Broadband Internet & ISP Recommendations?

You may be ok with 35mpbs.

If you can managed wired connections for both you and your wife, teams video calls only take up around 1.5-2mbps for HD video according to Microsoft.

You’d suffer a little with uploading files etc but it’s not the end of the world.

I've got Voneus broadband via satellite dish which does 2.5-15mbs which seems to cope with Teams /Netflix most times.

All good, hope you get it figured out to suit you. I looked into this a fair bit when we moved. We just about manage two of us wfh with actual speeds of 40/10. We often have lots of photo/video to upload which is painful and we invariably let it happen overnight. So jealous of people who have fttp. Would love symmetric speeds in the hundreds, but not happening anytime soon here.

I wonder if the broadband providers are just being really conservative with their minimum guaranteed speeds?

It's possible. I think there is an Ofcom code which sort of forces it.

The BT wholesale checker [1]might get you an actual if you have the phone number of the existing line which has service. Mine has a handback threshold of 70 and shows a last sync of 80. My ADSL prediction is up to 8.5 but I got 14.3.

[1] https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL

Looks like we're heading into day 3 without a connection thanks to Virgin - 4th outage this month, can't wait till my contact ends so I can leave in Jan.

Can you get Community Fibre? They've been buying people out of their Virgin contracts; two of my friends have done this.

Alas no; - we're in a black spot, they seem to have stopped a few streets away from us in all directions for some reason.

Big outage for Three at the moment so no 5G internet for me.
All providers have problems but their customer service or lack of is legendary!?
Anyone been down but back on with Three today?
Might be switching to community fibre sooner than expected..

I'm an ID Mobile customer which is a Three MVNO. Lots of no signal earlier today. Seems to be working at the moment.

I'm sure I saw a message saying they were doing works in my area soon. Can't remember when it was though soz.

Dunno if it'll be any help but there's a new company called Brsk that's rolling out fibre to places. They seem to be quite aggressively expanding. We had a salesman around recently to tell us if we see the pavement being dug up for new cables it's them.

I've just signed up for another 24 months of BT VDSL+ so I just know someone else will roll up with FTTP any day now.

(If BT offer this I automatically get upgraded to FTTP, but if someone else provides it I can't move from BT. Hardly a huge concern, I still get 70Mbps and it's not as if I'm running up against that all the time.)

Thank you - I appreciate it. I did take a look but it looks like they're around Manchester and Birmingham closest to me. Or are you somewhere completely not within their areas of coverage on their website.

There's a lot of similar private firms popping up to fill the gap. Round by us it's Gigaclear the main people. They're about to finish installing in the village I just moved from, which I had been really excited about. I guess if it's looking attractive enough to them financially, they'll also install where I'm moving to.

It's a tiny village, but is connected to a much larger village, and then very close to a decent sized town. Hopefully that might put us in the firing line for some future upgrades. I'm also hoping that once Amazon's project kuiper gets up and running, that will create some competition in that market and the likes of Starlink will drop in price.

I now have the keys for the house but will move possessions over the coming week. Sky broadband was showing 16Mbps on Friday evening which hopefully is the worst it will be. I could stream netflix on my mobile with no buffering time, but the real test will be once we've moved in with multiple devices.

mine ends in Feb and tried to make a call but apparently i called a week too early to be able to cancel.

Trying to decide between Zen (there's some referral codes on here) and Vodafone (city fibre) with comes with £100 amazon/tesco/sains voucher ...

does anyone have any experience with Vodafone?

edit: also re: leaving virgin: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2023/07/virgin-media-under-review-after-customers-experience-difficultie/

edit: looks like vodafone 100 quid offer is over :(

I have a Community fibre update. Two of my child nodes upgraded themselves to the latest CF firmware automatically. One of them (the one I use for work) started disconnecting randomly, so I've reset it, removed it from the mesh and reflashed it with the starhub firmware, then the latest retail, then added again. Seems ok so far.

I've done the same thing with the other auto updated one too.

I've got instructions of anyone fancies losing an hour or two of their lives

Yes plz

done - enjoy! You might wonder if it was really worth doing once you have finished

anyone have any tips on cancelling virgin media? I'm being given the run around ... put on hold that just gets cut off ... i was told a number to call but it doesn't work ... currently waiting in the chat.

Send them an old school letter, recorded delivery maybe.

Write to us

You can send your leaving request by post to:

Virgin Media, Sunderland, SR43 4AA

Their customer service team on Twitter do actually try and help, I’d give them a try

They're a nightmare - my father has just gone into a care home so I want to cancel his phone/broadband in his house. I have power of attorney to act for him. I tried the live chat who wasted a load of time asking questions about my father's health - I told them politely it was none of their business. Eventually they told me I needed to call some helpdesk- so I did this. After a long hold they passed me around and all tried to stop me cancelling. They finally gave me an 0800 number but told me the team on that number are off until Tuesday.

I'm tempted to just cancel the direct debit - ive tried to do the right thing. What can they do? They can blacklist him - I don't care, they can send bailiffs - I'm emptying/selling the house anyway. Will they try and take a 90 yr old with advanced Alzheimers to court because they refuse to accept their service is no longer required?

Will they try and take a 90 yr old with advanced Alzheimers to court because they refuse to accept their service is no longer required?

Absolutely, yes.

But also fuck them and let them waste their time doing so.

Sorry to hear they're adding their bullshit to your load.

Glorious day - just as my discounted virgin runs out, Zen (finally!) launch FTTP to my house, meaning I don’t have to gamble on either ~12MB BT ADSL or 4G.

Just also need to play the virgin dickhead dance now with cancellations.

Call at 8.01am when the lines open.

Tell them that you are recording the call so that you can provide it to the ombudsman if necessary.

Tell them you are cancelling and that all you want from them is an acknowledgement that they have heard you. Repeat this request until they give it to you.

Deny any request for you to be put on hold or transferred.

Ask for your final bill date. Repeat this until they respond with it.

Hang up.

This was my final strategy, that worked after three days of trying.

(Amusingly, during the call, having initially confirmed that it was OK for them to address me by my first name, I told them that this was no longer OK and asked to be addressed as Mr Surname or Sir.

Petty, but it made me laugh.)

Very shittily they don't provide confirmation when you cancel.

So, after cancelling in the phone I posted on the virgin forums requesting confirmation of cancellation.
https://community.virginmedia.com/
It's the only part of Virgin customer service that I've found to not be entirely incompetent. You'll also see lots of threads on there on how to cancel.

Also, I wouldn't bother with the power of attorney part unless you don't know the passwords. Just say you're the account holder.