First Utility Broadband -- any experiences good or bad?

avuncular

This seems to a be a new offering of theirs and, as a First Utility gas/elec customer, they have a very competitive deal for me for Black Friday (ends 8-Dec).

However, I can't find out much about their broadband service online.

On the surface there seems to be unlimited downloads, no throttling.

Does anyone have any experience or knowledge into their broadband service? Is there any reason to avoid them? What is the router like?

I've not had an issue with customer service in the two years I've been a utilities customer.

I'll post up some tariff details if anyone's interested. Thanks.

Edit: Prices can be found here.

[Deleted User]

avuncular wrote: »

I'll post up some tariff details if anyone's interested. Thanks.

Yes please.

macman

It's a resold TalkTalk wholesale product. With all that implies...

avuncular

anactuary wrote: »

Yes please.

Listed here.

Up to 76Mbps £27.99 pcm, 18mo contract, unlimited, includes line rental, connection costs etc.

avuncular

macman wrote: »

It's a resold TalkTalk wholesale product. With all that implies...

Thanks - this wasn't obvious anywhere in the FU literature. May I ask what the implications are of this?

macman

The implications are that CS will be provided by a dedicated part of TT.
TT do not have a good record for CS-see numerous other posts. However things do seem to have improved since the hacking incident.

pastysmuggler

I've had First Utility BB since mid-December and so far it's been OK. We're quite some way from the cabinet but speed is a respectable 22.2Mbps.
However, the router (a Technicolor TG588v2) is a single band (2.4Ghz) 802.11n affair that is more than a little basic. Whilst it seems to support what I need, it can get a but stuttery when trying to stream video (especially when Mrs Pastysmuggler gets on her iPad!!).
I'm just looking at a possible upgrade but would be interested to know if anyone else has tried this with First Utility.

JimD28

I can't see anything on the MSE site about this First Utility broadband offering. Am I missing it somewhere? I have them for energy and they seem OK.

Looking007

Sadly my experience has not been a good one and so far it's been ongoing for 6 months. It started with poor service (and this remains the same as does the CS) and was quickly overtaken with an additional cost being added when I cancelled the utility side of the deals. In the very small print of broadband and not obvious it states that if you take out broadband after utility and then cancel utility they will charge you another £5 per month for the rest of the contract. Shame it wasn't obvious at the time of signing as I wouldn't have signed up. I have asked CS to provide where this piece of text is given at the time of signing but they have yet to produce it.

Currently, as I have persisted for so long, they have offered £30 to see out the contract or write-off the cancellation fee (£62 + £15) as soon as I move provider. Sadly as I'm looking to go abroad in a couple of months and neither suits me. I have also now asked them to progress to ofcom for resolution.

GraceCourt

Shambles is indeed the correct word.

I have taken out an ADSL2 broadband service with them, attracted by the low price. Big mistake! I made it clear that I'd be using my own router but given the annual saving I acceptedthat I'd have to pay the one-off delivery charge for this.

When it arrived, a few days before the switchover, I was able to determine the PPPoA log-in username (for authentication with the Radius server so as to connect with the Digital Subscriber Line Access Module or DSLAM at the exchange) but the password is obfuscated in the router Settings page and it wasn't provided separately.

Requests to the Customer Services by email hasn't elicited anything other than automated acknowledgements and the "Chat now" facility on the Web site is a bot that doesn't understand what a PPPoA log-in is.

My router has hardware VPN tunnelling options and two dedicated POTS ports for use with integrated VOIP functionality and without a broadband connection I'm stuffed... :mad:

phillflop

I have been using this for about 6 months. Setting it all up was a breeze. Everything happened as stated - the router was delivered on the day specified and everything worked out of the box on changeover day. I pay £25/month for 12Mbps download 1Mbps upload, line rental, evenings and weekends, and caller ID.

From a teccy point of view it is basic so no fixed IP and no information on how to set up the connection with other routers etc. and not much use for mega-downloaders and busy Internet guzzling households.

I had been on a BT and Demon (bought out by Vodafone) Internet combo setup for my comms and was paying more than double for essentially the same service.

Both my brother and my father have switched from BT to this service and have massively reduced their expenses from around £50 to £25/month.

The connection occasionally drops off for about a minute - I believe it is something to do with inactivity at my end. This does not cause me real problems but is a mild irritation. It has never dropped off while in actual use.

I play an old fashioned (low resource) FPS game and this is a problem, despite having a low ping of 30ms I am regularly kicked for lag. This occurs because my packets arrive at fluctuating rates at the game server. I believe this is to do with the router configuration at the ISP end. I have not yet taken this up with First Utility although I understand some providers can resolve this kind of issue. Media streaming on YouTube works flawlessly.

All in all I am happy as I am getting what I expected and saving money. The TalkTalk option I looked at did not offer the 'evenings' package - just 'weekends' with all other calls to land lines charged at 13.3p/minute as I recall but I have not rechecked this.

I cannot comment on what they are like to deal with if there is a serious problem. But then I have not had any cause to complain so far. If you are low impact Internet user who does not want endless chivvying about sports packages and TV packages and high speed movie downloads and similar rubbish then this may be the one for you.

For me and other family members it has proved an easy and useful escape route from the diabolical BT that seems to want to play in the big league with Sky:mad: and Virgin:mad: .

If you want a basic, no frills phone and Internet package without requiring heavy multi-media and multiple user leverage then this is recommended.