I'm shortly moving into a place where i shall be organising and paying... for the broadband.

 

I don't need a landline but will get one if its the least hassle for whatever provider sends in broadband.  Any experiences?  Ideally looking for cheapest possible, and not fussed about fibre etc.  "Normal" broadband is sufficient.  Landline free internet options appear limited and not sure good value really.

John lewis unlimited is quite good value for what it is!

Talk Talk - Not had one single problem with them!

 

Heard stories of people having issues but dig deeper its the line that is at fault (BT infrastructure) and not the provider.

Cheapest is always the best!!

Although I had a broadband connection for almost 6 months without a landlines due to a BT/Orange screw up, I don't think it's easy to get a line provisioned for broadband only.

Talk Talk - Not had one single problem with them!

 

Heard stories of people having issues but dig deeper its the line that is at fault (BT infrastructure) and not the provider.

 

 

Recently had talk talk fitted and my experiance was woeful and nothing to do with BT or Openreach as far as I can tell - they refused to help me any further because they kept telling me to connect my router to my BT phone line rather than the talk talk one (2 lines in the house), I had to litterally scream at the woman on the phone to get a manager.

 

Manger then did actually fix the problem (that had been caused by a previous support "operative" trying to test the line) said she'd phone back within 24hrs to check on the line and then didn't.  To add insult to injury they turned on the wifi/DHCP on the router remotely because that was "probably the issue with me not being able to connect to the internet" even though I was on a static IP over ethernet cable and I could ping the bl**dy router.

 

On the plus side, once they'd stablised the line (different profile) it's been fine, although I didn't replace the router shortly after that as I'm not having them remoting into my router.

 

They are very cheap and the service itself seems fine - just hope you don't actually have to speak to them, if you can even find the number that it as their web chat system kept disconnecting me after 10 mins.

Recently had talk talk fitted and my experiance was woeful and nothing to do with BT or Openreach as far as I can tell - they refused to help me any further because they kept telling me to connect my router to my BT phone line rather than the talk talk one (2 lines in the house), I had to litterally scream at the woman on the phone to get a manager.

 

Manger then did actually fix the problem (that had been caused by a previous support "operative" trying to test the line) said she'd phone back within 24hrs to check on the line and then didn't.  To add insult to injury they turned on the wifi/DHCP on the router remotely because that was "probably the issue with me not being able to connect to the internet" even though I was on a static IP over ethernet cable and I could ping the bl**dy router.

 

On the plus side, once they'd stablised the line (different profile) it's been fine, although I didn't replace the router shortly after that as I'm not having them remoting into my router.

 

They are very cheap and the service itself seems fine - just hope you don't actually have to speak to them, if you can even find the number that it as their web chat system kept disconnecting me after 10 mins.

 

+1 As soon as I got the Techicolor router it went in the bin! Currently using a Cisco 1841

+1 As soon as I got the Techicolor router it went in the bin! Currently using a Cisco 1841

 

Yeah, not quite at Cisco level myself but I've got dual Draytek Vigor 120s connected to a Vigor 2920 (One BT ADSL and one Talk Talk ADSL line).

 

Tesco seemed to be a really good deal as well and their mobile phone customer service is top notch however they were unable to fit a line, they could only take over a service so we went with talk talk.

I'm with Virgin and I'd rather not be... Terrible service, empty promises - just not worth the hassle no matter what deal you can get.

Tescos, superb!!

They put a new line in for me to improve the speed, I use there foc router, dead easy to set up, everything happened as promised and now 8 months in I haven't had one problem.

Regards all

Juan

A bit like energy companies basically they ALL seem to be a bit ****e.

 

Look for a UK call centre and any review on how good they are at sorting out problems.

 

We're happy Plusnet customers and in all honesty we were happy with BT previously other than cost.

I'm with PRIMUS since moving house and it seems fine - set up was a doddle and line speeds seem good - much better than others at work tell me they are getting with BT...

Depends on use/ download . I use a T Mobile dongle - supposed to be 7.2 MB, but it's more like 1-2 .Fair use download limit of 1GB /month ,although after that I've had few problems, except a nagging message to tell me I'm over. £30 for 90 days. 3 did offer something similar with a upmarket version for a bit more. Upmarket version rotated to get best signal . I do likewise- I use an USB extension to get a better signal as base station is at an obtuse angle to my house.

  Don't know if the offer still stands, but EE offer BB at a few £ a month ,but a phone line £15 ish is needed.

Edited 5 August, 201411 yr by VWD

Just moved to the utilities warehouse for gas elec phone and broadband seems good so far not had any issues. And it's pretty good price wise as the more you have the cheaper gas and elec is. Uk call centres and a lot of other deals are available with them

People keep confusing the phrase "Best Value" with "cheap"; the cheapest option is rarely the best value.

Jason depends on what you want to achieve and how many others will use the connection. If your out in the sticks a 1meg ADSL connection shared between 4-5 people will be pretty useless, however you can sometimes get FTTC which would yield a much faster more useable speed.

 

I went from 4meg ADSL to 75meg FTTC on the same line, a dramatic improvement for a farm cottage.

I have just moved to Talktalk's ADSL2 service ("Simply Broadband"), saving 50% over Virgin Media, there are good offers at the moment, plus VM decided that it's OK to charge me more than new customers (even after the 6 months promotion) while offering 1/2 the speed they offer new customers in the area.

 

ADSL2 is slower than VM's cable, but at 8Mbps downlink / 0.8Mbps uplink actual data rates it is still fast enough unless you need HD video conferencing.  Plus if I need more speed, fibre from talktalk is still 10% cheaper than same provision from VM.  Talktalk's customer support is unfortunately exactly as good as VM's, i.e. horrible, it takes 2-3 calls to solve any issue.

Edited 8 August, 201411 yr by dieselV6

I really don't need a landline so would be after broadband only really. Virgin don't offer services to the new place so can rule them out now.

If you don't want a landline, without Virgin Media your looking at using 3G over the air since any other will require the installation of a phone line.

+1 As soon as I got the Techicolor router it went in the bin! Currently using a Cisco 1841

Where did you get your Cisco from...

If you do not want a landline, what you need first is a bunch of PAYG SIM cards to check out the actual coverage at your place. Otherwise you may find you bought e.g. 4GB per month of data of which you can only use 10% or less because it is slower than the old phone line modem.

 

Best to check coverage on operator maps first, just type in your postcode, make sure you look at 3G and 4G coverage. If it says outdoor only, it is not good enough, must say "indoor and outdoor". Check Vodafone, EE, 3UK and O2, as these are main operators. Then get 1-4 PAYG SIM cards and try them out for speed (you must have aSIM free mobile or dongle). Pick the faster one

 

For final operator choice (which may be none of the 4 you tested, because there are a lot of MVNOs), you can check here who is using the network you picked as the best: E.g. VM runs on EE, giffgaff runs on O2 and so on.

Perhaps line is easiest but I wouldn't bother having a phone connected, just be there for the broadband

Unfortunately, I do not know of anyone who sells landline broadband without phone at lower than broadband+phone in the UK, it seems a package when it comes to the price, even if the conditions do not mention phone.

 

E.g. VM's "broadband only" costs exactly as much as line rental+phone+broadband (check the small print, all broadband offers must include line rental), talktalk is the same, and so are others. No one can force you to connect a handset, after all.

 

Whoever you get, look for "line rental saver" option, you pay for a year in advance for line rental, and it is 20% cheaper, £12 instead of  £16. E.g talktalk is £13.75 for phone and broadband in the first year , £15.50 afterwards if you pay in this way, VM has similar offer and so do others.

Edited 8 August, 201411 yr by dieselV6

Where did you get your Cisco from...

 

I purchased it but have recently swapped it for a Cisco 887 due to the 1841 not having a ADSL2+ card installed. I am now running a 887 so give me a shout if you need an hand with config to make it work

If you do not want a landline, what you need first is a bunch of PAYG SIM cards to check out the actual coverage at your place. Otherwise you may find you bought e.g. 4GB per month of data of which you can only use 10% or less because it is slower than the old phone line modem.

 

Best to check coverage on operator maps first, just type in your postcode, make sure you look at 3G and 4G coverage. If it says outdoor only, it is not good enough, must say "indoor and outdoor". Check Vodafone, EE, 3UK and O2, as these are main operators. Then get 1-4 PAYG SIM cards and try them out for speed (you must have aSIM free mobile or dongle). Pick the faster one

 

For final operator choice (which may be none of the 4 you tested, because there are a lot of MVNOs), you can check here who is using the network you picked as the best: E.g. VM runs on EE, giffgaff runs on O2 and so on.

 

Really depends on what services you are running, on the standard broadband router adding just one IP to DMZ is useless - Using a Cisco router allows the use of NAT per port.