Fibre Broadband change. Worth changing???

[TableLeg]

Similar to my other post but on this I am more interested in whether people are regularly changing their Fibre Broadband supplier or whether people just stay with the same year after year.

 

I'm coming to the end of my contract so have been looking around but it seems like a real minefield.

 

I can only use ISP using BT services.

 

If you've recently switched Broadband or are about to I'd be interested in your experience.

 

My current provider is stating that there will be price rises from June by 3.6% plus an added rate of inflation on top.

[Stuart]

Have a look here

https://broadband.moneysavingexpert.com/

[TableLeg]

2 minutes ago, Stuart said:

Have a look here

https://broadband.moneysavingexpert.com/

Thanks Stuart, Been through all the 'comparison' sites but what I'm after is peoples 'actual' experiences of using/changing ISP. The reviews vary and I suspect some of this is to do with sponsorship of the sites.

[Stuart]

In answer to your question I think it depends on your connection. I have stuck with Plusnet cos I'm a kilometre from the FTTC cabinet over old copper and need an occasional DLM reset.  So customer service is important and Plusnet have been great. But if you have a very fast and stable connection then you might be able to choose solely on price. Zen top the customer service ratings and they charge £30 per month. 

[Hemsley]

I was in a similar situation, only able to use ISP over BT. No matter which provider I used, and despite some very good BT engineers trying to improve things (the same engineer irrespective of the provider) the service was mostly slow and very unreliable. My daughter was trying to study from home and it was incredibly frustrating for her.

 

We are in a very rural location and fortunately for us a new fibre to the premises service was introduced. I switched last November taking advantage of an initial 12 month discount. After making sure it was all working ok I switched over to IP telephony and ditched the old broadband and landline. Even though it will become expensive, it works all the time and it's very fast.

[Stuart]

IME you can haggle too. When my Plusnet contract was up last time I told them the best deal I could get elsewhere and they bettered it if I signed up for another 18 months

[TableLeg]

Thanks for the replies.

 

I already rang Plusnet tonight but this year they won't budge much and there are other ISPs offering services similar and in some instances cheaper.
Furthermore I looked at changing up to Fibre Extra (upto 63Mbps) from regular fibre of up to 40Mbps only to find out both products have the same minimum guaranteed speed of 29.4Mbps so this could mean spending more money but not necessarily a faster connection.

 

16 minutes ago, Hemsley said:

We are in a very rural location and fortunately for us a new fibre to the premises service was introduced. I switched last November taking advantage of an initial 12 month discount. After making sure it was all working ok I switched over to IP telephony and ditched the old broadband and landline. Even though it will become expensive, it works all the time and it's very fast.

I too am in a rural location. FTTC which is about 300m from my home.

 

 

[Stuart]

Theoretically you should benefit from the faster package at 300m

 

[Blatman]

Not sure where that graph came from but I'm about 1km from the cabinet and I get high 60's all the time.

 

And for the absence of doubt, no matter who the provider is, it'll be the same physical copper in the ground (unless you have FTP as Hemsley mentions) so there is no such thing as switching to a "faster" provider. And the copper outside the house and all cables are owned by Openreach which is (or was) a part of BT. So irresepctive of the provider, if the works are outside the house, it'll be an Openreach or Openreach contractor who turns up.

 

Stuart makes an interesting point. To me it seems like he has a recurring issue with his connection between his premises and the exchange. But as PlusNet respond positively it's less hassle than it might be BUT they don't seem to be fixing the root cause, so is that good customer service or bad? Resetting the DLM is much cheaper than geting Openreach to fix the problem so who's interests are being best served? And yes I do realise I am being cynical but as I have dealt with multiple ISP's for work, I know the high regard they have for their customers...

 

On the other hand, I've been with Sky for nearly 13 years. I have no idea what their customer service is like because I never call them for broadband issues. And if I were to change I likely wouldn't call the "new" ISP either as we seem to have a very stable and capable infrastructure where I am.

I could speculate that large ISP's like Sky and BT have the budget to ensure their systems stay error free as much as possible with pre-emptive maintainence programmes and equipment refresh plans whether the equipment is faulty or not. Smaller (by comparison) ISP's may not have this capability and I'm sure we could debate for ages the what/why/how of that.

 

With regards to changing, if all things are equal then go for the ISP who ticks the most boxes. I tend not have any "add-ons" with my broadband. Most of the things an ISP offers can be found elsewhere and of course when contracts end they try to keep one tied in by warning that if the contract is not renewed these "add-ons" could be lost or curtailed, so I avoid the "value adds" becasue the value is to the ISP, not the customer... sorry, more cynicism...  

[cast iron]

we went Virgin when they fibred our street, probably the worst provider we ever used, weve gone back to vodaphone dial up, 10 times better

[TableLeg]

Thanks Blatman,

 

I get that the infrastructure is BT hence why I pointed out I can only use an ISP using BT services.

 

The thing is I have discussed with IPSs on many many occasions about the speed and they tell me I cannot get more that 40Mbps on my line and yet for years I've had 55Mbps. Somebody somewhere has again tampered with my settings as I've been knocked back down to 40Mbps. This happens occasionally and a call to Plusnet they end up telling someone has made changes to the settings. They say they'll revert them and day later I'm back to 55Mbps. 

To add insult to injury we have a 2nd Fibre 'business' line in the same BT cable to the home (1 pair for each connection) and this runs at 63Mbps and has dropped out about twice in 10 years.

[TableLeg]

4 minutes ago, cast iron said:

we went Virgin when they fibred our street, probably the worst provider we ever used, weve gone back to vodaphone dial up, 10 times better

Vodafone is somebody who wasn't around in my area until recently. Are they any good in terms of speed and reliability?

 

[McFrancis]

We tried to switch to Vodafone a couple of years ago.  To cut a long story short, they total screwed up. 

They cut off our phone and broadband and gave away our phone number, because they forgot they didn't cover the area.  Anyway once we had a nice long chat, they provided unlimited mobile coverage until we switched to another supplier and the financial compensation covered my broadband and mobile for about 18months.  I'm with Shell energy now, nothing fancy it just works.

[TableLeg]

16 minutes ago, McFrancis said:

We tried to switch to Vodafone a couple of years ago.  To cut a long story short, they total screwed up. 

They cut off our phone and broadband and gave away our phone number, because they forgot they didn't cover the area.  Anyway once we had a nice long chat, they provided unlimited mobile coverage until we switched to another supplier and the financial compensation covered my broadband and mobile for about 18months.  I'm with Shell energy now, nothing fancy it just works.

Thanks for this. I've seen Shell come up in the comparison sites. Are they through BT equipment?

[Stuart]

8 hours ago, Blatman said:

Not sure where that graph came from but I'm about 1km from the cabinet and I get high 60's all the time.

 

And for the absence of doubt, no matter who the provider is, it'll be the same physical copper in the ground (unless you have FTP as Hemsley mentions) so there is no such thing as switching to a "faster" provider. And the copper outside the house and all cables are owned by Openreach which is (or was) a part of BT. So irresepctive of the provider, if the works are outside the house, it'll be an Openreach or Openreach contractor who turns up.

 

Stuart makes an interesting point. To me it seems like he has a recurring issue with his connection between his premises and the exchange. But as PlusNet respond positively it's less hassle than it might be BUT they don't seem to be fixing the root cause, so is that good customer service or bad? Resetting the DLM is much cheaper than geting Openreach to fix the problem so who's interests are being best served? And yes I do realise I am being cynical but as I have dealt with multiple ISP's for work, I know the high regard they have for their customers...

 

On the other hand, I've been with Sky for nearly 13 years. I have no idea what their customer service is like because I never call them for broadband issues. And if I were to change I likely wouldn't call the "new" ISP either as we seem to have a very stable and capable infrastructure where I am.

I could speculate that large ISP's like Sky and BT have the budget to ensure their systems stay error free as much as possible with pre-emptive maintainence programmes and equipment refresh plans whether the equipment is faulty or not. Smaller (by comparison) ISP's may not have this capability and I'm sure we could debate for ages the what/why/how of that.

 

With regards to changing, if all things are equal then go for the ISP who ticks the most boxes. I tend not have any "add-ons" with my broadband. Most of the things an ISP offers can be found elsewhere and of course when contracts end they try to keep one tied in by warning that if the contract is not renewed these "add-ons" could be lost or curtailed, so I avoid the "value adds" becasue the value is to the ISP, not the customer... sorry, more cynicism...  

 

Blatters I'm 1km from the cabinet and my connection is always banded. It's a struggle to keep it synced at 27.4. Occasionally drops in stages to 20 and if it doesn't recover then I ask for a DLM reset. Plusnet acknowledge that there may be an infrastructure problem but can't get Openreach to sort it.