best broadband provider

morg007

My BT broadband deal ends soon so I'm looking around.  I'm hesitant to leave as I've been with them for several years and (touch wood) never really had problems with reliability (apart from the occasional outage that lasts a minute at most).  I'm in an area that hasn't had full fiber and there is no estimate on when this will be on the Openreach website (it is down as "will happen, but no idea when" section!).  And I can't get Virgin so only have Openreach options.  The max speed I can get is the "65-70mb" range which I want to keep as that allows for what we need (big streaming family).

Now, my theory is that it doesn't matter who you have as they all use Openreach.  So if you have a problem, you would have the same problem regardless of the ISP (unless its a router issue)-is this true?

so, I'm down to trying to haggle a better price with BT, but I really not sure I have the energy to try to get through to someone and then haggle (I'm autistic).

Or going with Plusnet as I can just do that online and they have good reviews.

Or sky. Now, if I remember right, for some reason they have issues with non sky routers, is this still the case?  I have a non BT router as their hub started playing up with wifi and would prefer to still use my non-BT router as it works really well (I use their hub as a modem and connect the non branded router to it elsewhere).  I also have Sky Q with them so am thinking of just dealing with the rubbish automated system they use and change to sky stream and add broadband as I "think" they would do this even though I'm mid contract with Sky Q (they'd get a new broadband customer after all).

Or, is it really a case of what I said at the top - reliability will be the same regardless as its basically Openreach, so you go with the cheapest and best customer service?

Any other ISPs people recommend?   

*edit* forgot to mention I haven't used a landline in years so no need to worry about a phone line.

oldernonethewiser

Have you done a check to see if any of the full fibre options are available?

I was with Plusnet, no problems until I wanted to renew and their customer service wasn't interested in price negotiation.  Currently with NOW and no problems, get the same speed as Plustnet, about 69Mb/s which is fine for me but if I was a heavy user I would get a full fibre connection which would currently be £35/month for an 18th month contract. (900MB/s up and down)

Not a fan of long contracts, the NOW one I am on is 12 months, £25/month

Both the Plusnet and NOW routers are pretty poor so I have my own MESH set up to combat that.

The current BT router is streets ahead of either of the above.

Rawrzy

You mention Virgin, but have you checked Cityfibre or if there's any other altnets in your area? They tend to be a lot cheaper than Openreach, but you also might not know they're available since they're less well known. A good tool to use is https://bidb.uk/ which can tell you what is available in your area.

It's mostly true that you'll get similar "broadband" from all the different openreach providers. If a part of Openreach goes down in an area, it would likely impact all ISPs. There might be differences with regards to peering/exchanges etc which is unrelated to the openreach network (basically the places your connection will go through to get to the destination ie website/server) but that kind of thing generally matters more with regards to ping/latency, and unless you're doing something latency sensitive like competitive gaming, I'm not sure I'd personally worry too much about it, especially not with a bigger provider. The important thing for most people is the ISP is going to be the one you're paying, and the one providing the customer support. So pick one with a price you're willing to pay, and a customer support level you can deal with.

Sky Q does work with other routers. It's Sky Multiroom where the issues start to be apparent. Basically both the Sky Q and Sky Q Mini boxes need to be connected to the same "device". Like if you've hard wired them they need to be connected to the same router, or the same ethernet switch, else they cause broadcast storms and degrade the connection of every other device connected. With Wifi it gets even more complicated because the Sky Q Mini box can only connect to a Sky device wifi, which if you're not using their router, means using the kind of cruddy "wifi" the Sky Q main box can create. Not ideal because it's not a very strong broadcast, I found the Sky Q Mini box disconnecting all the time upstairs. 

My solution to the issue was using powerline adapters so they can both be hardlined to the same ethernet switch, powerline adapters have issues with max speeds so they're not always a great solution, but for the kind of bandwidth Sky requires it works well.

oldernonethewiser

@Rawrzy - just tried that tool.

For my postcode it is missing at least four providers.

Rawrzy

oldernonethewiser said:

@Rawrzy - just tried that tool.

For my postcode it is missing at least four providers.

Yeah, there's a lot of smaller alt nets at this point some probably not known by that tool, many whom only cover small parts of the UK. So it's not unusual for the grand majority to not be known tbh, it's a good place to start though.

Some providers also piggyback off either City fibre or Openreach in certain areas(while maybe having their own cables elsewhere), so they wouldn't be listed because of that.

oldernonethewiser

They have missed some big players and the info re CityFibre is out of date as well.

You need to check a lot of places these days to see what is available.

onomatopoeia99

morg007 said:

Now, my theory is that it doesn't matter who you have as they all use Openreach.  So if you have a problem, you would have the same problem regardless of the ISP (unless its a router issue)-is this true?

No, but it's a line trotted out quite often.

If it's a line fault between your house and the cabinet (or exchange if ADSL) then they all use Openreach and the only difference is how likely the support operative is to believe you and how fast the ISP's contract with BT Wholesale lets them get Openreach out to you to try to fix the line (it varies a lot - the one I use can generally get next day visits from Openreach technicians but many of the "big players" take longer because the service level they purchase is lower).

If it's a fault in the ISP's routing, peering, connections from the BT backhaul IP networks, or with the ISP's internal servers then that's nothing to do with Openreach, that's on the ISP to resolve.  If you imagine Openreach provide a white label broadband service that ISPs just stick their branding on then you have misunderstood quite fundamentally . 

Chickereeeee

oldernonethewiser said:

The current BT router is streets ahead of either of the above.

I beleive both BT and Plusnet use the same router (now) - the Smart Hub 2 - just a different colour.