O/T Broadband Provider

[edenclaret]

Hi,
Any Claret able to offer any advice on broadband provision?

I'm currently with BT (and would like to keep my landline, with free calls at least some of the time).
Download speeds aren't crucial.
I urgently need to cut down on what I'm paying monthly now (£60+ monthly).

My contract is almost up.

Any experience of successful haggling with them?
Any recommendations for better providers?

(Also, can it mess with a bt email address if you leave their broadband service??)

Thanks for any helpful response
UTC

[jen1066]

Also interested.
I'm with TalkTalk which ends this month - offered an upgrade to 77Mb/s for £29.00 per month, which doesn't sound too clever.

[karatekid]

I have virgin media. Just into 2nd year after I haggled for a £20 pm for the M100 broadband with no landline. They have just upgraded me to the M125 at no extra cost. At renewal they actually asked me what I wanted to pay and I thought I’d be cheeky and just say £20 without landline . They eventually agreed.

[taio]

You're probably paying about three times what you need to pay. You can use a price comparison website, such as uswitch, money supermarket or confused.com.

[bfccrazy]

s a side note - whoever you decide to go with .... look up the deals etc, and the. Get on a cashback site and search for the company you’ve decided on.

With it being a competitive market you’ll get a decent bit of cash back for choosing the exact same deal, with the same company just for clicking through the cashback site to get to their site.

We got about £120 back for signing up for Talk Talk when our internet was up, and there are lots of energy suppliers on there too (also loads of cash back on sites you’d use loads anyway - eBay, just eat etc..) - between topcashback and Quidco we’ve easily had over a grand cashback for buying/shopping at the same places we would have anyway and buying the same products we would off those sites we would have without cashback.

*selfless little plug too if you do decide to go down this route - if you sign up through my link for then we both get a bonus too https://www.topcashback.co.uk/ref/member1181278662844

I’ve had about £250 back for internet sign ups in past 3 years - firstly with TalkTalk and then onto plusnet when the other deal was up - both times I looked up the deal that suited me online then went through topcashback to click through and get the same deal and make use of the cashback offers.

[beddie]

edenclaret. We’re with BT, have been for years. We pay £32.77 for broadband, that’s without their sport channel. We only use our mobiles for calls. I’d ring them and tell them you can’t afford what your currently paying and see what they can offer as an alternative. In the current climate a lot of companies will need to make adjustments to help customers.

[jen1066]

What do you guys think is a reasonable amount to pay for 77Mb/s?

[TheOriginalLongsider]

Do you need 77mb? Most people don't and most people can't actually get that speed even if they pay for it. I get 30mb and that covers my PC, streaming, and all the other wifi devices such as security cameras


Plusnet has been the best for me. I've tried several of the others but the reliability and customer service is very good. I pay £20 per month including line rental

[ClaretDiver]

Not sure on current deals but regarding your bt email address, yes, if you want to keep it you have to pay a monthly fee I believe…in this way they have kind of got you locked in unless you want to start changing across to a gmail address but that would be a pita!

[ClaretDiver]

Not sure on current deals but regarding your bt email address, yes, if you want to keep it you have to pay a monthly fee I believe…in this way they have kind of got you locked in unless you want to start changing across to a gmail address but that would be a pita!

[Nori1958]

What do you guys think is a reasonable amount to pay for 77Mb/s?

I pay £23.99 with plus net for that Inc evening and weekend calls

[whiffa]

Not sure on current deals but regarding your bt email address, yes, if you want to keep it you have to pay a monthly fee I believe…in this way they have kind of got you locked in unless you want to start changing across to a gmail address but that would be a pita!

Most email service providers such as BT and TalkTalk do now charge a service to keep your email address, last I heard it was £2-5/month to keep your email address even if you switch providers.

I work in IT and deal regularly with Internet Service Providers. I'd currently rank them personally as the following:

Product service, stability and reliability:
- BT
- Virgin
- Plusnet
- EE
- Sky
- Talk Talk

Customer Service and Support:
- Plusnet
- EE
- Virgin
- Sky
- BT
- TalkTalk

I personally use BT and have the highest possible speed they can provide in my area (1Gbps) - once you're over the initial hurdle of ordering and setting up your new router, the service runs faultlessly - and I'd say the same for lower speed services I've used with BT previously in recent years. I would suspect the average home user such as yourself may find speeds of 30-40mbps sufficient, however I would suggest a 70-80mbps package if you have any streaming services in the household, such as Netflix if you want a stable/capable service.

[aclaretinstevenage]

I have virgin media. Just into 2nd year after I haggled for a £20 pm for the M100 broadband with no landline. They have just upgraded me to the M125 at no extra cost. At renewal they actually asked me what I wanted to pay and I thought I’d be cheeky and just say £20 without landline . They eventually agreed.

Got a notification this morning from Virgin Media that they are upgrading my broadband speed to 264MBPS at no extra cost from the 210 we've had until now. We also have our landline with them but all this costs us £45 per month.

I've looked at offers from BT and others and none of them come anywhere near the Download speeds of Virgin Media...even though I keep telling them their broadband is sometimes intermittent which can be annoying we'll stick with VM for the forseeable future.

[jen1066]

Do you need 77mb? Most people don't and most people can't actually get that speed even if they pay for it. I get 30mb and that covers my PC, streaming, and all the other wifi devices such as security cameras


Plusnet has been the best for me. I've tried several of the others but the reliability and customer service is very good. I pay £20 per month including line rental

I connect to quite a few VPS at the same time with work and send and receive large files quite a lot, so it would be handy.

But it's what TalkTalk have said it will be if I renew the contract which ends later this month. Current speed is around 38mb (think it's supposed to be 65) so if they say 77, I doubt it'll be much quicker than I currently get. Maybe 45-50mb.

I guess what I'm really doing is renewing at a slightly lesser price.

[ŽižkovClaret]

Is wireless 5g broadband widespread as an option in the UK? Over here if Vodafone (the optic provider) haven't run a cable to you, you're stuck with o2 for ADSL as far as "hard-wired" options go, so circa 20mb/s

I've opted for 5g with a dedicated 5g receiver on my balcony which gets 100mb/s although i think they are moving now to combined receiver/routers.

[whiffa]

Got a notification this morning from Virgin Media that they are upgrading my broadband speed to 264MBPS at no extra cost from the 210 we've had until now. We also have our landline with them but all this costs us £45 per month.

I've looked at offers from BT and others and none of them come anywhere near the Download speeds of Virgin Media...even though I keep telling them their broadband is sometimes intermittent which can be annoying we'll stick with VM for the forseeable future.

That simply depends on what cable service you have available in your area, where I am we have full FTTP (Fibre To The Property) and can get speeds upto 1Gbps (1000Mbps) with BT Halo. To achieve speeds of 264Mbps I'd assume you were on cable as opposed to ADSL and as such should be capable of getting the higher speeds too.

[aclaretinstevenage]

That simply depends on what cable service you have available in your area, where I am we have full FTTP (Fibre To The Property) and can get speeds upto 1Gbps (1000Mbps) with BT Halo. To achieve speeds of 264Mbps I'd assume you were on cable as opposed to ADSL and as such should be capable of getting the higher speeds too.

Yes we have Fibre to the property. They are actually just about to put our landline via fibre in the next couple of weeks....but we'll still have to pay the landline rental sum?!!

[Sproggy]

I pay £23.99 with plus net for that Inc evening and weekend calls

Plus Net is owned by BT so you'll get the same service and exactly the same router (I think they colour it white). However, since it's not "core" BT you can haggle a bit more with them and get a better deal.

[whiffa]

Yes we have Fibre to the property. They are actually just about to put our landline via fibre in the next couple of weeks....but we'll still have to pay the landline rental sum?!!

Depends if you use your landline or not? My phones moved to VOIP and I refused them as I don't use a landline and we have them at work and they;re notoriously poor. I don't pay line rental at all as a result of not needing a phone. We just use our mobiles.

[whiffa]

BT offered to remove the old line, but I requested it to be left installed dormant should I ever decided to revert back to a landline or off Fibre in the future.

[Nori1958]

Plus Net is owned by BT so you'll get the same service and exactly the same router (I think they colour it white). However, since it's not "core" BT you can haggle a bit more with them and get a better deal.

I've been with plusnet for many years and touch wood have never had a problem.
My haggle last month was £43 down to £23.99.

[brunlea99]

Try this as a starter:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/compa ... and-deals/

[lyonzzz]

Please don't use any of the big boys - go to Zen Internet https://www.zen.co.uk/ - the awards section speaks for itself. They are also a BCorp so if you want to make a responsible choice they tick that box too. You might pay a few £ more a month vs the likes of TalkTalk but they are well worth it.

I work with them relating to business connectivity (and have them at home too) and the customer service is exceptional. They use the OpenReach network as all the others (bar Virgin) do, but the service is top notch too. Customer service is all UK based (office is in Rochdale, funnily enough).

[edenclaret]

Cheers for all replies.
The BT monthly DD had crept up over some years almost unnoticed until now.
Their new offer was nearer £40, +net nearer £30, Shell Energy £26ish, all incl landline.

In case others find the same issue: the bt email address stays for 60 days, then is deleted unless you go premium at £7.50 /month. Should be able to swap everything to other emails before then.
Will look at/pass on cashback advice.
Should ensure savings to enable to get onto the Turf a few times this winter!