Have decided enough is enough with Sky and although they have a tremendous selection of programmes now is the time to switch over to Freesat but as my phone and broaband are tied into the Sky package I'm in the market for other alternatives.

I would be interested to hear your views and recomendations on decent broadband and home phone package and I may also add a low tarif/use mobile too.

I use BT and cant fault them. Although i have not had a problem yet so can't comment on customer service

Carl:thumbup:

If your in a cable area, i don't see how dsl can compete with virgin media. If your not in a cable area i always hear good things about Be and o2.

Yip , if you can get cable , then do.

If not , then you can get a combined package with a few companies ( ADSL , Phone , calls and line rental in one ) Stay away from orange who do this type of thing.

Who does the post office re sell? as they do a combined package and have UK support rather than Mumbai .

Having tried quite a few ADSL / phone options I still think you are better off having your basic phone / line rental with BT and a decent broadband deal from the likes of O2 , BE , Zen etc.

I am with Talk Talk and have had them for about 18 months. I can definitely recommend them.

with TalkTalk you can build your own phone and broadband package

i got TalkTalk a month back , not had any probs yet , also getting a higher line speed than what they said i would , so result really, £17.74 a month inc line rental

Thanks for all your suggestions, gives me a good starting platform when looking around

Been with talk talk for years (well only the phone) but have had no problems at all...in fact the calls are quite cheap compared to some others

According to the telephone 'line check' I live too far away from the BT Exchange to get decent broadband speed, seems I'm limited to a paultry 1.7 meg through the phone line :(

According to the telephone 'line check' I live too far away from the BT Exchange to get decent broadband speed, seems I'm limited to a paultry 1.7 meg through the phone line :(

Sky will have been using the same phone line Mr Fish so what speeds were you getting with them?

I have BT Broadband and phone and they seem pretty good. I can't really vomment on pricing as I am employed by them.

According to the telephone 'line check' I live too far away from the BT Exchange to get decent broadband speed, seems I'm limited to a paultry 1.7 meg through the phone line :(

Luxury.................. not much more than 1/2 a meg here:(:(:(:(:(:(:(

Have been getting roughly the same speeds with Sky so no surpries tbh ............... BE won't entertain me because of the poor line speed

Going with the Virgin Media (cable) appears to be the most attractive option at the moment, anyone have any experience with them?

I'm with plusnet for broadband ....which I believe is a part of BT

Going with the Virgin Media (cable) appears to be the most attractive option at the moment, anyone have any experience with them?

The TV service is pretty good. Not HD before anyone says but the V+ box is excellent IMO. Broadband is excellent with 10 and 20meg freely available. In nearly all cases to get a deal you will need to take a phone package.

You could use VM as a bargaining chip with your current people.

Did I mention I used to be employed by them until they outsourced us to my current employers.

Have been getting roughly the same speeds with Sky so no surpries tbh ............... BE won't entertain me because of the poor line speed

Going with the Virgin Media (cable) appears to be the most attractive option at the moment, anyone have any experience with them?

Virgin - no problems to date ,though of late slight hanging at times - if you can still get 2M - grab it as there's a free upgrade to 10M in the offing .Phonewise - had one problem with CLI -used to BT service - sometime later (unless superviser called in ) -was pleasantly surprised to have engineer call next morning .Package - 2M BB+unlimited calls + CLI =£26.5 ,but I've been with them for a couple of years now .Call centre sounds same as BT-but Virgin seem to emloy the sensible (and professional ones)-who can't do enough .

According to the telephone 'line check' I live too far away from the BT Exchange to get decent broadband speed, seems I'm limited to a paultry 1.7 meg through the phone line :(

BE and o2 who use the BE infrastructure use ADSL2+ not ADSL so you might well find you get closer to 8-10 MB for that line.

Best thing to do would be to phone up BE or use the O2 checker.

Samknows Broadband - Broadband Availability Checker is usefule

as is:

O2 Broadband

I've been with talktalk for a few years and the broadband / phone package is really good, but their accounts dept are the pits! For about £21 a month (incl line rental) I have broadband at between 5.6 -6.1 mbps the phone for UK landlines & 0845 / 0870 anytime + the international free calls to most of Europe, Australia, New Zealand, North America etc 28 countries in all, this is good for me because I spend a lot of time talking to contacts in Germany.

Their accounts screwed up so bad at the beginning that they waived the £30 connection fee and ended up paying my mobile phone bill for a month.

Used to have Orange broadband when it came 'free' with mobile package, and although it was quick enough (although too many down times) I found their Indian awful 'stick to the script' cust services a complete pain to deal with (the UK people were lovely - and this def isn't a nationalist/racist point as I've had plenty of bad UK call centre experiences over the years too!).

I've been with BT for 18 months now and can't really fault them. Yes, they are reletively expensive, but the connection is mega reliable and quick. Oh, and if you look out for the special caskback offer through their website with free router for the first year at least they are very goood value. Plus I use the BT credit card for everything I would normally use switch for (and pay it off every month) and this gives decent regular cashback discounts on the bills...

I would check the relevant moneysavingexpert pages for the best deals and comments on service. Also, it's worth noting that for normal broadband the speed is really dependant on how far away you are from your local telephone exchange - if this is a problem then a virgin fiberoptic package may be better if it is availablle in your street.

BE and o2 who use the BE infrastructure use ADSL2+ not ADSL so you might well find you get closer to 8-10 MB for that line.

Best thing to do would be to phone up BE or use the O2 checker.

Samknows Broadband - Broadband Availability Checker is usefule

as is:

O2 Broadband

O2 say 'not available' which I guess means I cant get ADSL2+ :(

..... result from 'Samknows' is as follows:-

"Congratulations, you are in a broadband enabled area.

However, there is another service on your phone line (e.g. ADSL, LLU, DACS, etc) that would prevent you from ordering a new ADSL connection.

The following services are available in your location:

BT Wholesale ADSL

BT Wholesale ADSL Max

BT Wholesale SDSL

AOL LLU

O2 / Be LLU

Bulldog LLU

TalkTalk (CPW) LLU

Sky Broadband / Easynet LLU

Newnet LLU

Tiscali LLU

Orange LLU (Formerly Wanadoo)

Virgin Media (Cable)

Please select the options on the left for more information about broadband availability at your location."

:confused:

Don't touch Talk Talk with a ten foot barge pole. They have just made a lot of their support staff redundant meaning it will shortly turn to crap (Not that the service was much kop anyway) You will never get any sense out of them about anything other than the original connection and they are also about to go through another massive change when they split from CPW retail

Hi good old Soviet here,

I copy this from a newspaper ealier :-

BROADBAND FOR UNDER £6

Get broadband for under £5.99 per month. Plusnet a subsidiary of BT, offers the UK's cheapest broadband service with its standalone package which includes a free wireless router, free set up, built in firewall, spam protection, and a monthly usage allowance of 10GB (enough to send hundreds of emails with attachments). The braodband service has speeds of up to 8MB a second which is fast enough to handle multiple users on one connection, and will download music tracks in a matter of seconds. There are also no extra tie-ins with TV or telephone so all you'll pay is the £5.99 per month as long as you are in an 'optimum broadband area' which 80% of us are.

See moneymagpieexpress.com for the UK area. You will have to take out an 18 month contract.

I do not have problems with this service here.

Soviet

Edited 31 May, 200917 yr by soviet
sp

O2 say 'not available' which I guess means I cant get ADSL2+ :(

..... result from 'Samknows' is as follows:-

"Congratulations, you are in a broadband enabled area.

However, there is another service on your phone line (e.g. ADSL, LLU, DACS, etc) that would prevent you from ordering a new ADSL connection.

The following services are available in your location:

BT Wholesale ADSL

BT Wholesale ADSL Max

BT Wholesale SDSL

AOL LLU

O2 / Be LLU

Bulldog LLU

TalkTalk (CPW) LLU

Sky Broadband / Easynet LLU

Newnet LLU

Tiscali LLU

Orange LLU (Formerly Wanadoo)

Virgin Media (Cable)

Please select the options on the left for more information about broadband availability at your location."

:confused:

Phone up BE Steve. That says your local exchange is unbundled and it should be.

The reason you can't get a new service is you already have one on the line I would think, but obviously you can change that easily enough by migrating.

I use BE and am pretty happy with them. You get a decent wireless router included in the cost and I used to get less than 1Mbit Up 256k down on ADSL Max and am now on over 10Mbit upstream and about 2Mbit down IIRC.

Nice thing about Be is that the packages are not limited in terms of bandwidth other than a don't take the p*ss clause.