Best fast broadband?

piggeh

I've recently moved into a flat and am looking at broadband options. I was going to get Virgin transferred from my old place to the new but they said they are still waiting for LL permission to install cable (LL has told me its ok). As I use broadband a lot (downloading video, music, gaming etc), I am trying to find a decent ISP who can provide a low latency high usage broadband line. Virgin are £20ish a month (£21.25 I think, to be accurate). I am not worried about TV services although would contemplate Sky Sports if it were cheap enough.

Would anyone know any comparably priced services which would provide a decent service? Also is it worth cancelling virgin and reinstalling as a new customer, or just transferring across? Do they normally let you have new customer offers if you've moved house?

Thanks.

qpop

Unless you're on Virgins most expensive package their "traffic management" setup is pretty draconian;
http://www.virginmedia.com/images/tm-table-su-large.jpg
Since they brought that in (75% speed reduction after downloading 1.5GB data?? No thanks) I'd never consider them as a serious option.

I've just bought Xilo broadband for my new flat, which I haven't used yet (as I dont move in until next weekend) but the reviews are fantastic. The broadband is £18pm with no contract, but you have to pay a £48 setup charge. (and they don't provide you with kit)

It really depends what LLU products are available in your area; Be Unlimited (www.bethere.co.uk) are the best mainstream provider for high users, bar none.

Go on http://www.samknows.com/broadband/broadband_checker and key in your details. Postcode is enough.

hareng

Depends what services are available to you tap your phone number in to here.
http://www.samknows.com/broadband/broadband_checker
Bear in mind it only lists the ISP who pay to advertise!

Quite agree BE is going to be your best bet for LLU service.
Depends what usage you have in mind or if you can defer to off peak 'unlimited'.

Had a Sky rep round last Friday trying to flog a dead horse. Starts to get cheap when taking phone, line and broadband, none of which i wanted. Pointless spending £30 p/m for nothing more than HD Freesat without ADSL2+, line and calls.

qpop

hareng wrote: »

Depends what services are available to you tap your phone number in to here.
http://www.samknows.com/broadband/broadband_checker
Bear in mind it only lists the ISP who pay to advertise!

Quite agree BE is going to be your best bet for LLU service.
Depends what usage you have in mind or if you can defer to off peak 'unlimited'.

Had a Sky rep round last Friday trying to flog a dead horse. Starts to get cheap when taking phone, line and broadband, none of which i wanted. Pointless spending £30 p/m for nothing more than HD Freesat without ADSL2+, line and calls.

Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) is the process of opening up a telephone exchange so that it can be used by a number of different broadband providers. These broadband providers are then able to use connections from the telephone exchange through to the customer's homes to deliver home broadband.
This section of SamKnows.com lists the major UK LLU operators.
Two of the most common questions we receive via email about this section are:
"Why is provider XYZ not listed on this site?" and
"I'm using provider XYZ, but your site says they're not available in my area! What's going on?"

The answer to both of these questions is not immediately obvious. SamKnows.com lists operators who run their own network and deliver entirely their own broadband services to end users (i.e. they are not simply reselling someone else's service). Whilst there are maybe 15-20 operators who fulfil this criteria, there are literally hundreds of other ISPs reselling their services. This is far too many to list and it would add no additional information; it would simply be repeating data shown elsewhere on the site. Even ISPs such as BT Yahoo!, which has well in excess of 1 million customers, is not listed on here directly because they simply resell BT Wholesale's products.

That doesn't read like it's a pay-to-display site. *shrug*

Mark_In_Hampshire

If you're used to cable and have the option of waiting to get it - and you download a lot so speed might be important:

When you use the Availability checker above, do have a look at what the estimated speeds are for your new location. Cable is the only (mass) technology to actually deliver very close to the headline "Up to" speed.

If the forecast/estimate for a phone line (ADSL) based service at your new place is e.g. 7Mbps and you're used to 10Mbps cable then you might not notice much difference.

If the estimate is 1Mbps and you're used to 20Mbps cable, you'll probably find yourself going back to cable anyway so waiting might be the better option and get a 3G dongle in the meantime to tide you over.

kwikbreaks

qpop wrote: »

That doesn't read like it's a pay-to-display site. *shrug*

That's because it isn't.

qpop

kwikbreaks wrote: »

That's because it isn't.

Ah, didn't think so.

hareng, I hope you stand corrected

cajef

hareng wrote: »

Bear in mind it only lists the ISP who pay to advertise!

Where did that bit of incorrect information come from?

kwikbreaks

cajef wrote: »

Where did that bit of incorrect information come from?

The traditional response of "plucked right out of..." is likely to be subject to severe moderation.

piggeh

I guess I will go with Virgin (I've used Be in the past though, really nice ISP). Are you normally able to sign up as a new customer if you have moved house?

Thanks for all the advice. The exchange has quite a few LLU providers so got a bit of choice.

Mark_In_Hampshire

Yes, you can. If the speed estimate is fair and you want to think about BE for broadband I think they can also install the line now (£85-ish) on a month to month contract though I've no idea how their telephony charges stack up against others so if you use that aspect (as opposed to just broadband) you could compare Virgin Media cable at say 20Mbps with BE at whatever estimate they give you for performance and also compare the other aspects.