Which broadband provider to chose?

dsingh26

Hi everyone,

I've been using mobile data with a 4G Antenna for half a year but it seems I'm now available to receive fibre (only FTTC).

The mobile data and Antenna has been a pretty good temporary solution (me and the mrs both WFH and watch Netflix). We usually get speeds of around 20mbps, sometimes it even hits 50mbps, but it's not very reliable and regularly disconnects due to the weather or just bad signal.. 

When I first moved into my house, I couldn't even get FTTC so had to go down this route and preferred it over ADSL!

Last week I decided to check Uswitch and it was showing fibre deals available with speeds around 59mbps (guaranteed 29.5mbps) from providers such as Sky, Plusnet, Now TV, Vodafone, TalkTalk and BT. I have Sky Q and the previous homeowners had their broadband with Sky, so I'm assuming the setup would be the easiest. Plus it's only £23/month and maybe I can haggle and get the price down when combining both?

Is Sky a good provider for broadband, or does anyone recommend any others I mentioned above? Would I be right in saying as all providers will be using the same method (fibre to my nearest cabinet, and then a copper cable to my house), there isn't much difference between any service? 

Thanks

400ixl

Any Openreach based ISP would be pretty much the same from a speed perspective. The differences would be price and service.

Sky are OK, usually come out mid table in the customer service surveys. NowTV is Sky by another name. Plusnet / BT are also sister companies, usually coming out slightly above Sky, TalkTalk are usually propping up the bottom due to terrible service if things go wrong.

dsingh26

Which provider would you say is the best when factoring price and customer service? 

Also, any feedback on Cuckoo?

shiraz99

First off, put your details in the following and you'll be able to see roughly what your speeds are likely to be - https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL

Personally I'd recommend Now Broadband, it's currently only £20 per month for their Super Fibre product and it's only a 12 month contract. Also use a cashback service, such as topcashback.co.uk, and you'll able to get around £90 cashback (eventually).

dsingh26

Thanks Shiraz. 

Here's what I got (have no clue what it means)

shiraz99

It means that your download speed on a VDSL (FTTC) product is likely to be around 45 to 50 Mbps, maybe a bit less.

dsingh26

That's good news!

thinking of going with NOW broadband and using topcashback.co.uk

Would you say NOW customer service is better than Vodafone?

prowla

I've been a sky customer for many years and have always found them reasonable to talk to and prepared to make the effort to resolve issues.

I've also got Virgin BB and I find that anything requires multiple phone calls, people telling you things which aren't true, lost information, failed promises, haggling over the interpretation of their outage T&Cs, giving notice, before things get resolved. My latest iteration was getting gigabit BB, of which they're the only residential provider.

dsingh26

As I have my TV with Sky and paying £64/month, does anyone know if it makes sense to try get the Superfast broadband also with Sky? (tried going topcashback.co.uk which says £26/month but when directed to Sky website it changes to £30.50/month). This totals to £94.50/month, so what I could do is then call Sky and try haggle?

Or 

Go with Now broadband at £20/month and receive £90 cashback. Total for both TV and BB will be £84.

shiraz99

dsingh26 said:

That's good news!

thinking of going with NOW broadband and using topcashback.co.uk

Would you say NOW customer service is better than Vodafone?

Now BB is owned by Sky. I can't really comment on their CS tbh as you only ever need them when things go wrong, so far nothing has.

One thing to be aware regarding TCB, your cashback will track but will take at least 6 months to pay out.

shiraz99

dsingh26 said:

As I have my TV with Sky and paying £64/month, does anyone know if it makes sense to try get the Superfast broadband also with Sky? (tried going topcashback.co.uk which says £26/month but when directed to Sky website it changes to £30.50/month). This totals to £94.50/month, so what I could do is then call Sky and try haggle?

Or 

Go with Now broadband at £20/month and receive £90 cashback. Total for both TV and BB will be £84.

No brainer, take the cheaper option with Now BB. If you sign up to Sky then they'll put you on an 18mth contract. You also won't get cashback with Sky as you'll be classed an existing customer.