ISP recommendations and recent bargains

[MattyD]

Thanks for your tuppeny's worth Hohum. What's this phorm advertising then? Is there any software you can use to stop it?

I think sub-par customer service is the norm these days unfortunately but it can't be any worse than Tiscali. Seriously, CAN'T. Their 'support' is a premium rate number that goes to a call centre in India

[Hohum]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phorm

The history behind the company should give you some idea of what they do.

[dataDave]

I'm with Virgin also. 20mb broadband.

20-40ms latency on WoW (thanks to a third party patch I installed, before that it was 700+), and 2.4 mbps at it's peak downloading from places like Adobe.

Their service is proper wank though, man. My mum signed up with them a few months ago (I hooked her up as part of an introduction scheme where both parties get £50 off their bills three months in) and they not only charged my mum for installation, but they charged me for it as well! As well as charging me for two accounts at my address and charging her for her account on a monthly basis! It's taken me 3 months to get my money back and I've been disconnected for two weeks for all the trouble I've apparently caused. Of course, no sign of £50 off anywhere.

I hope they all burn for eternity come their judgement. Either that or Branson's space bull**** begins with the same amount of deathly fate like all the rest of his cheap-core ventures, taking him and a handful of has-been celebs with him. That would make me content.

[Oldgamingfart]

Yeah I had CableTel 56K, then it became NTL, then Virgin. The 56k service several years ago used to have a 2 hour limit, then you'd have to re-connect! The customer service went down the pan pretty much as soon as it became NTL, and it's gotten steadily worse under Virgin.
Luckily I haven't had any major problems with my (rather lame) 2MB broadband. I dread the day I have to ring up customer services and listen to a Pan Pipe version of the Titanic theme for four hours though

[trev1976]

I hope they all burn for eternity come their judgement. Either that or Branson's space bull**** begins with the same amount of deathly fate like all the rest of his cheap-core ventures, taking him and a handful of has-been celebs with him. That would make me content.

****ing brilliant :P

[Stormtec]

If I could switch to BE, I'd do so in a heartbeat. But unfortunately they require a BT line =(

I am currently with Virgin, who's random disconnecting bull**** is fuelling my several-year rage against them.

[sj33]

At home, we're basically tied to Virgin. We're blacklisted by BT. About 7 years ago, we paid £120 to subscribe to their unmetered dial-up service. They then proceeeded to charge us anyway, forgetting to tell us about a special dialer that they emailed to us. Naturally, we told them where to stick it. I certainly didn't miss BT back in the Blueyonder days though - we paid a tad extra for the best service in the country. However, ever since Virgin took over, it's all gone to pot. They messed up the trains, now they've messed up the internet. It's part of their crusade to mess up the country. However, we have no other choice of ISP.

Thankfully we have BeUnlimited in my house when I'm at uni, so all is good.

[ER1]

Hi

I use NTL (now Virgin Media) as well.

A few years ago customer service was terrible, but since Virgin bought them it has improved drastically.

I am not sure I have had any problems with internet in the last few years at all that can be blamed on NTL. I had a cable modem blow during a storm, but they exchanged that very quickly.

The odd problem with cable TV has been resolved by them very quickly too.

I think my Broadband is a 4MB service.

Overall I am very happy with it.

[gordon]

Just wondering what everyone's thoughts are on Virgin at the moment?

BT recently 'upgraded' our line, and the speed has gone down from 6000kbps to around 4000. We've also had a week of persistent disconnections, line faults, and conversations with India, which have finally resulted in some stability. But we're being capped more heavily, torrents are slow, and basically I'm sick of them.

So I had a recommendation for Virgin from a friend. They'll probably be cheaper, but are they as **** as everyone makes out?

And do BT still insist on charging you for a full year's broadband when you cancel?

[Strolls]

I deal with a lot of ISPs on a regular basis - very generally speaking you get what you pay for. I have one customer who uses Virgin & I don't find them particularly brilliant. How much is the service you're looking at?

[gordon]

£33 for 10mb broadband, free evening and weekend phone calls, and some crappy cable channels (which we can do without but, hey, they're 'free').

BT at the moment is working out at around £37 a month for 8Mb broadband and the same phone plan, and obviously no extra TV bits.

[cutmymilk]

Just wondering what everyone's thoughts are on Virgin at the moment?

BT recently 'upgraded' our line, and the speed has gone down from 6000kbps to around 4000. We've also had a week of persistent disconnections, line faults, and conversations with India, which have finally resulted in some stability. But we're being capped more heavily, torrents are slow, and basically I'm sick of them.

So I had a recommendation for Virgin from a friend. They'll probably be cheaper, but are they as **** as everyone makes out?

And do BT still insist on charging you for a full year's broadband when you cancel?

Virgin throttle torrents, too.

[ETC]

Im on Vodafone@Home which is a BT white label product, had it for 2yrs+ without any throttling, good speed, I get 11MB (my area is only supposed to handle 7.5MB), unlimited only died on me twice, 24/7 free Intrenetz support (in teh UK) pretty good, clueless about setting up PS3's though and the router is cack. Bit expensive too £35 pm, or £25 if you have a mobile contract with them but that does include home phone line rental and free calls :P

[abigsmurf]

If throttling affects you, BE/O2 is the way to go. Great service for a cheap price.

As of yet they don't throttle at all and they give me the max speed my line can take (7megs).

[Strolls]

Virgin was amongst the best of the mainstream ISPs listed in this BBC article the other day (scroll down to the table 1/2way down the page).

I'm not sure if that's saying much though, considering they're up against the likes of Tiscali & TalkTalk. :/
You might find more information at SamKnows, who worked with Ofcom on the report.

I have heard great things about Be/O2 - I suspect I should have switched to them months ago myself.