stats say I'm at 5GHZ with 2.4GHZ active in case the former drops connection.
That much infrastructure would be problematic in localised areas no? Government subsidised or down to local authorities?

That much infrastructure would be problematic in localised areas no

Part of the problem is that millimeter band radio signals barely penetrate buildings, leaves, trees etc. Struggles with fog and rain and basically dies if it snows. Difficult to transmit omnidirectionally too.

I suspect that the plan isn't to roll out the full fat service in large areas, perhaps just in stadiums etc as Soul suggested.

Yeah - you're never getting mmWave in your house. It's just not possible.

They'll roll it out in large open areas with high population density and sub-6 everywhere else. Still will be a massive upgrade to infrastructure for millions of people.

If the government back it in a big way (lol) then it could transform the broadband infrastructure in the country too.

Damn, we're down to that level commercially? Last I read years ago, that was the stuff used for Astronomy shindigs.

@Soul I'm curious now about how all this operates. Higher frequency, more packet transfer? Seems like 5G has rolled out quicker than the transition from 3>4. Ignoring all the paranoia surrounding it, how easy is it to scale up in rural areas?

It's mainly the new frequency band which allows the tech to roll out - it's just better suited to the type of job needed. The mast technology and core network infrastructure is now also built from the ground up to solve the issues seen in 4G with concurrent connections.

Scaling up is possible quickly and certainly, the manufacturers of the tech are ready for that. The barrier is network operator willingness (either because of recession etc or low customer need right now) as well as regulatory hurdles.

For once, we're a little ahead of the curve in the UK, having had the spectrum auctions and passed some legislation allowing 5G rollout in a more dense way but the burning of towers and general fuckwittery of the public isn't helping... as a contrasting example, France are yet to have their spectrum auctions, which are taking place at the end of this month. They'll roll out quickly because tech is here now but we originally auctioned the majority of our spectrum in 2018.