Whose your provider?

[S3DUH]

I have just moved house and looking for a Broadband and Landline provider, the internet points me towards TalkTalk which appear to have been taken over by Virgin Media, offers a new line and a good priced Broadband and line rental, but I've never heard anything good about them, however their new take over might of improved them?

Any help?? Who are you with? :ack2:

[Fiona]

Have you checked Sky? I get it free being staff but I believe they do good deals on the whole TV/Phone/internet package.
In fact if you can hold fire for a bit they do get staff "friends and family" offers coming up fairly regularly where you get half price for the first year with free box, installation etc or very occasionally they do a "free for the 1st year" deal.

[verysideways]

Hey Fiona,
If you have a friends and family deal coming up with upgrade for existing then i'll have one of your four if poss :)
My deal, which i got just as i was leaving, ended a few months back...

[andrew.]

the takeover may have improved tt on the basis that they couldn't get much worse

[jumplead]

Talk Talk haven't been taken over by Virgin media.

Opal Telecom (Carphone warehouse) who own Talk Talk have just bought Tiscali. We use Plusnet for ADSL off a BT line, and also have a Wireless (WIMAX) connection through mkconnect (no phone line needed) don't think you'll be in range at the moment though Sam, but it could be worth a try.

[Fiona]

Hey Fiona,
If you have a friends and family deal coming up with upgrade for existing then i'll have one of your four if poss :)
My deal, which i got just as i was leaving, ended a few months back...

It's usually new customers only but they occasionally do a deal for HD upgrades. Can't find anything on the intranet at the moment but will keep an eye out. the last one was before christmas so we should be due one in the next month or two.

[S3DUH]

Mmm problem is Fiona, I brought my Sky up from my parents house, so they are paying for my sky and therefore don't really need it (probably not allowed to do that but its working)... I have a friend who works for sky too, Louis...

Anyway the plan was to leave the sky as it was and then just get a phoneline broadband package.

Oh another question is we're only renting which worries me as the contracts all seem to be 24months, which could be an issue if we're not there for that long?

xx

[jumplead]

I believe if you look at Plusnet they do a no contract option, which just means you have to pay a £50 (i think) install cost, but are free to leave any time after month 1 with 10 days notice. It may be a bit more expensive than other options though so you'd have to weigh that up.

Other providers may also offer this as an option.

[Boris]

I used to work as a callout engineer fixing computer issues for private and business clients and the amount of issues we had with Talk Talk was unbelievable! They block P2P traffic, (such as skype) limit bandwith and provide in some circumstances half the speed the line is capable of. I have one client who after changing from Talk Talk to O2 had their line speend increase from 2mb at best to 4mb on average! If you have a mobile contract with 02 you can get broadband from as little as £7 a month for the lowest package. It was and still is the provider I recommend for budget customers on broadband, its reliable, fast and cheap. If customer service is what you are after then Zen's customer service is 2nd to none. It is slower and more expensive but you get what you pay for in service.

None of the above are all in one phone and broadband packages so if you are set on a combined then Sky are ok. I dont usually suggest combined packages becuase if you have an issue with one part of the system you are in trouble as the package locks you into both parts. Whatever you do dont go with Talk Talk! You almost certainly will regret it. Orange too are fairly rubbish! I highly recommend 02 as it also has UK call centres! If you decide to go a combined package feel free to post what you are thinking of going for and I will check it out for you, also any issues you have with setting it up just let me know and ill give you a hand.

[jumplead]

To follow on to that, bethere (o2 broadband) also offer 3/12 month contracts for their service, but no phone line is included. So could still work out expensive.

Try visiting this site http://www.samknows.com/broadband/checker2.php it will tell you what services are available on your exchange. I think they do comparisions aswell. Worth visiting other pages on that site too for more opinion on providers. It's almost a 1 stop shop for broadband these days.

[jumplead]

I used to work as a callout engineer fixing computer issues for private and business clients and the amount of issues we had with Talk Talk was unbelievable! They block P2P traffic, (such as skype) limit bandwith

A lot of Providers do this, not just Talk Talk, most will rate shape peer to peer traffic and some even limit bandwidth available for normal web browsing during peak time

and provide in some circumstances half the speed the line is capable of. I have one client who after changing from Talk Talk to O2 had their line speend increase from 2mb at best to 4mb on average!

This will most likely be because the talktalk service was offered over BT Wholesale systems which would have limited the maximum link speed to 8MBit (depending on distance from the exchange) While O2 have the vast LLU network they acquired from be* which uses their own termination equipment rather than relying on the BT wholesale infrastructure. Thus allowing for speeds of upto 24MBit on the same line. I've heard many bad stories about TalkTalk, not syncing lines to the speed they are capable of is not one of them, it wouldn't be in an ISPs interest to go out of their way to do that, certainly not in a wholesale way at least. Rate limiting yes, line sync not really.

If you have a mobile contract with 02 you can get broadband from as little as £7 a month for the lowest package. It was and still is the provider I recommend for budget customers on broadband, its reliable, fast and cheap. If customer service is what you are after then Zen's customer service is 2nd to none. It is slower and more expensive but you get what you pay for in service.

I agree here, remember you have the price of the Line rental to go ontop of the prices quoted for these services though. They don't work out as cheap/good value for money as the bundled offers.

I highly recommend 02 as it also has UK call centres!

I don't have any experience of the customer facing side of O2 tech support but we deal with their second and third line engineers a lot, from a supplier point of view and this most certainly isn't the case for them. O2 seem to have offshored all of the technical side of things to Bulgaria these days.

If you are in a O2 /Be*(Bethere) LLU DSL enabled area i'd recommend them also, however if they don't have LLU availability at your exchange I wouldn't use them, more because of the backhaul over the BT Wholesale side of things than O2 themselves. You'll be able to find out if you are in an LLU unbundled zone by checking your postcode or phone number on the site checker i posted in my previous post.

[Boris]

All customer facing call centres (first line anyway) are UK for 02

I have also never seen any other ISP stopping customers from even logging into Skype which is the case with many Talk Talk clients.

I would also say if you get the choice to use 02 rather than Be as it is cheaper if your bills originate from 02 for some odd reason

[S3DUH]

Talk talk have just been taken over by virgin media though...

The other option is the mobile broadband idea with a laptop, works out at the same price but obviously if we more we can take the broadband with us, however I need to find out if we can get a deal for the both of us otherwise does work out very expensive

[jumplead]

Talk Talk have not just been taken over by Virgin Media. Talk Talk are part of the Carphone Warehouse Group operated off the Opal Telecom network.

Opal Telecom have just acquired Tiscali and associated companies. So now if you are on Tiscali, Pipex or Nildram you'll now be on the same network as Talk Talk.