Moving house - need to choose new broadband

Toomuchdebt

I’ve been with Youfibre for the past year but unfortunately they don’t provide broadband where I’m moving to. 

I’m trying to decide between sky and bt and virgin media as all 3 are available. I need a reliable connection and also a fairly fast one as the kids like to play on the Xbox and lag drives me mad. I don’t need a tv package as I don’t have a tv licence and would like to keep it that way. I’m currently paying £25 a month and get speeds of 941mbs but the cheapest I’ve found at that speed is £41 a month and I’m not sure I want to spend that much. 

littleboo

Your data volumes are pretty modest. Unless you want the luxury of infrequently doing something very quickly, you don't need anything close to that bandwidth.

Billxx

Be wary of Virgin Media - they can provide fast and reliable connections, but their customer services are very poor right now.  Take a look at their customer forum.

400ixl

Bandwidth and latency are not the same thing.

Provided you have enough bandwidth and the latency is low then gaming is not an issue.

You could have 10Mbps bandwidth and a 6ms latency and gaming would be fine. Equally you could have 900Mbps bandwidth and 30ms latency and you would notice it in gaming.

Are the BT and Sky options FTTP or FTTC?
Virgin used to have high bandwidth and high latency, but they have mainly sorted the latency issues a long time ago. Their routers are still a bit sub standard on the wifi side, but for gaming if you are concerned about latency you should be wired into the router anyway.

The customer satisfaction surveys typically have BT and Sky around the same with Virgin further down. But none are down at the TalkTalk / Vodafone / Shell levels so I wouldn't be too concerned on that front.

Toomuchdebt

Thank you all. I think I will have to end up going for virgin anyway as the BT one ended up being too expensive and the Sky I would have to wait 3 weeks for. If it was just me that would be ok but with kids and homework which is usually done online these days it’s just easier to have it sooner( especially for my daughter who is in year 10 and doing GCSE’s) 
I wasn’t aware of the difference between bandwidth and latency @400ixl so thank you for explaining that. 

I’ve had virgin before and it was ok but Youfibre has been much better so I’m sad I can’t take it with me. 

Neil_Jones

Toomuchdebt said:

Thank you all. I think I will have to end up going for virgin anyway as the BT one ended up being too expensive and the Sky I would have to wait 3 weeks for. If it was just me that would be ok but with kids and homework which is usually done online these days it’s just easier to have it sooner( especially for my daughter who is in year 10 and doing GCSE’s)

Most if not all libraries have computers that would suffice for online homework, so if that was the only deal breaker, its not exactly unsurmountable, although the caveat would be you're at the whim of their opening hours and availability, and I dare say a good bulk won't be open after 6pm on a weekday, and probably only for three/four/six hours on a Saturday, and limited if available at all on a Sunday.

horsewithnoname

Sky customer service in my experience is awful. BT provide the internet, and trying to get Sky to communicate with BT is a trial. 

southsidergs

horsewithnoname said:

Sky customer service in my experience is awful. openreach* provide the internet, and trying to get Sky to communicate with openreach* is a trial. 

Fixed that post, openreach are ran as a separate arm from BT (although part of same group) who are a communications provider

Toomuchdebt

Neil_Jones said:

Toomuchdebt said:

Thank you all. I think I will have to end up going for virgin anyway as the BT one ended up being too expensive and the Sky I would have to wait 3 weeks for. If it was just me that would be ok but with kids and homework which is usually done online these days it’s just easier to have it sooner( especially for my daughter who is in year 10 and doing GCSE’s)

Most if not all libraries have computers that would suffice for online homework, so if that was the only deal breaker, its not exactly unsurmountable, although the caveat would be you're at the whim of their opening hours and availability, and I dare say a good bulk won't be open after 6pm on a weekday, and probably only for three/four/six hours on a Saturday, and limited if available at all on a Sunday.

My daughter is autistic and has tics and seizures so libraries wouldn’t be the best place for her. And like you say, opening times wouldn’t be great. 

uvarvu

https://bidb.uk/

See what's available in your area.    Any sign of an alt-net fibre rollouts?  If not and assuming that openreach FTTP is there then go with aquiss if you want top notch support.