Updated Find the cheapest broadband discussion thread

penguin9

I'm looking to get my first ever phone and broadband deal having moved into my first flat! I'm tempted to go with the Primus offer of £15.78 p/mwith £40 cashback from quidco but after reading the customer service reviews I'm having second thoughts.........
Does anyone know of the next cheapest option thats available at the moment?

Thanks in advance for all your help!!

PinkPrincess

I'm looking for the best internet package, really not interested in having a landline as I use my mobile for all my calls but I know you have to have one, so what are the best deals out there at the moment? I've just moved house so it will be a fresh installation! Thanks

nickj_2

Becky0306 wrote: »

I'm with you on this one, guys, looking for a cheaper BB and landline package and was going to follow Martin's recommendation for Primus Saver on MSE main page, very tempting, but reviews for Primus online are very bad, so any advise would be greatly appreciated, alternatively I'm looking at Plusnet Value.

i've been with primus for 4-5 years now and have had only 2 problems that i can recall , one was where they had a power fault at their servers one weekend and the other was when my line went down about this time last year , i phoned their C/S at 10am and by 1-pm a bt engineer was kncking at the door to fix it .
yes , the C/S are in india but i've never had any problems with that , i upgraded my BB acouple of years ago and just let them get on with it , it took 3 weeks to sort out but i never had to chase them , i think people arefar more likely to write a review if it's bad , less likely to if it's good

Electron1944

londondulwich wrote: »

I switched to Plusnet in september.

For the past 4 years my usage has only exceeded 2GB on one occassion, ( my hard drive failed and I had to reinstall windows plus the service pack and all the updates, antivirus etc....)

Since being with Plusnet my usage has rocketed to 5GB and the month of October looks like it might hit 6GB.

Has anyone else had similar experiences with this company?

I switched to Plus.Net and haven't seen any difference in usage but have to point out that any usage between midnight and 0800hrs is NOT counted against your allowance.

Any large downloads are done between these hours and I now use much less effectively. It is worth checking with Plus.Net, but I don't think there is any limit to usage overnight.

meanscot

I have used Virgin.net for many years as my ISP. Last August, I signed up for a year for Virgin Broadband and Telephone. Price quoted was Broadband £19.99 and telephone Line rental £13.90 + £3.50 for unlimited calls.

As an incentive, the nice young lady at VirginMedia gave me a monthly rebate of £10 for the first year of the contract on the condition that I had to apply for the rebate every 3 months.

I have had 6 months rebates and phoned up yesterday to apply for my next 3 months of rebates only to be informed that Virgin HQ had decided that all such rebates were to be stopped and I would no longer get my £10 rebates.

On asking to speak with a supervisor, I was told that it would cost me £128 to cancel the contract and there would be another £24 disconnection fee.

He informed me that my local BT exchange was not fitted with Virgin equipment and BT Wholesale Broad Connect was increasing WBC line charges for users of non-BT services hence the stopping of the £10 rebate.

I then got a load of techs peak about my old IP Stream system in the local BT exchange and that once the exchange was upgraded to ADSL +2 Virgin "might" be able to reduce my charges next year.

I argued that Virgin were not upholding there part of the contact and I was very unhappy that I was not getting my promised rebate and was getting charged if I wanted to cancel my services with Virgin.

I contacted Ofcom today and they said that Virgin failing to give me my agreed rebate and were mis-selling under condition 24. Also that I should contact Virgin by letter or phone and if matter remained unresolved to my satisfaction, I should contact the CISIS Ombudsman.

On phoning Virgin today and quoting OFCOM's advice to me they put me on to another supervisor. This second supervisor said he would have to speak with his manager. He phoned back an hour later and said no way could virgin honour the contract to give me the rest of my £10 rebates but that I could cancel the contract without any cancellation fees.

I was wondering if anyone could suggest the best ISP for a Telephone and Broadband package for someone living in a rural area in terms of cost, reliability and support as I have no intention of sticking with VirginMedia.

meanscot :mad:

kirsteenSK9

I've just called Sky, having obtained my MAC code from Orange after I checked on the Sky website blog about MAC codes and saw that it's safer to telephone the order through and give the MAC code at the time as the online system doesn't ask for it at the start of the process.
I was almost at the end of the call when I was told they wanted £100 to install a new phone line because the one I have (originally BT and now the line rental paid to Orange) wasn't suitable!!!
So I shall be sticking with Orange (who I have no problem with at all and who offer a decent speed, unlimited service for £25.53 a month including line rental).
I thought I could save £9.53 a month by switching to Sky and taking up their 6 months free broadband offer, how wrong was I! (Nowhere on the Sky website and blogs did I notice any mention of having to put a new line in and pay £100 for it).
Just a heads up for anyone thinking of changing to Sky to save you wasting as much time and effort as I did!

alexh

If you're a heavy data user than the O2 offer for existing customers is not as good as it sounds. A lot of existing O2 customers are on true unlimited contracts whereas the new contracts list "unlimited" at a ridiculously low amount. Take care with the small print or you could find youself getting "unfair usage" letters and being cut off.

meanscot

Having had no satisfaction from Virgin, I have contacted various ISP's offering very good prices for broadband and anytime telephone calls online.

However, as soon as I give them my post code and phone number, the prices quoted online are not available to me as BT charge the ISP's at least £10 extra for using my rural BT exchange which provides the ADSL line to my house.

The other ISP's are charging the same price as Virgin Media so it is not worth my while changing e mail address, router, etc.

Meanscot

laptop80

Just seen that Plusnet have cut the price of their cheapest broadband package to £3.24/month. Anyone know if I can get this as an existing customer?

G6JPG

meanscot wrote: »

[]
I was wondering if anyone could suggest the best ISP for a Telephone and Broadband package for someone living in a rural area in terms of cost, reliability and support as I have no intention of sticking with VirginMedia.
[]

If by rural area, you mean somewhere where the cheaper versions aren't available (what PlusNet call Market something - I can't remember whether 1 or 3), then _whoever_ you go with, they'll just be reselling you what BT Wholesale provide (though usually for less than BT will sell it to you!).

Thus reliability is the same from all.

For cost, TalkTalk are often among the cheapest; their support is often from India and difficult (IME) to talk to, but if nothing goes wrong, ...

For support, PlusNet are hard to beat - their support staff are all in the UK.

I'm happy with PlusNet, FWIW.