Opinion on your broadband and phone service please.

Just want to ask you folks what you think of your service.


The reason I ask is I'm going to be downgrading from TV, BB and phone to just BB and phone so wanted to see what you think of your provider. I've had a look on uswitch etc at the top 10 providers but I don't really trust them not to accept 'sponsorship' from the providers so any info you can give would be good.


I'm currently on sky but I'd still like other sky subscribers opinions if possible.

I have Sky boradband and Virgin Media broadband.

My Sky broadband is rubbish, my Virgin Media broadband is awesome. With Virgin you get the speed they say if you get Fibre Optic, if it says 10mb, you get 10mb, if it says 100Mb, you get 100Mb...

With my Sky, I get 3.3Mbs but it feels much worse than that, takes facebook anywhere up to a full minute to load -.-'

I had BT before these and they were worse than Sky.

Id go Virgin Media from my experience (Also worth mentioning, you dont have to have a phone line with Virgin Media, you can get just broadband, which I do then use my mobile to call people.)

I have Sky boradband and Virgin Media broadband.

My Sky broadband is rubbish, my Virgin Media broadband is awesome. With Virgin you get the speed they say if you get Fibre Optic, if it says 10mb, you get 10mb, if it says 100Mb, you get 100Mb...

With my Sky, I get 3.3Mbs but it feels much worse than that, takes facebook anywhere up to a full minute to load -.-'

I had BT before these and they were worse than Sky.

Id go Virgin Media from my experience (Also worth mentioning, you dont have to have a phone line with Virgin Media, you can get just broadband, which I do then use my mobile to call people.)

Cheers ATK. I've had vermin and sky in the past and know that with vermin you get the speeds stated (except when they throttle it). What I need when I move is phone and BB, I'm dropping the telly but the other two are essentials really.

If anyone else can add if they don't mind telling me the price they (or a friend) pay for phone and BB I'd be grateful.

Thanks again ATK for your input.

Don't go to orange, their internet is sh*t, i'd know i'm using it right now haha.

Don't go to orange, their internet is sh*t, i'd know i'm using it right now haha.

Strangely enough it was one I was considering, they have a good offer on but that must be why.

Don't go to orange, their internet is sh*t, i'd know i'm using it right now haha.

Total opposite to me, Orange has worked well for my iPhone & iPad yurt BT was totally sh*te with their broad band just as Talk Talk is at the moment with me.

Total opposite to me, Orange has worked well for my iPhone & iPad yurt BT was totally sh*te with their broad band just as Talk Talk is at the moment with me.

Back to square one then.

Virgin broadband has always been good for me, but their phone service has been a joke.  5 times in 6 months, my home number got assigned to someone else, keep on meaning to scrap it.

BT lasted less than a week, connection was erratic at best.

TalkTalk are decent - they deal in low-to-medium speeds quite well.

I'm on a 16Mbit connection and regularly get 13-15Mbits on speed tests and such. I often download at around 2-3Mbytes/sec, which is quite a decent speed.

They don't do very well with upload speeds, though. 0.8Mbits at best.

If you're an avid gamer and deal in low pings, then they'll change you from interleaved (high latencies, more error correction on the line) to fastpath (lower latencies, less error correction on the line) in the blink of an eye. It's worth pointing out that signals are usually stable enough that you'll never need the full error correction on the line.

Had virgin for around 2 years now, and as someone already mentioned you get exactly what it says,
changed to sky a week or so back, but promptly changed back to virgin, sky was awful, really slow, but virgin keeps everyone in the house going at a good speed for gameing vids ect. the only problem, well more of a niggle, is sometimes the wireless cuts out for no reason and you have to reset the modem, but apart from that I'd say from what I know, virgin is the best.

BT infinity here - no problems

Virgin are the fastest ISP in the UK by far. If things go well then great, its unbeatable. However they are not reknowned for their customer service when things go wrong (but better than BT? Who knows)

Virgin broadband has always been good for me, but their phone service has been a joke.  5 times in 6 months, my home number got assigned to someone else, keep on meaning to scrap it.

BT lasted less than a week, connection was erratic at best.

That's my main issue with vermin, given that you get problems with them and then the customer service is woeful at best it taints me from going to them. Cheers Rodders.

TalkTalk are decent - they deal in low-to-medium speeds quite well.

I'm on a 16Mbit connection and regularly get 13-15Mbits on speed tests and such. I often download at around 2-3Mbytes/sec, which is quite a decent speed.

They don't do very well with upload speeds, though. 0.8Mbits at best.

If you're an avid gamer and deal in low pings, then they'll change you from interleaved (high latencies, more error correction on the line) to fastpath (lower latencies, less error correction on the line) in the blink of an eye. It's worth pointing out that signals are usually stable enough that you'll never need the full error correction on the line.

That's equivalent to my sky line at the mo' 13-14meg is the norm but my dl is 1.5 and up is 0.8.

What I'll be needing is a line that holds steady for download and upload can be 0.8 as that won't be an issue.

Thanks for the info Res.

Had virgin for around 2 years now, and as someone already mentioned you get exactly what it says,
changed to sky a week or so back, but promptly changed back to virgin, sky was awful, really slow, but virgin keeps everyone in the house going at a good speed for gameing vids ect. the only problem, well more of a niggle, is sometimes the wireless cuts out for no reason and you have to reset the modem, but apart from that I'd say from what I know, virgin is the best.

Yeah I remember your issue, I'd be tempted by virgin as I've had them in the past and know that apart from the throttling they are steady but it's their customer service that baulks me. Last time I was with them I lost service (TV) for 2 days and after numerous phone calls I told them I wouldn't be paying for the lost days and the 'customer service' rep said "oh you will". I still owe them for everything and may have sold their gear on ebay. You will indeed.

Cheers Bl00D.

If you go for the higher Virgin broadband speeds, they dont throttle, I am on the 50Mb (now doubled to 100Mb) and dont get throttled no matter how much I download or time of day, but of course it costs.

Another one I have only heard good things about is BE. Check them out. https://www.bethere.co.uk/web/beportal/homepage

How much porn do you download to require speeds of 100Mb? .

Virgin are by far the best, fastest, and the most consistent Internet provider, but they're fairly expensive. If you don't do heavy Internet downloading with it, you can waste quite a bit of unnecessary money by paying for Internet that a slower provider could offer you at a cheaper price, if you get what I mean.

I heard decent things about TalkTalk, but I would avoid BT, because I've experiences bad connection problems with them.

How much porn do you download to require speeds of 100Mb? .

My uTorrent is never off xD

If you go for the higher Virgin broadband speeds, they dont throttle, I am on the 50Mb (now doubled to 100Mb) and dont get throttled no matter how much I download or time of day, but of course it costs.

Another one I have only heard good things about is BE. Check them out. https://www.bethere.co.uk/web/beportal/homepage

Just checked that BE link out and they're bloody expensive! I may be avoiding them, thanks for the heads up. 

How much porn do you download to require speeds of 100Mb? .

Virgin are by far the best, fastest, and the most consistent Internet provider, but they're fairly expensive. If you don't do heavy Internet downloading with it, you can waste quite a bit of unnecessary money by paying for Internet that a slower provider could offer you at a cheaper price, if you get what I mean.

I heard decent things about TalkTalk, but I would avoid BT, because I've experiences bad connection problems with them.

I've read a few bad bits about service drop and slow speeds from Talk Talk.

I'm getting there now, off the list are Orange, BT, Talk Talk, and BE. My choices are getting limited, all good. Ta folks.

My uTorrent is never off xD

Same, same.

The lack of good film releases lately is doing my head in.

Same, same.

The lack of good film releases lately is doing my head in.

Yup!
I've been downloading The Glee Project for Christ sake! Thats how bad it is

I go to bed each night feeling a little more camp than I did the night before.

Yup!
I've been downloading The Glee Project for Christ sake! Thats how gay I am

I go to bed each night feeling my bum hole a little more than I did the night before.

Whatever floats your boat mate.

My connection speed has gone down from 8mbps to 1.5mbps, but I had a problem the other day which was supposed to be the router but turned out to be DNS problem at ISP end. Sounds like dutch to me, but my lad insists that's what it was, I had to get him to ring up and go through all the sh*te with them.
I have post office because it's always been really reliable, and this is the first problem I've had with it since I got it a few years ago.
Hopefully they'll get it fixed.

My connection speed has gone down from 8mbps to 1.5mbps, but I had a problem the other day which was supposed to be the router but turned out to be DNS problem at ISP end. Sounds like dutch to me, but my lad insists that's what it was, I had to get him to ring up and go through all the sh*te with them.
I have post office because it's always been really reliable, and this is the first problem I've had with it since I got it a few years ago.
Hopefully they'll get it fixed.

I've been having the same issue lately with sky bit it gave its head a wobble a few days ago and it's ok now.

You're with the posty as in Royal Mail? I didn't know they done broadband.

You're with the posty as in Royal Mail? I didn't know they done broadband.

Post office and Royal mail are, bizarrely, 2 different companies now, but come under the same umbrella company.

Post Office broadband and phone is great for me because I have quite a few friends overseas, and it costs nothing to ring them at weekends, as long as the call is under an hour.
They've been great up until now, but they have assured me their tech team is on the job.

Just to add my 2pc worth.

I was with TalkTalk for a long time but only used it in the evenings and weekends. It was fine. The speed were not great but OK. What I did notice was that the *call* changes were always higher than what I thought they should have been. It seems (& I can't prove it) they added extra call charges by adding unknown numbers.

I know people with Sky and they all complain. PoS.

I am now with Plusnet and it is great. I work may be 1 to 2 days from home and the speed is fine. I don't get charged for any calls that I haven't made.

Note: I could only move to Plusnet or BT from TT. So be careful if you ever move to TalkTalk.

I would avoid TT just because of the phonecall charges. Broadband wise they are much better than Sky.

I know people with Sky and they all complain. PoS.

I'm with Sky for phone and Broadband. It's fine some days and can easily handle my and my mate playing Battlefield 3 on our xboxs at the same time but other days we're having to reset the router every hour or so or the speed drops dramatically.
We're just rying to make do for now until cable is (allegedly) installed at the end of September.

Broadband & Phone: Virgin Media.

Great service!! But since they have promised the double speeds my area has had major problems which are supposed too be fixed by 26th.. If they're we're no area problems it'd be so much better!! But when they say you'll get a specific speed you get that speed!

Just downgraded my 100Mb to 30Mb with Virgin Media. The speed was great to have but I dont think it was warranting the £40 a month for just the movies etc I was downloading. Its costing me £20 now for the 30Mb which will do me just fine for half the price.

Although once BT Infinity 2 arrives in my area on September 30th I may change over to them, you can get 80Mb broadband, weekend calls and TV for the price I was paying for the 100Mb from Virgin. Cant currently get freeview in my bedroom because the aerial sucks, so will be nice to not have to stream TV through the internet to watch a program xD

Just about to get BT Infinity 2. 76mb, but in my area only 69mb said the operator on the site, which is F***ing boss as my area has been known for 3mb specials!

Currently with Talktalk, when im downloading in the day its slower than Carragher. Pretty quick in the night though.