FTTP providers - Broadband + Sim

nyck

Currently with Virgin £75 ,TV/BB M200/ land line / sim card 

We hardly use the TV box as we use the Apps on the TV netflix,amazon etc . Fortunately we've had open reach install Full Fibre in the street in the past few weeks so we are no longer tied to Virgin .

So i'm only looking for Broadband + Sim , If we switch to a  FTTP  provider .Who are the good guys and the ones to avoid

Also do you get a 14day change of mind option if it all goes wrong and go back to Virgin ??

Fidden

Virgin and FTTP use different technologies, so you can choose when to cancel Virgin if you are unsure.

Of the FTTP providers, Zen rates highly for customer service and comes with my recommendations (no affiliation), but they don't offer any SIM deals as they don't do mobile phones..  There are other companies which get high customer service ratings and you can check this out on the MSE site to see if they also do SIMs.

You may find it more cost effective to split the SIMs out of the main contract, as £75/month is a lot.  I pay ~£50/month for 500Mbps on FTTP without a home phone and I use a SIM only deal from another provider for £10/month.

Neil49

I agree with the above response that it would be more cost effective to split out the SIM contract. There are numerous competitive deals available and you can choose the network best suited to your location and usage. 

If you limit your search to a provider that does both broadband and sim you are really going to restrict your options. The obvious one is BT as they also have BT mobile (EE) but I'm with BT for broadband and even with being a customer their sim offers aren't up to much - I use O2 for my mobile phone on a very good separate deal.

Vodafone is another option but their mobile phone signal for me is very poor. I haven't come across any good combined broadband and sim offers with them. 

HaroldWren5

nyck said:

Currently with Virgin £75 ,TV/BB M200/ land line / sim card 

We hardly use the TV box as we use the Apps on the TV netflix,amazon etc . Fortunately we've had open reach install Full Fibre in the street in the past few weeks so we are no longer tied to Virgin .

So i'm only looking for Broadband + Sim , If we switch to a  FTTP  provider .Who are the good guys and the ones to avoid

Also do you get a 14day change of mind option if it all goes wrong and go back to Virgin ??

First, congratulations on being in an Openreach FTTP area. It's a game changer. As mentioned above, you're probably best off looking for two separate providers - one for Broadband (FTTP) and another for a Mobile SIM (from a mobile provider).

For Broadband, there is usually the same 14 day option from the day you sign up to change mind. Though frankly the deals for Openreach FTTP will probably be better in any case. You can choose a "Start date" from around 2 weeks out into the future. 

MSE's customer poll named Cuckoo as the number one broadband provider for customer service. They also have fixed pricing (no price increase this April, price fixed for the full 12 months), a shorter contract (12 months) and offer either 115Mbps, or 900Mbps packages. Other providers include Giganet and Zen with fixed pricing. The likes of BT, Sky, Vodafone, TalkTalk offer varying speed packages for roughly the same price (TalkTalk for slightly less), but all on longer contracts (18 to 24 months) and with price increases every March/April (this year by approx. 10%).

It's the same Openreach infrastructure you're going to use, so it's really down to choosing on customer service, billing, pricing. Another thing to note, shorter contracts mean flexibility to take up "new customer" deals. BT for instance around 18 months ago used to quote FTTP 900 for around £80+ or more, yet today they're far less for a new customer. But someone who had to sign up then for 24 months, would have been subject to price increases and still "stuck" in contract potentially on £100+ a month. 

For mobile, just check who has a good signal in your area. The MSE SIM comparison gives you a good list of the price from the mobile providers or resellers (using the same network, e.g. Tesco Mobile use O2, Asda use Vodafone etc) depending on the parameters you input based on preferences. 

Fidden

HaroldWren5 said:

MSE's customer poll named Cuckoo as the number one broadband provider for customer service. They also have fixed pricing (no price increase this April, price fixed for the full 12 months), a shorter contract (12 months) and offer either 115Mbps, or 900Mbps packages. Other providers include Giganet and Zen with fixed pricing. The likes of BT, Sky, Vodafone, TalkTalk offer varying speed packages for roughly the same price (TalkTalk for slightly less), but all on longer contracts (18 to 24 months) and with price increases every March/April (this year by approx. 10%). 

I mentioned Cuckoo on another post and was told that they haven't had many ratings overall, so this may not be indicative.  They also use TalkTalk's network (of whom I am not a fan when it comes to customer service), so bear that in mind if you've been on the wrong end of their customer service in the past.

HaroldWren5

Fidden said:

HaroldWren5 said:

MSE's customer poll named Cuckoo as the number one broadband provider for customer service. They also have fixed pricing (no price increase this April, price fixed for the full 12 months), a shorter contract (12 months) and offer either 115Mbps, or 900Mbps packages. Other providers include Giganet and Zen with fixed pricing. The likes of BT, Sky, Vodafone, TalkTalk offer varying speed packages for roughly the same price (TalkTalk for slightly less), but all on longer contracts (18 to 24 months) and with price increases every March/April (this year by approx. 10%). 

I mentioned Cuckoo on another post and was told that they haven't had many ratings overall, so this may not be indicative.  They also use TalkTalk's network (of whom I am not a fan when it comes to customer service), so bear that in mind if you've been on the wrong end of their customer service in the past.

Yes, I think both Cuckoo and Zen have fewer ratings in terms of numbers in that survey, but those ratings are exceedingly higher than the likes of BT, Sky etc who may have more participants, but clearly lower ratings. Indeed Cuckoo and Zen were number 1 and 2 respectively. It's likely that most people haven't heard of either yet, or aware that they can go with any Openreach based provider, but that may well change over time. As far as TalkTalk Retail goes, fully agreed with you that their customer service is infamous. TalkTalk Business is a wholesale provider and rather different though, in the same way that BT Wholesale differs from BT Retail. Customers for a Broadband ISP will be dealing with the ISP itself, and not the wholesaler. The wholesaler arms are a different kettle of fish to the retail arm of TalkTalk, or BT. 

Fidden

TalkTalk Business are better than TalkTalk Retail, but BT Business aren't much better than BT Retail