Broadband Internet & ISP Recommendations?

Another dissatisfied Plusnet user in SE London here. After speaking with neighbours and looking into coverage we're switching to Sky but they've completely ballsed up the changeover. Whilst i'm in the cancellation window does anyone have any experience with these guys?

https://www.greenisp.net/

From an uninvolved onlooker perspective it really feels like all broadband providers are struggling with provisions tight now.

Everybody I know who has tried to switch or sign up to a new connection has had a nightmare regardless of who they are with. I suspect the ISPs are just struggling to keep up with covid demand.

Think it's a good idea to avoid switching if there is any prospect of getting a reasonable service with your current provider. Even if it takes a few days of hassle.

My other half is on Sky(which is awful), and having been here for 3 months it's inevitable I move in. Her building has Hyperoptic available, it's a no brainer, right?

Hyperoptic available, it's a no brainer, right?

Even if you go for their "standard broadband" package its a no brainer.

I've just been through the process of negotiating full fiber for a lbock of 70 flats and the hyperoptic product shits on all rivals. They have excellent customer services ** and the owner of the company has a long history of owning broadbad companies with oustanding customer services ***

** Before the pandemic anyway, they might be under just as much pressure as everybody else for all I know.

*** Hyperoptic is owned by the guy who founded BeUnlimited which was superb for customer services until he sold it to Telefonica who later sold it to Sky who ran it into the ground. He's a full on ITIL and ITSM nerd.

EDIT: Didn't realise that Dana Tobak co-owns Hyperoptic too. She is also a customer services nerd based on her reputation in the industry.

My Plusnet saga is continuing potentially. Getting rubbish connection via my work laptop to work server. Seems it might be the wifi signal. Spent an hour to IT who upgraded all my wireless drivers etc but still getting same issues. Their view is the router Plusnet sent me is inferior and they should have sent something with 5ghz and taht could be the issue. This is the router:

https://www.expertreviews.co.uk/plusnet/1403635/plusnet-hub-zero-2704n-review

Seems to be pretty rubbish going by the reviews. Worth pressing for Plusnet to send a more modern router?

Most of my personal devices seem OK, but I was also getting issues using Chromecast for Eurosport which might be connected.

The other possible option is digging out the old EE router to see if that can work and is any better.?

Got a new Vodafone broadband/VDSL connection as the Sky contract was up (and I was moving anyway)... Mistake. Random drops every few days plus such a POS modem. Got lucky on eBay and changed the modem to an Archer VR2800 on Monday (such a monster that one) and today we had our first multiple-drop-incident: handful of drops during the day and a few more in the evening. I already have a complaint going since last week but I don't think it'll amount to something. The 30-day period has well passed, the support-people in chat keep saying "loose" instead of "lose" and I'm slowly going nuts. How to convince them to get an engineer to check the DSL box in the street and/or test the cabling?

I had something similar with the post office, didn't get resolved. Ultimately I changed back to plus net which has been fine since. We don't get fibre in rural Leyton, but the connection hasn't dropped once in three weeks, whereas it dropped daily with the PO.

The bloke that I spoke to on retenions said that my faults were all separate because I had left it too long between complaints.

I suppose the take-home message is to keep on at them, daily

Despite John Lewis (owned business plusnet as pointed out to me upthread) being very helpful on the phone, they were seemingly unable to update my billing to new contract. Tried four times in a row but each time bill came in wrong. I guess they just pass the instruction on to plusnet. Shame but I had to leave.
Edit: just seen @Stonehenge suggests this may be an industry wide issue^

Sky are having all sorts of issues today.

On the advice of a mate, I changed by DNS setting to Google’s 8888 on my phone. Is this safe and legit? It seems to have worked.

Changing DNS won't have any negative implications as long as you change to a reputable one. Cloudflare is better; 1.1.1.1

9.9.9.9 is another one to use > google

My parents are having the same issue so must be widespread, is the DNS setting easy enough to talk them through on the phone?

Has anyone recently moved flat/house and had a new account set-up/installed?

Curious what kind of lead times there are at the moment - think I'll have to move house only to return (currently at my parents') for a couple of weeks to be able to keep working.

A lot depends on whether you already have service to the property. Virgin for instance are very swift (often a self-install) if the property already has service but pissing ages (nearly two months from telling them I was moving to it being sorted of which a month and a bit was in the new place) if they need to sort out new wiring.

thanks! just rang Zen and they said Openreach won't have appointments until late March/early April - but it sounded like that was fibre-specific.

I'm now getting confused as to whether if I opt for a non-fibre package, having phone lines (or at least a socket) means I can do some kind of plug-and-play self-setup or not.
Virgin's site says the property has had service before (but the agent wasn't sure and couldn't see the wall socket required for 'QuickStart') - and the house has been empty for a few months. So not sure if an engineer is required or not...

If you get non-fibre... you're going to be stuck in a contract and no fibre upgrade will come until you are out of contract.

You either need BT to step up and give fibre... and handle fighting with them for that.
Or you need Virgin to step up and ensure you have cable.

If you have the option for fibre or cable, do not accept anything else... better to wait and be hotspotting for a while than find yourself on a crappy 10Mb *DSL connection and locked into a contract with no incentive for them to do the work to give you a better connection. They'll do it for customer acquisition, less motivated for customer retention.

In my experience (with Virgin) you also couldn't trust what they were telling you. My installation was cancelled within 24 hours of the install date more than once so there was just no certainty over when it would be installed.

We're looking to be renting this new place for no longer than a year before buying somewhere. Have started looking at the 3/EE SIM routers as a stop-gap now, cheers!

This is what I did for several months and it was fine.

I have a spare 4g router and crazy aerial if you have a SIM card you can use.

This is what I've switched to after suffering with a shit ADSL connection for far too long (and no hope of fibre at my address).

I went for a Huawei b535 router (£90 with a strong resale value) and £35 a month Giffgaff sim. It's worth doing speed tests on a number of networks and in different rooms before you decide which provider to go with. I get strong 4g signal on my phone with Three but the speed is only 15-20 mb/s, on Giffgaff (O2) we're getting 80mb/s download, 20mb/s upload.

Suffered 2 days of slower speeds last month due to O2 working on a nearby mast but other than that it's been stable.

Come to think if it, is there any reason I couldn't or shouldn't just use a personal hotspot from my phone (on O2, unlimited data (in theory))?
There'll just be one laptop needing it, and I'll always have my phone around with me when i'm on the laptop.

I'm trying to to move away from Virgin. What are my options for fibre (FTTP)? I'm looking at EE, BT, Vodafone and Zen. I've been with Virgin for years and it's alway been fairly stable so I'm quite worried about moving and ending up with a flakey service from a new provider. Does anyone have any experience with those providers above? Before researching this it was going to be a no brainer and go with Zen, but they're looking quite expensive and many of their recent reviews are surprisingly poor.

For full fiber, Hyperoptic have the best consumer reviews.

I'm with Zen, what's quite expensive? I've got their fibre 45mb plus landline for about £35 a month, which is less than the £70 BT were going to charge me for their fibre, after having been a customer for almost a decade. Service has been reliable, haven't had any issues in the 2+ yrs I've been with them.
Have no issues, if I change from Zen, it'll probably be to hyperoptic, but that may have to wait until we buy a new place (they aren't currently laying any cable into my block of flats)

I'm with Zen, what's quite expensive? I've got their fibre 45mb plus landline for about £35 a month, which is less than the £70 BT were going to charge me for their fibre,

You have FTTC. @fettled_nuts is asking about FTTP.

They are two different things. FTTP is usually a lot more expensive than FTTC.