Anyone here using SSE Broadband?

[gac]

I'm a current TalkTalk customer, the service is OK but now that my 18 months is up and they managed to leak all my data I'm not massively fussed about staying with them so I've been looking around for other deals. SSE are doing a pretty bloody good fibre broadband offer, at £21/month inclusive of everything (including some voice calls, if I ever bother to make any). Normally I'd steer clear, but the broadband is provided wholesale through Daisy who seem like a fairly well known and stable company (they also just acquired the company next door to my office so the Daisy group as a whole seem in a pretty healthy state). So from a technical point of view I don't think there's anything to worry about.

 

However the thing that always bothers me is customer service. TalkTalk are an actual ISP who own their own equipment and they still manage to find unhelpful tech support, since SSE are just a customer of Daisy are they even worse? Obviously I'm going for an unlimited package so I'm not worried about billing screwups, I just want to know that if it breaks I'll be able to get on a phone (or live chat, or whatever) and get any problems resolved quickly...

[philbes]

My father-in-law had SSE broadband and the customer service was awful.  He only had one problem in the 18 months but it took days to resolve with promised call-backs never happening and every phone call he made requiring the problem to be restated with the same steps required towards a diagnosis.

Edited 6 November, 2016 by philbes

[GentleGiant]

You get what you pay for.

 

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/

[@Lee]

You get what you pay for.

 

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/

Exactly. That's why I use BT. Unlimited downloads and FTTC.

[gac]

You get what you pay for.

 

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/

 

But do you? It doesn't always follow that cheap is bad, particularly when SSE don't manage the network. It could be that this offer is just based on the cost price because they want it as a loss leader into the market knowing that they won't have any sudden investments to make because they themselves are just buying a service wholesale. That's why I'm trying to find out more about it, and review sites are (as a general rule) useless because no one, myself included, ever logs in to say "these guys did a great job"...

 

Exactly. That's why I use BT. Unlimited downloads and FTTC.

 

IIRC you work for BT? I also have unlimited downloads and FTTC, BT are hardly unique in offering it, and I've had nothing but trouble with BT's customer services at work even on our multiple business-class connections so I wouldn't really want to go with them at home.

[@Lee]

But do you? It doesn't always follow that cheap is bad, particularly when SSE don't manage the network. It could be that this offer is just based on the cost price because they want it as a loss leader into the market knowing that they won't have any sudden investments to make because they themselves are just buying a service wholesale. That's why I'm trying to find out more about it, and review sites are (as a general rule) useless because no one, myself included, ever logs in to say "these guys did a great job"...

 

 

IIRC you work for BT? I also have unlimited downloads and FTTC, BT are hardly unique in offering it, and I've had nothing but trouble with BT's customer services at work even on our multiple business-class connections so I wouldn't really want to go with them at home.

I was mere replying GG and his get what you par for comment. Working for Openreach I get the fastest they can give me for nowt

[GentleGiant]

But do you? It doesn't always follow that cheap is bad, particularly when SSE don't manage the network. It could be that this offer is just based on the cost price because they want it as a loss leader into the market knowing that they won't have any sudden investments to make because they themselves are just buying a service wholesale. That's why I'm trying to find out more about it, and review sites are (as a general rule) useless because no one, myself included, ever logs in to say "these guys did a great job"...

 

 

IIRC you work for BT? I also have unlimited downloads and FTTC, BT are hardly unique in offering it, and I've had nothing but trouble with BT's customer services at work even on our multiple business-class connections so I wouldn't really want to go with them at home.

 

 

At the end of the day, most ISPs buy their network access from the same few companies, and those companies give a very reliable service MOST of the time; it is when things go wrong that the premium ISPs shine. In 4 years I have had 2 network issues, one a backbone issue, and one a local issue; in both cases my premium ISP got them sorted VERY quickly, the network problem was sorted within 2 hours, and the local problem in 3 days. Other people in my area, suffering from the same problem, didnt get their service sorted out for a week or more, because their cheap ISPs werent passing on the info to BTOR, and not badgering BTOR to get it fixed.

 

My best (and most extreme example), happened about 10 years ago; my sister and I both had identical issues with random dropouts to our ADSL connection, even though we lived 10 miles apart. The problem was a batch of faulty equipment from Fujitsu, the items had to be ripped out and replaced, but BT would ONLY do this if they were forced to; my ISP badgered them daily, and got the job done in 10 days from identifying the problem; my sisters ISP (Orange), even after I told the help desk exactly what was wrong,  took 18 MONTHS to identify and get the problem sorted, even though both my sisters neighbours (also with Orange) were reporting EXACTLY the same thing.

For most of those 18 months they kept claiming it was a faulty modem, and sending out a new one; by the end my sister had a whole box full of the green "frog" modem, and 2 newer wireless routers.

 

Despite all that, the silly cow STILL uses them, because they are "cheap".

 

"Madder than a box of frogs" now has a special meaning in our family.

[MikeF]

Im currently on SSE and have found the service absolutely faultless.  I moved from BT but I always move around for the cheapest deal anyway, sometimes to good effect and sometimes not.  I haven't had to contact them but to be honest I completely understand I probably wouldn't get far if I did have to...

 

I havent seen any traffic shaping whatsoever and with the whole family using kodi, p2p and online gaming I did half expect to see something - even my bt service used to have an issue at around 11pm that has gone away since moving.

 

cant see any cashback at the moment but I did get £77 cashback via topcashback so worth keeping your eyes peeled.

 

I couldnt get close to the offer with anyone else, £21 a month incl line rental - after cashback it was 14.33 a month all in.

[FUBAR]

You get what you pay for.

 

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/

 

 

Exactly. That's why I use BT. Unlimited downloads and FTTC.

 

But I thought you didn't pay for it? :P 

[GentleGiant]

But I thought you didn't pay for it? :p

 

You forgot to mention that he only gets unlimited downloads from websites BT will let him access.

 

I should mention that BT are very sneaky, the cheapest Infinity packages are NOT unlimited, unless they have changed them in the last year, there were strict limits -depending on which cheap offer you take- a friend got a £50 bill for going over a limit he had no idea existed - of course BT generously allowed him to upgrade to the unlimited package; and just last week they HALVED his bill and DOUBLED his FTTC speed, after he told them he was leaving.

 

(He was paying £60pm for upto 38Mb, inc line rental - now paying £33pm for upto 78Mb, inc line rental)

[Aspman]

Tried to get SSE when I moved house and they had a good fibre offer on but even the sales line wouldn't pick up. Tried 2 or 3 times.

 

If they can't be bothered to answer calls for sales it did make me wonder how bad their support would be.

 

Stuck with Plusnet in the end, imagining it would be easier when moving. Wasn't they made an utter arse of it. Which reminds me I need to take my complaint against them to arbitration.

[@Lee]

But I thought you didn't pay for it? :p

I don't

Employee Broadband and Employee TV. TOTALLY unlimited downloads and I can access any site I damn well want to.

 

You won't find the packages I'm on unless you can get on the BT Intranet.

[Clunkclick]

I don't

Employee Broadband and Employee TV. TOTALLY unlimited downloads and I can access any site I damn well want to.

 

You won't find the packages I'm on unless you can get on the BT Intranet.

So that's what I'll be paying a £126 excess this quarter for.

 

N

[Mort]

So that's what I'll be paying a £126 excess this quarter for.

N

Sounds like you could do with an unlimited data plan.

[Clunkclick]

Ooh yes ! We can all see the unswerving (Marketing) logic of that proposition in revenue terms

 

One thing I would say, it would be nice to have a choice as to whether to go unlimited rather than be heavy- handedly maneouvred into it. Especially when the customer has no requirement for an account with data usuage above 30-40 Gb a month.

 

Hence my complaint, which despite recent escalation up the BT Customer Services tree still hasn't had a formal response which answers the few simple questions asked.

 

http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/412114-bt-broadband-problem/

 

Another example of an everyday micro attempt to "Thwart the will of the people" ?

 

 

N

[keith@pch]

I switched from BT to SSE ultrafast fibre on 31 May and I couldn't be happier.  The switch occurred on time and was trouble free.  Speeds increased from 15Mbps on standard BT broadband to 70-74 with SSE.  Uploads from 1Mbps with BT to 19Mbps with SSE at anytime of the day or night.

 

I was paying BT almost £50 per month.  Cost with SSE is £21 + £3.50 for caller display.  £136.50 Topcashback was paid quickly reducing the cost over the18 months contract to £16.92 per month including line rental and anytime calls.

 

I haven't had any technical problems but the 2 calls I made to SSE after the switch were dealt with by friendly and competent people.

 

BT on the other hand were a nightmare to deal with.  It took them 5 months to close my account and, in the meantime, they continued to bill me as If I was still their customer.  Fortunately, I had cancelled my DD but it took numerous phone calls and a complaint lettter before my account was closed and they refunded the money they owed me.  I will never go back to BT.

[robt100]

On SSE's "normal" broadband here. Apart from a bit of a headache getting it set up (I had tight deadlines and they kept forgetting........turned up it was set up already, just used my own router with the details, 5 days before they said it would be working! Also failing their credit checks when ive been an SSE utility customer for 5 years!) they have been faultless apart from that. Got a deal when they first started up, so I Get 2 years free broadband and £13 a month line rental.

As for traffic shaping etc, the only thing ive noticed is if I've been a bit heavy on P2P (im talking 5-10GB in a day ) then it will slow p2p down at peak times to about 10% of the speed, but everything else works as normal. Standard downloads still peak out at top speed for ADSL. Not had a problem in the last Year and a bit I've been with them.

So in short:

SSE themselves were a bit of a shambles, but I think that was more down to it being new to them and a bit of a "computer says no" mentality. But daisy who run the service have been great.

PS: Most people recommend not using the router it comes with as its very low quality (For ADSL at least), get yourself a decent one and enjoy value for money broadband

Edited 10 November, 2016 by robt100

[GentleGiant]

5-10Gb per day on P2P isnt heavy, I managed ~120GB d/l once, not sure of the upload side - possibly another 20-40GB (downloading every season of MASH + extras).

[Aspman]

Problems with setup often seem to be due to communications between the ISP and OpenReach. So it's all Lee's fault.

 

But that's not your problem as a customer.

[GentleGiant]

Problems with setup often seem to be due to communications between the ISP and OpenReach. So it's all Lee's fault.

 

But that's not your problem as a customer.

 

Yes, he is too busy trawling pron sites with his unrestricted internet account to do the job properly!!!

[@Lee]

Problems with setup often seem to be due to communications between the ISP and OpenReach. So it's all Lee's fault.

 

But that's not your problem as a customer.

don't blame me I just stick bits of wire together :p

[GentleGiant]

don't blame me I just stick bits of wire together :p

 

Yes, but you arent supposed to do it with PritStik !!

[@Lee]

Yes, but you arent supposed to do it with PritStik !!

 

 

Now do that 800 times in a hole while it's wet, dark and cold and the manhole's filling up with water and you have to keep pumping. And there's the danger of methane gas so you need to pump down clean air.

[Sad555]

Happy days?

[Coops]

Exactly. That's why I use BT. Unlimited downloads and FTTC.

 

Me too, but given I have a 50 Mbps line it's BT Sport that keeps failing and I'm getting more and more pee'd off with BT's lack of ownership in resolving the problem.