Find The Cheapest Broadband Article Discussion Area

Lugh_Chronain

There are 2 comparison sites I know of Broadband Genie which compares the price of different broadband services based on factors including download speeds, length of minimum contract and free software supplied and Broadband Internet UK which compares not only standalone broadband packages, but also bundle deals.

Broadband Internet UK has been a little problematic but in all fairness when I contacted them about 2 errors they’d made they did respond promptly and rectified them in due course.

DCFC1884Rams

When you can only dload a miserly 1GB? Not good value that - fast connexion throttled by a minute download limit - ridiculous:mad:

DCFC1884Rams

chesham5 wrote: »

Hello Everyone

I just done the test and I can't fathom the results.

Speed Down 961.31 Kbps (0.9 Mbps)
Speed Up 241.22 Kbps (0.2 Mbps)
Port 8095

I'm with Orange who I'm considering getting rid of due to:
- bad technical help
- intermittent connection
- Slow speed

Appreciate any help explaining what speed I'm getting. Signed up to the basic package of 2meg

Thanks

2Megabits/sec is the highest possible speed. However your actual speed depends on many factors i.e. distance from exchange local loop, any extra wiring in your house. Upload speeds are nearly always less than your dload speed. 0.9Mbs (Megabits not Megabytes note!) is about what I get from Tiscali on a speed test. When dloading from Steam(Valve games servers in the U.S.A), I can achive a maximum of 125Mbps, so speed tests are not always accurate as they simulate packets.

theblackwidow74

Hi All

I'm new here, so i'm sorry if this isn't any good, but i'm going to use
https://www.adsl4less.com

Value Broadband

£11.99 per month
Speeds up to 8MB!
2GB bandwidth included
Extra bandwidth available
Email + Anti-Spam + Anti-Virus

or

No Limits Broadband

From just £14.99 per month
Download as much as you like
Worry Free!
No unexpected costs
Email + Anti-Spam + Anti-Virus


Sounds good don't you think?

Oh sorry, forgot to add, my Dad is with these and he wasn't charged a Migration or set up fee. Also he got all the hardwear free. Although this was over a year ago.

steveandel

DCFC1884Rams wrote: »

When you can only dload a miserly 1GB? Not good value that - fast connexion throttled by a minute download limit - ridiculous:mad:

Because not everyone downloads music/video all day long. If you look at most broadband useage calculators 1GB per month is approximately equal to 3/4hrs surfing websites per day, downloading a few music tracks and listening to a bit of online radio. For lots of people including myself this is often sufficient.
The point of having a fast connection is that you get what you want quicker! Seeing as the deals mentioned in the article give you up to 8Mbps connections and other providers only offer 1-2Mbps connections for the same price, you're obviously gonna choose the quicker one!

chesham5

DCFC1884Rams wrote: »

2Megabits/sec is the highest possible speed. However your actual speed depends on many factors i.e. distance from exchange local loop, any extra wiring in your house. Upload speeds are nearly always less than your dload speed. 0.9Mbs (Megabits not Megabytes note!) is about what I get from Tiscali on a speed test. When dloading from Steam(Valve games servers in the U.S.A), I can achive a maximum of 125Mbps, so speed tests are not always accurate as they simulate packets.

Thank-you DCFC1884Rams. I am not particularly technical so this helps a lot.

BAS_2

I'm new to the forum, but a long time recipient of Martin's emails which have done me proud. Thank you. I want to change from BT (phone & broadband) but Talk Talk isn't available in my area. I want a simple phone and broadband combined - too complicated for me to work out separately - but the only option appears to be Talk Talk. Can anyone advise me here? I know I can get cheaper broadband and separately cheaper phone. I just want a nice simple solution!

klint

BAS wrote: »

I'm new to the forum, but a long time recipient of Martin's emails which have done me proud. Thank you. I want to change from BT (phone & broadband) but Talk Talk isn't available in my area. I want a simple phone and broadband combined - too complicated for me to work out separately - but the only option appears to be Talk Talk. Can anyone advise me here? I know I can get cheaper broadband and separately cheaper phone. I just want a nice simple solution!

I don't understand why so many people consider a phone/broadband combination simpler than having it separately. Why should it be simpler? Just because they use the same length of copper cable? That's just a technical implementation detail, irrelevant to the end-user. Phone and broadband are different things used for different purposes. Why combine broadband with your phone? Why not combine broadband with gas, petrol or groceries instead?

steveandel

Newnet have announced a price reduction for their HomeLITE-12 package so it now works out at £9.49 a month if you pay upfront annually or you can pay by monthly direct debit for £9.95.

Same deal as before, 1GB downloads, up to 8Mbps, 12 month minimum contract etc etc.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/3094-newnet-drops-homelite-12-pricing.html

xpcomputers

Like Martin says, there are people who love a service and those who hate it.

It has definitely been a very bad year for PlusNet and the recent hacker attack in the last week is particularly current, very raw and in the front of peoples minds!

However, I am a customer of theirs, and I don't think they should be judged solely on past performance. In this last year they have started to get things back on track (they used to have award winning customer service for years before they lost the plot a bit recently - and I believe they are heading back that way).

It was well known that they have been looking for a replacement Webmail package for a while, and these things take time to do properly. Unfortunately, their webmail platform has suffered an attack in the meantime. This is inexcusable, but PlusNet are not alone in having high profile mishaps.

On the positive improvements side (since rock bottom last summer), their whole email platform (minus the webmail) has just completed a major overhaul and is now a completely brand new system. The customer services team & ticketing system is back on track with better training, more staff etc (if not fully sorted out yet, certainly well on the way). The long long CS phone queues are generally a thing of the past now too.
The other new "feature" that is now wrong in your article, is that PlusNet now have a geographical 0114 support phone number, (rather than an 0845), so you can call them for support on inclusive minutes deals on your phone line.
This also sets them apart from other suppliers. So even if you are unfortunate enough to call at a busy time and have to wait, at least you are not being ripped off in phone charges. (Maybe someone can update the article concerning cost of support calls)

I actually think that as a supplier, there is a lot going for them now. They had suffered from internal rot caused by bad management decisions, but that has been being systematically ripped out and the management team itself had a shake up last summer. It will take time for their reputation to improve again, and for the improvement work to be completed, but my opinion is they will make it.

I'll probably have many jump on me for my opinions and I wasn't wanting to cause an argument here, just wanted to give the other side of the argument, since several have already roasted PlusNet.

Please don't let this thread get hijacked as a PlusNet lovers/haters thread though, as there are lots of other ISP, so each should be able to find one that fits them.

There are a lot of people who have left PlusNet in this last year due to the major issues, so there are a lot of people with a justifiable dislike of PlusNet (and rightly so), however bear in mind, some will have memories of PlusNet frozen at the time of their departure.

However things have been steadily improving since then, other than last weeks blip (which I don't want to downplay... it was very serious and I am concerned about the impact of it for spam to my email addresses), I'm just not ready to jump to another ISP, as my impression is that all providers have issues like these over time.

PlusNet had many ups and downs in the past 10 years I've been a customer (Of their F9 brand), and I think they are now well on their way out of a down, into a up. But this is purely my opinion, and only time will be the judge if I am making a mistake by staying!

Mike

ps... For those determined to avoid PlusNet, please note that F9, Metronet and Freeonline are all brands of PlusNet. So you will get the same service and deals with any of them. So if you want to avoid PlusNet, you need to avoid these brands too.

pps... I just reread my post and wanted to stress I have no link to PlusNet and never have had. I just have used them for a long time as a customer and have been mostly very happy in that time. Only this last year has been problematic... and I see that as coming to end... so there is a light at the end of the tunnel ! ! !