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I am moving flats so want to get broadband installed.
I am currently with Virgin but pay £37 a month for them. Is that a touch on the steep side?
Or, if I go to someone like TalkTalk, would I end up paying similar once you take into account line rental and so on?
I only got Virgin cos someone said its super quick in Edinburgh, but would I really notice a slower difference with a another provider?
Thanks for your thoughts!
Bob
Every few years I flip between Virgin and Sky for a telly package.
Everyone else in the house complains when I'm with Sky about the broadband - its BT openreach who come to hook it up.
I rarely stream so for email/social media browsing I'm happy with it (30/40mb)
Never have complaints about VM's broadband, and as they've just upped me from 100mb to 200mb for free I expect even fewer complaints from the young 'uns who stream netflix etc.
I'm also with Virgin for internet only, and have the next package up at £42/month.
It is more expensive than other providers, but I don't need a landline (Which is another £17 or so I think), and I've had generally very good service - almost no downtime (I run a server at home), and no noticeable throttling or traffic shaping that would affect speed.
I've never used other providers in Edinburgh, but I have in Glasgow - and never had anything good to say about the speeds I got with Sky, BT, or TalkTalk.
We are with TalkTalk and are happy with what we get from them. Not been with anyone else though so can't compare.
You have to watch Virgin Media like a hawk.
They offer you a "free upgrade" to some ridiculous speed that you're never going to need, then a few months later ramp the price up massively.
So not really a free upgrade. More like a upgrade you never asked for, never wanted and never needed, that you pay through the nose for.
Also, if you ever leave them, make sure you cancel the DD and withhold the final payment until they send you a correct final bill. Otherwise they make it as difficult as possible to get a refund of the overpayment they will force you to make.
I'm the same as EdinburghCycleCam - broadband-only, and on the £42 package. I get much higher speeds than advertised, and have never had an issue with my connection in the many years now I've been with them. It's expensive, but I'm getting a reliable service and speeds that mean I'm never left buffering whilst streaming in HD on the streaming services I use.
Prior to them I was on Sky, who took over Be Unlimited, the provider I was with. Their service was appalling and the speeds dropped to low-quality dial-up. Their customer service couldn't have been less bothered when I tried to get help.
I've had good experience with Sky in an Opeanreach fibre area but all ADSL providers are going to be rubbish compared to Virgin if they're unable to offer fibre packages in your area. With Fibre sky seems pretty similar to Virgin if you're not a super heavy user and may actually be better in some cases.
Money saving expert (and others) do a good comparison.
Least hassle option would probably be to phone Virgin and say you'd like to cancel and are moving to some provider at, say, £25/mo (current Sky intro offer). They'll probably offer you a cheaper deal for a while and waive your moving fee. If you fancy your chances, insist you'll still leave and they'll probably phone you up again offering an even cheaper deal. At least, that was my experience when I actually did leave them for Sky last year (I would probably have stayed with them if I'd got through before I did the switch, but I couldn't be bothered staying on hold for half an hour at the time.)
If you want to go with Openreach (a.k.a "BT line" / ADSL) as opposed to cable, the speeds are fine, e.g. 30M although technically not quite as good, as the last 30 feet into your house are twisted-pair cable instead of coaxial.
John Lewis seem to be a reasonable "middle-class-bourgeoisie" Openreach-based provider. Their customer service is responsive...
I moved recently and being able to get cable broadband was a requirement. I couldn't get Virgin but found I could get Hyperoptic (which I'd never heard of previously). Seems pretty good so far though I've hardly pushed it.
They offer a 1G/1G up/down package which seems somewhat excessive!
I’m never changing away from VM for as long as I stay in Edinburgh. I’ve had nothing but solid service from them with faster flagship service than available with Openreach providers. My internet has gone down once in six months, for less than half an hour.
I for many years has BT brand Infinity which was fine, never dropped out, then tried to ‘cheap out’ and was with Origin Broadband for 18 months of hell, they wouldn’t let me back out of the contract despite dismal drops. They tried to blame my line despite having never had problems with it for 5 years with BT and my flakey service started the day I switched.
The reason for this is that Openreach sells the local loop / last mile, but it’s up to the individual provider to connect the local loop to the big internet. If, like Origin, your ISP is not paying its bills and gets nationally cut off / throttled every evening, you’re not going to have a good time. And they will blame the Openreach local loop because it gets them off the hook for months and you can’t prove otherwise.
I ended up after 6 months abandoning that line despite paying for it and going with Virgin. It was that bad on a daily basis, with 2 hour phone queues.
The moral of this story is: if you have stable internet, don’t switch to save a few quid. You don’t know what you’re getting in to.
Oh, and if you can get Hyperoptic, do so, as that’s fibre to the premises (not fibre-to-half-a-mile-away) and brand new kit. It’s roll out is limited and will be mostly new build flats only.
"If you want to go with Openreach (a.k.a "BT line" / ADSL) as opposed to cable, the speeds are fine, e.g. 30M although technically not quite as good, as the last 30 feet into your house are twisted-pair cable instead of coaxial."
For the record, I get 50-60Mbps on Sky fibre-to-the-cabinet internet. My previous virgin packages was 50Mbps, but that was definitely an upper limit in reality.
I think they have to market average speeds to the premises as opposed to 'up to' now and might even have to refund you if they don't meet that? So the numbers mean a bit more now.
I'm on virgin, no hassle, call them to leave every now and then and they put you back to £34 pm.
Previously gave BT a go, terrific, worked out at £18pm all in (incl line) once you add up all the cashback through-hoop jumping stuff. Speed was lower upwards (single occupancy here, didn't matter) and faster downward - virgin down speed is 5 or 10 x up speed, where bt is more even so can be even better for skype etc.
My deal with VM costs £45 per month (renegotiated after my "intro offer" expired and I gave notice to quit)
For that I get 200mb broadband
Full House TV which I think is everything except Sky Sports & Sky Movies
Landline with free weekend/evening calls
If any of you want personal details to say "my pal XXX gets YYY, I want that deal too" DM me!
I think I have the slowest internet in Edinburgh. Virgin media don't serve my house despite being in the area and sadly I live less than 10m from my local telephone exchange which means I have an exchange only line.
Basically that means I am left with no fibre option as I'm too close to use a cabinet and so have just a basic adsl connection.
Changing supplier wouldn't make a difference as they are all using the same technology.
So my advice would be check you wont have an exchange only line before moving.
I would say BT is better than Virgin for responsiveness the latency is better.
@acsimpson how slow is yours? I was with BT for ages but am now with Plusnet... My connection speed has gradually increased, but rarely makes it into double figures (i.e. usually sub 10 Mbps). This despite being in city centre.
Is is currently sitting at 12Mbps. So slightly faster. That is the fattest product available to us though.
Can you access fibre to the cabinet or are you also in a Blackspot?
We are with Plusnet too.
Blackspot. My Old Town flat is a long way from the Rose Street cabinet that may once have made sense to connect it to but now seems completely ridiculous.
You may well get quicker speeds on 4G than 12 Mbps
Ed1, You are right. I have just tested and 4G gives us about 13Mb/s. Although an unlimited package would be considerably more than we pay plusnet for the internet part of their service.
The upload speed is vastly quicker though as it's symmetric so next time I have a large upload I might switch while it runs.
#anyonebutPlusnet
@Iain McR how did Plusnet fail you?
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