Great Hunt: What stops you switching broadband?

EricDeeson

... and who can guarantee anther provider will provide a better signal everywhere? We have Virgin, 100 Mb/s, and their super-duperest router ... but it's still poor in some areas and negligible in others. Extenders have not helped.

All the best - Eric

Hadders

I live in an area where, apart from a 10Mb wireless connection by TFL all the other providers have to use BT's old phone line. Virgin do not come to this area. Sky offered a minimum of 6Mb over the BT line but found that the maximum the BT line would provide is 1.2Mb. What really annoys me is that I have seen the BT fibre optic cable outside my house but BT will not connect to it and even deny it is there!

savingsusie

Our local exchange is extremely poor with broadband speeds between 0 and 2. We cannot take advantage of provider's cheap deals as it all goes through the local exchange which is very very slow with a maximum speed of 2. Therefore we use Virgin and can get up to 150.

MaximumFish

Echoing the sentiments of others, it's not simply about who's cheapest when it comes to your Internet connection. What speed you can get, how stable it is (especially during peak times), what kind of hard or soft limits are imposed, and how technically adept the support staff are are all important factors that generally outweigh the simple cost per month.

momist

marilou66 wrote: »

I would be worried about losing my email addresses and phone number...

Well . . . Your phone number should certainly transfer to whoever you go to. As for the email, I use (and pay for at £6 per year) a third party email provider for my family and private emails. I also have an email I use for nearly everything that could generate spam, and that is on a dial-up provider that went out of business years and years ago, but my email still works and is redirected to whoever I am currently with. Why not use gmail? That's free, has brilliant spam filters, is accessible from anywhere including friends connections and mobiles, and is never lost when changing providers.

Shock

I have moved providers a lot, never had a problem during switch.
Always used Quidco/ Top Cashback.

Virgin -> Sky
(as Virgin staff got rude when I queried why my bill had gone up, and then lied about what was promised to me, I doubt I would ever go back to them)

Sky - EE (EE using BT White label, the BB is worse than Sky)

EE - TT ( Talktalk have been really good for broadband for me)

TT ADSL - TT Fiber. (Full 40Mbps Sync. )

TT - Sky (3 Price hikes and removal of 2 discounts was one too much, moving to Sky using the cancellation due to price increase)

momist

I've been with Plusnet for over two years using ADSL2+ and getting 17Mb/s. My contract term ran out months ago. There have been very few hiccups in service, and the UK, Yorkshire accented, help line is wonderful. I stick with them because I am afraid of diving into the maelstrom of bad service or rising prices yet again. The offers don't last long, but the contracts do, and I don't want to be stuck with terrible service as I used to be.

beyondhelp?

my son works on the internet so he would go ballistic if I changed and it was any slower than I get at the moment. Im with VM and like the service I get and very rarely get any problems but the price leaves something to be desired.

tain

My broadband is locked in as part of a broadband/TV/telephone bundle with Virgin.


I've asked for the broadband to be removed when there are deals on, but get told that will put the price of the other two UP rather than down (£37/month with broadband, £40/month without), which always far outweighs any external broadband saving.


I've spent hours on the phone haggling and querying this counter-logical phenomenon, but they know what they're doing and know that they've got me over a barrel.

EmJay

I'm with EE and my broadband and all of my calls from the landline, including calls to mobiles, costs me £11 a month. Line rental is paid annually at a saving. I haven't been able to beat it yet.