At the moment, we have Virgin cable broadband & TV and have xbox live through it and its a bit carp. We are moving house to a non-cable area:

we have to have a BT line, but are trying to find the best ISP. Anybody got experience of non-cable Virgin broadband, we are bit reluctant to try it as the cable broadband from Virgin is rubbish! We cannot get the Sky deal with broadband in that area. So we are struggling to choose a ISP and no idea what to do about the TV package. We want to keep costs down. We wanted to improve on what we have now, which is a 2mb connection

Whats Orange broadband or Tiscali like??? :confused:

How far from the telephone exchange is the house you are moving to. If you are to far away you may not even be able to get any sort of broadband.

Tiscali or Orange are about the same as far as it goes. Bulldog seem to have gone downhill recently, and talk talk seem to be on watchdog quiet a lot.

My brother is with Tiscali, and his connection seems to work without problems. Someone at work is also with Tiscali and they are also trouble free.

The thing to keep in mind is that unlike Virgin who have unlimited download limits within their fair useage policy, most ADSL subscriptions have fixed limits.

TBH, I find virgin media broadband excellent and have only had 2 days of downtime since we got broadband through ntl as soon as they offered the service. AOL use Virgin as their backbone for ther services.

Why cant you get the sky deal in that area?

Why cant you get the sky deal in that area?

we cannot get Sky broadband in our town, there is not full coverage in the country apparently, we spoke to a Sky man and he said it is coming but slowly:D

we may get BT Total Broadband option 3, it sounds good:confused:

Download speed will depend on distance from exchange regardless of ISP as mentioned. I have BT and have only had 1 days downtime in several years, and this would have effected every ISP connected via that exchange . BT are a little dearer but I have found they will come up with a good deal if you pester. Never had cable in our area so have sky, was going to switch to their broadband but BT came up with a deal to keep me Recently switched to Sky HD wich I do reccomend, well worth the extra (allthough I don't pay it a.n. other deal ) but of course you need an HD tv

We are on Orange.If you have an Orange Mobile Contract you can get a deal for £9.99 a month and you get a Orange landline with another phone number So you can ring numbers starting 01 & 02 for free 24/7, .............Good valve, We get Incoming calls on the BT phone and we ring out on the Orange phone

Talk Talk were doing free broadband, they are in partnership with the Car phone warehouse. my parents just signed up, I think it was a one off payment of

I am a great believer in you get what you pay for, especially with broadband.

There are quite a few doing "free" or bundled BB now, but beware. read up on them all at somewhere like thinkbroadband :: The UK's largest independent Broadband / ADSL review site - Your guide to UK broadband Internet.

I have been with BT , Tiscali ( the only 2 available when my exchange was first enabled ) and Freedom2Surf - an award winning independent ISP until it was taken over by pipex and went doon the swany recently. I am now with Zen. I have not yet had a disconnection, or any downtime with them and their customer support etc is the best i have came accross yet. But they are probably one of the most expensive ISP's around.

What are you using the internet for? If its just surfing / occasional downloads then it may not matter too much anyway. Heavier file transfer / gaming tends to show ISP's weaknesses.

I'd have to recommend bethere, at 3.5km away from the exchange i still get a healthy 7meg up and 1.2meg down on their 24meg broadband, the free router they provide and the lack of a lengthy contract make them perfect for me

check out The Broadband Resource to find out which providers you can have and info about your exchange.

also, make sure you join quidco as you'll get pretty good discounts on new services if you sign up via them!

I too am with BT and so far haven