B-B-B-Brrrroooaadband

[Adam]

So I'm getting closer to this whole moving thing I am doing and I had a chat with Virgin after they pestered me with a 'DON'T LEAVE ME!' E-mail. I was all set to go back to them (I can't fault my experience with the service), but sadly, they can not provide at my new address.

Because I've been very nice with the guy, he's looked into it a little further and told me that my best option is BT as he could sell me a package via that, but it would cost me a stupid amount when I might as well just go straight for them and cut out the Branson middle man.

Does anyone here use BT broadband? Have experience with it? Trying to get a general feel for it for when I call them tommorrow. I don't really have an alternative so I'm going with them either way, just gives me a good idea of what to expect really.

[Van-Fu San]

I haven't been on BT for a little while now. But in regards to service, I had no problem. Everything worked as I needed. MarkuzR and Lorna will probably tell you something completely different. The only problem I had with them was the price. But looking at their prices now, they seem to be quite comparable to the offering from Sky. Haven't said that, I never, EVER want to live without Sky EVER again. Remote record and Sky app on iPhone is what every geek should have.

[MarkuzR]

I haven't been on BT for a little while now. But in regards to service, I had no problem. Everything worked as I needed. MarkuzR and Lorna will probably tell you something completely different. The only problem I had with them was the price. But looking at their prices now, they seem to be quite comparable to the offering from Sky. Haven't said that, I never, EVER want to live without Sky EVER again. Remote record and Sky app on iPhone is what every geek should have.

Nah, I still stand by them. We may have had problems with our net connection going funny but I've only had three issues with them in 22 years. Once my four iSDN lines went down for three days and I got compensated to the point where I didn't have a phone bill to pay for a year. The last time was three days too, which I think was last year, and the problem was that the Indian call centre didn't want to know but when I emailed their complaints department directly it was dealt with quickly and efficiently. This time the second guy was really good, explained everything and even mentioned the problem being at the exchange... which is when he told us that we were being upgraded, and the fault was fixed in a few days. That's still a great service over the last 22 years though.

[MarkuzR]

Dood, there's a really important thing you need to look up called Local Loop Unbinding. Can't remember when it happened, but it must have been a good ten years ago now. Basically it means that all the lines are owned by BT as before, but they started up a wholesale operation as the service provider at ground zero and then everyone else is a branch from that point on. Although some people will have good things to say about BT, others will have bad things to say... ultimately it comes down to this: the lines are owned by BT. The exchanges are owned by BT. If you have a problem with a Talk Talk, Virgin, Telewest or anyone else and it's NOT fibre optic lines... then they'll refer it back to BT and you'll never know about it.

At the end of the day, it's better to deal with the people who organise callouts and engineers than those who pass it on and wait for BT to do it because they'll always put their own customers first. It's why I've been with BT for the 22 years that I've lived on my own, and why I'll continue to do so. Until I can get fibre optic lines, or a leased line, and then I'm defecting!!

[Van-Fu San]

I stand corrected. But yes, here is another vote for BT. I liked them. Never had a problem with them and unlike Sky, they will periodically send out upgraded models of routers. For me, it came down to price. The triple whammy of Sky, broadband and phone seems to be only £15 more expensive per quarter than the TV and Broadband offering from BT. But that was 18 months ago. The prices seem that tiny bit more competitive.

But as I said, I can't live without Sky again. Even though I am contributing to Murdochs pension fund and essentially rewarding pure, phone-hacking evil.

I heart Sky.

[Adam]

Were it that I could Sky it up, I would. Its so very cheap but I can't have anything fixed to the fascia of the building as it's a business (not that you could see it from Street Level :p)

I thank you for these kind words of endorsement

[Ste]

I was on BT for a little while and they were ok. I eventually moved to O2 as they gave me a massive discount for being an O2 mobile customer and BT could not match it for me so I left them. I'm now with Virgin cable as O2 couldn't provide a service at my new house due to them not having any space left in the local exchange.

Anyway I digress, BT are fine but then I never had a problem with anything while I was with them.

[Kat]

O2 were fantastic, I felt bad leaving them.

If you sign up to Quidco and get broadband through it then you can get a nice chunk of cashback. At the moment it's up to £120 for O2, £35 for BT and £50 for TalkTalk as examples.

[etherfiend]

If you did want to go with a local loop provider, I've been using Be (http://www.bethere.co.uk/) for probably going on for 3 years now. Previously on BT owned PlusNet I got 3.5mb max, with the LLU ADSL2 line of Be I get 10mb quite regularly. Recently there were rumbles about their network infrastructure being used by other companies (renting out their network) but I've not noticed any impact on my Internet connection. I don't know if it is still the case but when I joined they were the only ISP that guaranteed no traffic shaping, others may now offer the same.

Edit: Obviously if your area has the BT Infinity (or whatever its called) Exchange upgrade then Be may not be as outstanding as I think that's up to 20mb.