Every Provider Has Mediocre Reviews

Brywalker

I'm looking for a home broadband provider but every one I look at on review sites seems to have mediocre or worse reviews.  I can't find one that has more than three stars.  There seems to be lots of moans about poo customer service, poor internet conections and speeds etc.  There must be one that stands above the others a bit. Any ideas?

JJ_Egan

Zen or A&A

But you should know that all the negative reviews you look at are a very small proportion of an ISPs user base .Especially as the consideration for so many is cheap cheap not good good .

Connection and speed is usually due to the line to you and that is the same for all OR suppliers . Though a significant number of poor speed call outs are users fault .

Worth reading comments

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6113280/is-switching-from-virgin-media-to-sky-bt-good-idea#latest

Brywalker

Thank you both very much.  I'll bite the bullet and get on with it.

jim1999

If you want great service, you buy from Zen.  They charge more for a reason!

wild666

IMHO a lot of reviewers only seem to post when they get bad service. 

onomatopoeia99

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/review/isp/aaisp/?category=17

That link is to reviews of the broadband provider I've used for the last 17 years.  If you look at ISP review site, they come top of the "top 10 ISPs" list based on customer reviews.  What they won't do is "deals" or haggle with you, so they aren't very popular on here with all the people that like to flex their haggling muscles.  The price published on the site is the price you pay.  

mwarby

Mickey666 said:

The question I'd ask about 'great service' is what exactly is it that you expect?  I just expect my broadband to work, just as I expect clean water out of my taps and electricity out of my sockets.  I don't consider things like how long before they pick up the phone to be particularly relevant because I don't want to be phoning them very often.  Ever, actually, if they're doing their job.  And when it comes to broadband reliability, don't forget that apart from cities where separate cable systems might be available, it mostly runs over the same network, using the same cabinets and exchanges, regardless of the 'supplier'.  Just like the gas, electricity and water networks - you can change 'supplier' but you get the same thing delivered over the same pipes or wires, so what does 'reliability' or 'service' actually mean in that context anyway?  Billing mainly.

When I used AAISP I liked the following
- could run own line test and see results, useful if sync speed declined
- good visibility on connection performance, they supply graphing to thinkbroadband. You had a graph showing utilisation and latency minute by minute
- near instant support on IRC if needed, and support could tell I knew what I was talking about and acted accordingly. From what I heard with a difficult line fault they can be more persistent and robust with Openreach than some

But saying all that they were expensive (some £100 a year more than most)compared to more mainstream ISPs and as speeds increased across the board, being able to tweak the last 0.5 meg of performance stopped mattering as much. The customer service was great but not much need to use it. I left them for plusnet who for the money were fine

onomatopoeia99

mwarby said:
 From what I heard with a difficult line fault they can be more persistent and robust with Openreach than some

That was my direct personal experience.  Adrian instructed counsel to warn BT Wholesale that they would issue breach of contract proceedings if my line (the dropwire from the pole to my house) wasn't fixed after about a dozen visits from Openreach all failed first to diagnose the problem and then fix it.

bubblesbonbon

IDnet - excellent service but a bit more expensive 
https://www.idnet.net/index.php

Mister_G

bubblesbonbon said:

IDnet - excellent service but a bit more expensive 
https://www.idnet.net/index.php

Link doesn't work for me

bubblesbonbon

Mister_G said:

bubblesbonbon said:

IDnet - excellent service but a bit more expensive 
https://www.idnet.net/index.php

Link doesn't work for me

Odd - Pasted from their web site and it definitely works for me. Try a search for "IDnet"