Recommendations for Broadband

Jacal

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My broadband with Plusnet is up for renewal and was wondering what experience the knowledgable members are using and and recommendation would be much appreciated.
My requirements are: Fast broadband (60Mb+) and landline, seems not a lot to ask but the past two providers were hit and miss with Plusnet advising me to hardwire.....Maybe their right, my WiFi ma be struggling in my house but I find it puzzling to say the least when it seems to happen at certain times of day, around 5-8pm.

Anyway I'm rambling, please help if you can :beerjug:
 
I had the reset at a similar time of day with Plusnet and its sister BT. I think they had very clumsy load balancing at either end of the peak period.

I am just about to switch away from Talktalk. I was on a deal for 37Mb/s and it has all worked fine. None of the resets and the D-link router they use has been fine. On the couple of occasions I have needed to contact people I have found the chat facility works well. This has never been about the actual service, just contract related stuff at renewal last time and more recently to get a refund from my mobile contract which I had switched to Lebara.

My only reason for switching is that the prices they have offered for a new contract are not competitive with the deals offered by Now (part of Sky) and their own sub-brand Shell. Next week I will be finding out if Now is any good, as they are offering 67Mb/s for £21 a month with a kickback from Topcashback.

Deals and services in your area may be different.
 
I’ve been with Vodafone for the last 18 months. I found them very reliable and constantly get their advertised speeds.
 
I’ve been with Vodafone for the last 18 months. I found them very reliable and constantly get their advertised speeds.
I was with Vodafone for a couple of months.. I had nothing but poor service, obnoxious customer service and even worse technical support.. Actually had to buy myself off the contract. Totally pathetic.

Sent from my M2007J22G using Tapatalk
 
Next week I will be finding out if Now is any good, as they are offering 67Mb/s for £21 a month with a kickback from Topcashback.

Deals and services in your area may be different.

Just rolled over my Now contract for another year. Had no problems, and the brilliant broadband (currently £18) is good enough speed for me. Includes phone line, which I don't use. I'm seeing an offer of £20 for both super fibre (63mpbs) and fab fibre (36mpns) - I assume the same is available for others. A downside is that it's a bear bones service - they make it difficult to contact them. So, great if/when it works, not so great if it doesn't.
 
Hi Jacal,

I currently use Now TV broadband (it is exactly the same as Sky - owned and delivered by them), great service and great router - very cheap.

I paid about a £60 set up fee meaning that it is a monthly rolling contract, so if not happy I can move plus optional TV packages as required etc.
 
Cheers lads for all the replies, I'm still in a quandary but hopefully the mist will clear, I s'pose it's a balancing act between trying to get a reliable service with good customer service. It really is a minefield.
Can I just get a fast service to the house then set up my own router + whatever I need, would this be more reliable seeing as they all say about the same thing that they guarantee a speed to your home but it's not their problem if you have thick walls etc.

Just a thought
 
Coverage throughout a house, even one with thick walls, really should not be a problem these days. Ask your supplier for a 'mesh' system that will work seemlessly throughout the house without any hassle
 
I use BT wholehome discs and they work a treat around the house.
I have a virgin modem which is lightning fast but have used BT and Sky modems which are both dependent on the signal strength from the BT box to your house (which in my case is pants).
 
I have used Waitrose since I got online in the 1990s. Their broadband has been under the John Lewis brand for a number of years.

Their broadband is subbed out to Plusnet. Any problems (rare) have been quickly sorted, their call centre is in the UK. They answer quickly.

What more do you need?

tom
 
I use talktalk never a problem but i do experience ad drop in speed sometimes between 4pm and 7pm when the kids are all on their games.
 
I have used Waitrose since I got online in the 1990s. Their broadband has been under the John Lewis brand for a number of years.

Their broadband is subbed out to Plusnet. Any problems (rare) have been quickly sorted, their call centre is in the UK. They answer quickly.

What more do you need?

tom
Cheers sanqhar, I agree there call centre is good and they are quick too respond but unfortunately their service isn't, I have drop out and slow speed daily, their solution was to send a new router out (didn't solve it) then told it was my Wifi and that the speed to the house was as quoted? The icing on the cake was an e-mail for renewing promising me that it was as good as new customers, it wasn't when I checked on the comparison sites so told them so!
 
I may go with NOW Broadband but does anyone know if you can add a Mesh system to it or will a basic WiFi extender do the job if the Wifi in my home is at fault.

Cheers for all the help so far lads :beerjug:
 
If you can get fibre direct to the premises from BT (or any other provider) then it's the way to go.

Inside your house, it's fully up to you what you do. I don't use the BT supplied router, just the fibre termination point which is then attached by Ethernet to one of my Netgear Orbi mesh wifi points.

900/100 mbps into/out of the house from the fibre, then the Orbi mesh system deals with wifi. Even in a big old Victorian house with 2 foot thick walls it's blindingly fast everywhere and is mainly limited by the wifi chips and antennas in the various devices that connect to it. This MacBook I am typing on runs wifi at a max of about 450mbps, but if you connect it directly via Ethernet it gets the full 900mbps.
 
I may go with NOW Broadband but does anyone know if you can add a Mesh system to it or will a basic WiFi extender do the job if the Wifi in my home is at fault.

Cheers for all the help so far lads :beerjug:

Yes, you can hang a home network from the Now router. The network can be as simple as a Powerline adapter across your mains wiring or a Mesh wifi network with multiple access points.
 
Thanks to everyone for all the advice, after taking your advice onboard and searching all the comparison sites I've decide to stay with Plus-net, they are sending me their new router out and hopefully this will work better but don't know about why it seems to go slower at certain times of day...Strange to say the least. The big factor in staying is that I can at least get in touch with them if the problem persists 'also' I have a 30 day trial, if it still acts up I'll start the whole process again.

Thanks again to all, I'll now start my search for a reliable, reasonable cost Wifi extender.
 
Had the switch to Now broadband today. All went without a hitch. Woke up to see my phone was running on 4G which meant the old service had stopped. Flipped the routers and the Now connection was quickly established. Logged in on my personal phone then my work phone. All working, initially at half the advertised speed but when I checked a couple of hours later I am close to the paid for speed of 63 Mb/s over wifi.

The only gripe is that the Now Hub 2 router (same as Sky Q Hub) does not have such a strong wifi signal. With the D-link router from Talk Talk I had a useable signal in the downstairs bathroom but less so with the new one. I guess the signal won't reach as far into the garden either. Not a big deal, my phone will just use 4G when listening to Radio 4 in the bathroom.

Apparently, corners are cut with only 5 antennae compared to 7 in a better quality job. At £21 a month, can't really complain if the 63Mb/s is sustained.
 


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