Recomended broadband for cheap but reliable service?

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  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 5,186 Forumite
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    cashmonger wrote: »
    Looking on uswitch initially brought up origin as the cheapest but seeing the appaling reviews strewn over the net I am not gonna risk them.

    I work online so need a solid connection however it doesn't need to be too fast. 20mbit from sky was fine.

    I had to pay nearly £30 a month for that which seems alot just for 20mbits when you can get fibre for a couple of quid more. Thing is though I don't really need fibre speeds so it would be a waste but at the same time it the 30 for just 20mbit seems too expensive.

    Any better deals for a similar price? and I am talking about after the grace period of the first year is over. I am finding it hard to find the REAL price since they hide it deep in there terms and only show the first year in huge numbers, which is much less than what you will be paying later, all over the place to lure you in.

    I don't even know how long I will be at my new house, though I would like to stay indefinitely if all goes well, however I like to plan ahead and a year soon goes and I don't want to be chopping and changing providers all the time. I want a reliable one and stick with them.

    So are there any suggested better deals for no frills solid internet connection for cheaper than the 30 quid I was paying at sky? Reliability and price are the main two factors.
    As said above, on here nobody pays full price which makes your £30 for ADSL ridiculous. You can get it for a maximum of £18.99 (line rental) a month with just 1 call, if you haggle then even less. You could use your move as leverage to get them to connect your new property for free although obviously you need to know what sort of speed you'll get at the new place, have you even checked if fibre is available? Given your earlier posts you don't really need fibre but this will depend on the new location.
  • JJ_Egan
    JJ_Egan Posts: 20,281 Forumite
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    As said .
    Dependent upon what OP means by work on line they should be looking at a Business broadband service with guaranteed service level agreements .
  • cashmonger
    cashmonger Posts: 411 Forumite
    edited 20 May 2017 at 1:03PM
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    Colin_Maybe wrote: »
    As said above, on here nobody pays full price which makes your £30 for ADSL ridiculous. You can get it for a maximum of £18.99 (line rental) a month with just 1 call, if you haggle then even less. You could use your move as leverage to get them to connect your new property for free although obviously you need to know what sort of speed you'll get at the new place, have you even checked if fibre is available? Given your earlier posts you don't really need fibre but this will depend on the new location.

    Im not sure I understand what you mean £18.99 line rental? what do you have to ask for to get this after the 12 months is up?

    Do you mean at the end of 12 months you can just demand they keep it at that price or you leave for another network? I really had no idea how it works, it's just I like to get a (reasonable) fixed fee so I don't have to constantly be counting down the days till I next need to renew it. I suppose once a year isn't that bad.

    I am just not fond of haggling for things. And also as I said I prefer not constantly be chopping and changing networks; I find such things a distraction. So I prefer to find the 'final fee' which I can pay indefinitely rather than always have to be shopping around for one off deals.
    JJ_Egan wrote: »
    As said .
    Dependent upon what OP means by work on line they should be looking at a Business broadband service with guaranteed service level agreements .

    Well I already said that my previous speeds were fine so no need to pay more for business lines. I am not running a server or anything but I just need to communicate with other sites constantly; without network interruptions.
  • onomatopoeia99
    onomatopoeia99 Posts: 6,964 Forumite
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    cashmonger wrote: »
    Well I already said that my previous speeds were fine so no need to pay more for business lines. I am not running a server or anything but I just need to communicate with other sites constantly; without network interruptions.
    Where the difference comes with a product aimed at a business versus one aimed at the domestic market comes is how well the ISP support deals with restoring your service in the event of an interruption, how much effort they are prepared to put in arguing with BT wholesale on your behalf, how many times they tell you to reboot the router (etc) and other such irrelevant nonsense and whether their support people read from a script without any understanding of what they are saying.

    If there is a line fault, how long do you want to spend on the telephone to your ISP support before they acknowledge / understand the issue? This is where the difference between ISPs is really stark. A consumer grade ISP might well be fine for you, but if your livelihood depends on it, you'll need to hope nothing goes wrong.
    Proud member of the wokerati, though I don't eat tofu.Home is where my books are.Solar PV 5.2kWp system, SE facing, >1% shading, installed March 2019.Mortgage free July 2023
  • cashmonger
    cashmonger Posts: 411 Forumite
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    Well 'normal' internet has been fine for 7 years so I don't think there is any need to rock the boat on that front.
  • cashmonger
    cashmonger Posts: 411 Forumite
    edited 20 May 2017 at 2:58PM
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    So these prices at plusnet are saying £13.49 for broadband only. I assume that doesn't mean you don't need to pay for a phone package but rather you need to pay for the line rental from someone else at £10 p/m?

    So if I went with them I would want the broadband and phone package? This is confusing though because they quote
    £4.51 for the first 18 months, £9.99 thereafter
    but that seems very low? hmm that is for a low cost area I see. They say that 90% of their coverage is now low cost though. They require a phone number to check if your address counts as low cost but I have not moved in yet so I can't give that I won't have one till I buy a broadband package.

    Those low cost packages only seem to be for 18 months too. I want 12 months. But those prices something must be missing for them to be so low? But what? since they say that phone is included or they just mean calls rather than line rental?
  • iniltous
    iniltous Posts: 3,094 Forumite
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    edited 20 May 2017 at 3:40PM
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    Plusnet allow you to have line rental with someone else if you wanted,many like Sky and TT don't allow this, they require you to have both line rental and broadband.
    You can have line rental and broadband with Plusnet
    Line rental and regular broadband is £20 going upto £21per month, on a 12 month minimum term, it's unclear if this is a low cost area price or not.
    If you need a new line then Plusnet can arrange that
    You should be able to get an estimate for broadband speed by using the post code on a speed checking site.
  • cashmonger
    cashmonger Posts: 411 Forumite
    edited 20 May 2017 at 4:19PM
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    Directsave telcom is looking up my street now due to the price staying fixed after the first year but once again hoards of bad reviews.

    Why do all provider reviews seem to attract extremely bad feedback online?

    I'm not sure how much stock to put in user reviews now because there seem to be 1/2 star averages for nearly every broadband company around going by the common review sites.

    I just looked at sky for comparison and saw they have only 2 stars yet I have had great experience with them for the 5+ years I was with them.

    I also saw someone bemoaning hyperoptic today and they have absolutely top notch customer services and speed/reliability so I am not sure I can put much to trust user reviews now since they don't seem accurate to my experiences of companies I have used.
  • cajef
    cajef Posts: 6,266 Forumite
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    cashmonger wrote: »
    Why do all provider reviews seem to attract extremely bad feedback online? .
    Mainly because you only hear from the customers that have had a problem or bad service and never from the thousands of customers that are happy with an ISP.
  • cashmonger
    cashmonger Posts: 411 Forumite
    edited 20 May 2017 at 5:30PM
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    I jsut read the cheapest deals article and it that origin's price goes up to £27 or so after 12 month's contract is up but I thought that their £16 odd price was not dependant on the contract like other companies.

    I am wondering where MSE got this info from because I didn't see that anywhere on their site.

    I guess I won't risk going with them anyway since there is even a huge thread on MSE about their bad service. I am thinking direct save at the moment since I didn't read anything horrendous about them on MSE and the reviews online seemed to have more satisfied customers mixed in with the complainers vs origin.
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